Birmingham City Council

16:43:00

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on the statutory intervention at Birmingham city council and on the issues affecting the waste service. This Government were elected on a manifesto that pledged to fix the foundations of local government. The public rightly expect and deserve well-functioning local councils that provide the essential statutory services that residents rely on. Local councils must be fit, legal and decent. Commissioners have been working with Birmingham city council for the past 18 months to support it in its recovery, and today I am publishing their latest report into the progress on that journey. The report lands at a point of acute difficulty for residents in Birmingham, as the ongoing dispute in the waste service is resulting in rubbish piling up in the streets. I will therefore take this opportunity to update the House on the status of that dispute. To address the report first, the council has taken important initial steps forward on its improvement journey, and is working constructively with commissioners. It has made significant progress on addressing historical equal pay issues and fixing the foundations of governance. The leader, Councillor Cotton, and his group are taking the difficult decisions to get the council back on track, and the commissioners have recognised his calm leadership through stormy waters. The new managing director, Joanne Roney CBE, has brought a steady hand, and is beginning to make permanent senior appointments that will contribute to much-needed stabilisation. The council has also achieved a breakthrough by reaching an agreement to settle the outstanding claims and end the ongoing equal pay saga. It is also set to re-implement a strategy for the Oracle IT system. Those improvements are encouraging, but challenges remain. In the short term, commissioner oversight and close supervision will still be required to maintain momentum. There is a difficult road ahead on key aspects of the best value regime—on governance and culture, financial management and service delivery—because substantial risks threaten the journey to reform and recovery. As Members will know, there is a live industrial action in waste services, involving one of the three recognised trade unions in that area. The Government will support the leader and his team in Birmingham, directly and through the commissioners, to move the council on from these historical issues. That support includes an increase in core spending power for 2025-26 of up to 9.8%, or £131 million. That figure includes £39.3 million through the new one-off recovery grant, which illustrates this Government’s commitment to correcting the unfairness in the funding system. We have also put in place an in-principle agreement for exceptional financial support totalling £1.24 billion. Turning to the waste dispute, councils deliver over 800 vital services that make a huge difference to millions of people across the country. However, it is accepted that for many, the most visible and universal service is the collection and disposal of household waste. Members across the House will know that the current industrial action in the city is causing misery and disruption to local people, and I know that hon. Members whose constituents are affected will be acutely aware of that disruption. From the outset, I want to be clear that the statutory intervention is led by commissioners, and Ministers cannot legally intervene in this industrial action. However, I have been in regular contact with the leadership of the council throughout this, as they have sought to find a resolution in which the reforms needed to build a sustainable council are still undertaken, and the waste collection service returns to functioning normally, in the way that Members would expect. This situation is causing public health risks to the city’s most vulnerable and deprived residents. As a result, Birmingham has today declared a major incident, so that it can use the mechanisms that it needs to better manage the impact on local residents. I support that decision, and I will back local leaders in bringing the situation under control in the weeks to come. Well-established arrangements are in place to enable local areas to escalate issues when they need support, and the Government are monitoring the situation closely. This is a local issue, and it is right that the key public sector partners in Birmingham lead on it. If leaders in Birmingham feel that tackling these issues would require resources beyond those available to them, and request national support, we of course stand ready to respond to any such request. This Government will always back local leaders and give them the support that they need, not swoop in to criticise or take over from Whitehall. We will not hesitate to give support in any way that Birmingham leaders need. As Parliament would expect, a meeting will take place with the leadership of the council, the commissioners and other key local partners to ensure that we are doing everything we can to support and protect public health. It is in the interests of all parties and, most importantly, for the benefit of Birmingham’s residents that this industrial action is brought to a close in a meaningful and sustainable way as soon as possible. We encourage all parties to redouble their efforts to get around the table and find a resolution. Any deal to end industrial action must maintain value for money and ensure fit-for-purpose waste collection services, without creating or storing up liabilities for the future. All parties recognise that Birmingham’s waste service has been in urgent need of modernisation and transformation for many years, so any deal reached must not repeat the mistakes of the past. Practices in the waste service have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern UK history, resulting in costs of over £1 billion to the residents of Birmingham. This situation simply cannot continue. I support the council on its journey to creating the sustainable, fair and reliable waste service that residents in Birmingham deserve. We will support the council in resolving its historic issues and establishing the leadership, governance and culture that will drive good-quality public services for the people of that city, so that it can take its rightful place with confidence as one of our great UK cities. As the council moves to the next stage of intervention, I will continue to work with the council, commissioners and the wider local government sector to understand how we can best ensure that residents get what they need from their local council. I will monitor progress, as I have done since the general election, to ensure that continuous improvement led by the council can be secured. As I am sure the whole House would expect, the commissioner arrangements will need to remain in place while the situation in Birmingham is so fragile. The commissioners have a vital role to play in supporting Birmingham’s transformation, working hand in glove with local leaders. The Government remain committed to working in genuine partnership with the city and its council, and I continue to encourage the council to strengthen its partnerships with regional stakeholders, including Mayor Parker in the West Midlands combined authority, to support economic growth and financial sustainability. We are keen to promote growth and regeneration opportunities for Birmingham, and we are confident that as the council continues to work to fix the basics, while making progress against the milestones, local stakeholders will be encouraged to work in partnership with the council to deliver a clear vision for the future. I look forward to continuing dialogue with commissioners, the council and regional partnerships, including Mayor Parker, on opportunities for growth in the region. A partnership approach with a clear vision will increase Birmingham’s capacity to achieve sustainable growth. The people of Birmingham deserve a well-run, accountable and financially stable council with good public services, not least waste collection services. I am encouraged by the council’s leadership and commitment to the same, and I look forward to the council beginning to demonstrate more ownership of its recovery, and to seeing evidence that it can deliver the lasting improvements that are required. I will deposit in the House Library copies of the commissioners’ report, which is being published today on gov.uk.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

