The Co-operative Party is leading the charge on grassroots community action. For too long communities have been starved of the support and resources to thrive, and around £12bn of vital community assets have been lost in England alone.

And so it was great to be over in Spen Valley this week, meeting with Kim Leadbeater MP and brilliant volunteers to see a community-led project in action she is supporting.

A big focus was Cleckheaton Town Hall. We discussed plans to reopen it in partnership with the local council as a true community hub and events space, the challenges the steering group is facing, and how lessons from other successful projects can help turn it into a centre of excellence for the area.

There are hundreds of examples across the country, including here in Oldham through groups like the Oldham Coliseum, AVRO FC and Spark who are doing just that. They make a powerful movement but it can often feel like fighting alone.

Community Britain in action means supporting each other to get on: local people, local assets and local power. As Chair of the party, proud to be working alongside Kim and the Co-op Party to back communities to lead their own renewal.

This isn’t just a quick tidy-up. It’s proper deep cleaning, rapid fly-tipping removal, and a zero-tolerance approach to environmental crime – street by street, alleyway by alleyway, covering the whole of our borough.

𝗪𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗵, 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗲, 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝘁 & 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝘄𝗼𝗼𝗱 have already seen major clean-ups, with teams tackling long-neglected alleyways, roads and hotspots. Just as important, it’s great to hear that council teams have been knocking on doors, listening to residents and working through the real causes of fly-tipping, from poor alleyway design to bin storage and high tenant turnover.

The message from residents has been clear: the clean-ups are welcome, confidence is growing, and people want to help keep their neighbourhoods looking better. That’s exactly the culture change we need.

Since the campaign relaunch in November, community involvement has really taken off. Our Labour-led Council deserve huge credit for putting real time, effort and resources into tackling fly-tipping & focusing on the issues that matter most to local people when they open their doors and stand on their doorstep everyday.

And this is just the start: more streets, more wards, and more progress to come as Don’t Trash Oldham continues rolling out across 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 & 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐭𝐨𝐧 in the weeks and months ahead 💪

📩 Fly-tipping reports are continuing to go up and we are encouraging local people to keep on reporting concerns to my team at jim.mamchon.uk@parliament.uk so that we can end this crime for good.

It’s been another busy week in Parliament standing up for Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton, here’s a snapshot of what I’ve been up to:

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝗹𝗱𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀

I questioned the Treasury in the Commons on the changes to business rates and what they mean for our borough. Our local pubs, cafés & restaurants are the heartbeat of our town centres and they deserve proper support to survive & thrive.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

A meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Credit Unions took place, bringing MPs across political divides together to back community finance and practical solutions that work for ordinary people & places like Oldham.

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗡𝗛𝗦 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲

Members also voted on the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill, which has now completed its passage through the Commons. A stronger NHS depends on recruiting, training and keeping the staff it needs for the future, with a focus on securing the domestic supply of NHS staff for the long term.

𝗖𝗼-𝗼𝗽 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵

This week we launched the Co-op Party’s Local Elections 2026 campaign, just 100 days out from election day. Community, fairness & cooperation at the heart of everything we are doing to transform Britain.

Now it’s back up North for a weekend of local party meetings, out campaigning, and visiting brilliant projects as part of the Co-op Party’s flagship Community Britain campaign.

We’re delivering another manifesto promise – the biggest shake-up of leaseholder rights in generations. Promise made, promise kept.

Ground rents capped at £250 a year, saving some households hundreds of pounds

Phasing in an end to the leasehold system altogether

Current leaseholders will get the right to switch to commonhold

More transparency on service charges

This is big news for homeowners and a win for so many across our borough.

It matters because the cost of living is the single biggest issue people face. As promised, this is a bold overhaul of a broken leasehold system and includes moving to a peppercorn over time and giving residents real control over how their buildings are run.

It also scraps the draconian threat of forfeiture and replaces it with a fairer system, delivering a better deal for the 5 million leaseholders today and for future generations.

We’re getting on with reform and backing homeowners.

I welcome the announcement that pubs will receive a 15% discount on the business rates they pay.

It recognises what pubs mean to our communities and our economy, and the real impact of revaluation at a time when costs are squeezing every last bit of headroom needed to survive.

After 7,000 pubs closed during 14 years of Tory government, Labour is taking action to turn the tide. And in our borough, the consequences weren’t just lost jobs, strained social connections, and falling footfall on our high streets — but also what too often followed: low-quality HMOs cramming rooms into every inch of buildings left empty.

But the pressures facing pubs are felt right across hospitality.

Restaurants, hotels, clubs, leisure centres and gyms, children’s soft play centres and more are all facing rising operating costs. This also highlights the impractical nature of business rates themselves. What is a pub? Many are no longer drink-led, yet those offering food often face the biggest increases. How many overnight rooms does a pub need before it becomes a hotel? What if a restaurant allows customers to stay for drinks without ordering food, or a hotel operates a large bar that functions exactly like a pub?

Take the “Egyptian Room” which to most people functions like a pub (free access, buy a standalone drink, main bar focus) and plays a vital role in Oldham’s social life, it is classified by the Valuation Office Agency as a “food court and premises,” not a pub for business rates purposes. Because the new 15% business rates support is tightly defined around properties officially classed as pubs, venues like the Egyptian Room and many others will not qualify, despite operating in the same hospitality ecosystem and facing the same rising costs.

To be clear; the valuation process is independent. Government then decides on what follows; how much business pay relative to that valuation, and what discounts, reliefs and exemptions are put in place to support priority uses and industries.

The government is doing so much work to support our town centres and high streets, for instance the Pride in Place funding, high street rental auctions, and more. But we’ve got to protect what we already have if we are to rebuild at a pace people can see.

I have urged the Treasury to look again and take this support further. After years of neglect under the previous government the foundations are weak, urgent cross hospitality action is needed before the shutters come down for good on our town centres.

This cannot be the final word on support for hospitality.

81 years ago today, Auschwitz was liberated.

We pause to honour the six million Jewish lives lost in the Holocaust, alongside people with disabilities, Roma & Sinti communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and all others who were persecuted & murdered by the Nazi regime.

Peace is something we must protect together by recognising how division and intolerance can grow into unimaginable atrocities. Remembering those dark chapters should compel us to create a more hopeful and humane future.

May those who were taken rest in peace. May those who live on never lose sight of where antisemitism, extremism, and hatred can ultimately lead.

#HMD2026