@antoniabance.bsky.social
Labour MP for Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. Member of the Business and Trade select committee. Proudly repping British industry and the Black Country. Trade unionist, mama, runner, reader
Nearly gone
Sandwell separated the horrific backlog from the new jobs coming in and tendered out the backlog, meaning the council team started from a clean slate. It has worked brilliantly by £££ for a year!
(I am sure William Hague would say I should stop being a wannabe councillor. If my constituency were wealthy and state failings mattered less, maybe I could. But the legacy of his government absolutely did over my area - and they need an MP who fights locally as well as speaking nationally)
And it matters: council renters can’t just call up a tradesperson to fix a leak or deal with disrepair - they have to deal with the council
Making sure working class people feel respected and treated fairly is massive
To be honest, this time last year the response from the council wasn't always good enough.
And that's not right: people pay their rent and should be able to get repairs done when they are needed.
I am so so pleased with this progress
GOOD NEWS from Sandwell Council's housing repairs team...
- in the past year more than 86,000 repairs have been completed
- more than 95% of emergency repairs are done within 24 hours
- resident satisfaction with repairs is now 95%
- 91% of complaints in Q3 2025 got a timely response vs 67% in Q2
Fujitsu has paid nothing toward a £2bn redress bill yet still profits from public contracts.
2,500 sub-postmasters are still waiting for their full claim to be paid; 1,500 are still to receive any money.
Business & Trade Committee new report, out today: 👇
committees.parliament.uk/publications...
Great talking to residents in Princes End with Cllr Archer Williams and candidate Joanna Quaye. Pic taken before it started bucketing with rain - but we kept going!
Bit blowy today but a lovely cuppa chai at Simply Cafe in Dudley Port
We won’t allow firms to gouge consumers under the cover of the conflict in the Gulf. Right that the CMA are investigating the heating oil market, including reports of some suppliers cancelling previously agreed orders to try and raise prices www.gov.uk/government/n...
I think we need to be respectful of the English tradition of muddling through and compromise, of the texture of our state and of our history - things and places are the way there are for a reason.
I find the hereditaries indefensible (I would, I am of a party of and for the working class) but am not unsympathetic to that wider point.
As a councillor in the 2000s I had no frame of reference under New Labour for why closing local post offices for “efficiency” felt so wrong. Now I do.
I don’t think abolishing the hereditaries is fiddling around the edges. I do think having a functioning Lords where government can get their business through (with scrutiny and challenge) is important - and Labour governments never have that.
Thank goodness for our forebears who wanted more and better
No? It was completed last night. No more hereditaries.
It’s grimly fascinating. Proper “rich man in his castle, poor man at the gate” know-your-place stuff. They think making good speeches and doing charitable works means lawmakers should inherit a right to make law for the rest of us.
Popped over to X (yes, I know) and previously sensible people seem to be defending the idea of hereditary peers. We all know the Tories quietly retained them for the inbuilt advantage - but to see outright defence of hereditaries as a better method than life appointment is quite something
It is. My interest isn’t predicting the future: it’s sensible regulation to protect workers and customers balancing the opportunity for productivity growth (especially in manufacturing, which is my key interest)
The Lords remains. The pledge was to remove hereditary peers, now fulfilled
After today I think you may be right
What do you think the business and trade committee’s inquiry will be about?! I’m going to assume you don’t speak so aggressively to people you meet in real life
They leave at the end of this session in May. They aren’t replaced.
I am sorry that you lost your job. I don’t see, though, how we prevent technological advances. We can’t wall ourselves off.
You want MPs that aren’t curious and don’t learn?! Really?
(And I voted to cut waiting times for court cases to help victims and defendants)
And it is done. Who your dad is no longer gives you a guaranteed say on the law of the land. We have tonight done what so many Labour people have sought to do throughout our history: no more hereditary peers
We were lucky enough to be taught about AI in industrial settings by the government’s AI manufacturing champion, Chris Dungey. If you think AI is just LLMs, think again: the industrial uses were staggering. I could have talked to Chris all day
Just the most brilliant afternoon with the other members of the Business and Trade select committee learning about AI, work, job displacement and industrial uses - ahead of launching our enquiry into AI, jobs and growth soon
Asked the Chancellor about support for industrial energy costs given what is going on in the Middle East - and pushed for the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme - which will cut bills by 25% - to be brought forward asap
Reform voted against it
Remember that when they come round Friar Park and Princes End pretending to understand and asking for votes from low income families
Let’s send them packing
Last night we passed plans to make school dinners free for children in all families on universal credit from September 2026
This will cut poverty by another 100,000 children
And it will help 1000s of parents in my ends, cutting a weekly bill and making sure every kid eats well at lunchtime