Burden set to ask questions

Dec 16 2009 By Jon Walker

JUST what is going on in Birmingham City Council?

Nobody knows exactly what it has done with the £115 million it was given to cut unemployment, known as the Working Neighbourhoods Fund.

Only £2.5 million seems to have been spent directly on schemes to get people into work.

Labour MP Richard Burden (Northfield), above right, has secured half an hour to complain about the authority in the Commons tonight.

He will be answered by a Government minister – another Labour MP.

Of course, the council is run by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who are quick to take the credit when it gets something right.

It will be interesting to see whether Birmingham’s Conservatives MP, Andrew Mitchell, above right, (Sutton Coldfield), or Liberal Democrat MP, John Hemming (Yardley), are in the Chamber to defend their council colleagues.