‘Secretary of state for everything’: Richard Parker on what it's really like to be the Mayor of the West Midlands

As the Mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker represents 2.8 million people with the brief of improving housing, transport, economic growth and tackling homelessness and unemployment.

But in his first year in the role, he has found himself thrust into the spotlight and asked to comment and deal with issues beyond his direct control.

Mr Parker said it was important to be accessible, bring parties together and be an advocate for the region.

Among the issues to emerge in the past 12 months were violent scenes during civil unrest, the campaign to save heritage assets in Birmingham’s Station Street, the imposition of tariffs by US president Donald Trump impacting on regional businesses and the ongoing bin strikes in the second city.

Mr Parker said: “Sometimes in this role it can feel like you are the secretary of state for everything and also the ward councillor for every community.

“It’s important to be accessible in this role and not to apologise to anyone for not having direct power on things but to be here and use that convening role.

“Bringing parties together, listening, framing solutions in a way that makes sense to people and doing as much as I can to support.

“I will probably spend more than half my time on issues that aren’t my direct responsibility but my role as Mayor of the region is about helping find a way through some of those things, be an advocate for businesses here and to make a difference.

“The issues Jaguar Land Rover faced and the concerns about higher tariffs in the automotive industry is an example.

“I wrote to the PM alongside the Mayor of Liverpool and talked about the need for some support for the car industry.

“The Government response to that was remedial action to relax some of the requirements.

“I don’t set tariffs and taxes but you can use the role of the mayor to be an advocate for the region and represent businesses and people and use that influence we have to bring others into the conversation to get this region on the radar.”

Mr Parker was elected in May 2024, beating the former Conservative Mayor Andy Street – who had been bidding for a third term – by just over 1,500 votes.