Last week I hosted my sixth Jobs Fair in. We had over 40 exhibitors, offering jobs across a wide range of activities. With around 750 people on jobseekers allowance, all invited notified by Job Centre Plus, and with over 1,000 hits on the Facebook page, we were expecting a good turnout from the 1.5% of the local population who are actively looking for work.
The party conference season is now underway again and parliament is in recess. A number of people have raised the very relevant question of why parliament is in recess for the conference of a party with just 8 MPs out of 650.
It is a fascinating time in politics. Labour has announced the outcome of its leadership election result and the party that was created at the dawn of the 20th century to uphold workers' rights and to stand up for those who need help has resoundingly and convincingly elected Jeremy Corbyn.
The pictures of a lifeless three year old child have served to crystallise people's feelings about the huge refugee crisis spreading across Europe. It is right that we, as a civilised Christian society, must do something to help, and this week's announcement of our commitment is significant.
The latest round of appointments to the House of Lords certainly stirred up a degree of controversy. I wouldn't try to justify these latest appointments - one party has managed to appoint eleven new peers when the electorate voted in just eight MPs! But I regret that the argument about the House of Lords is biased against what is an important institution.
The Parliamentary recess provides plenty of opportunity to look in depth at things that take up more time than is available during the sitting periods. This recess has given me the chance to go and spend a week at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, embedded with the Royal Navy as part of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme.
One of the successes we had locally over the last five years in Wyre Forest is the drop in unemployment. When I first became Wyre Forest's MP, I inherited an unemployment number of well over 2,000 people and a rate nearing 5% of the workforce. Now unemployment is close to 700 and the unemployment rate is just 1.6%.