16:51:00

I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. I am sure that the fact that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and I tabled an urgent question on this issue played a part in the Minister coming to the House today. He has said nothing on this matter for the 20 days in which it has been a live issue. It is shameful—a national embarrassment—that one of our nation’s great cities, our second city, finds itself in such a bleak situation. As the Minister admits, the problem is of the council’s own making. It is a result of the flawed deal with Unite back in 2017, which led to legal action over equal pay, but it is the people who pay the price. We have had mountains of rubbish blighting the streets of Birmingham for more than 20 days, and there is no end in sight to the dispute with Labour’s union paymasters, Unite. Almost every area is plagued by overflowing bins, rats the size of cats, and opportunistic fly-tippers exploiting the chaos to turn open spaces into dumping grounds. That is the reality of Labour in local government. From Edgbaston to Sutton Coldfield, from Yardley to Erdington, and from Balsall Heath to Sparkhill, the piles of waste grow even higher. This is a public health emergency, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) has conceded. Even the Labour Mayor of the West Midlands has said that he is “fed up” with waste piling up and the streets being filthy. That is why we call for a Cobra-led response. This issue demands a co-ordinated effort across local and national Government, harnessing the expertise of public health officials, civil contingencies professionals and emergency services. We call on the Government to cut councillor allowances for the cabinet members who got Birmingham into this mess, and we urge the Government to appoint binmen from the private sector to clear up Labour’s mess. Where are Labour’s MPs today? I can only see one on the Government Benches. [Interruption.] Okay, there are two here, out of 10. While they have been campaigning for an airport in Kashmir, we are proposing workable solutions. The Minister talks about the calm leadership of Councillor Cotton. What local residents need is action, not buzzwords, both from the local leadership and from central Government. He says that Ministers cannot legally intervene in this industrial action. Is he honestly saying that he has no influence with the union involved, Unite, which is complicitly holding the city hostage, and which contributed £10,000 to the Deputy Prime Minister’s election war chest? Surely she is now duty-bound to pick up the phone and speak truth to the real power behind the Labour throne, the unions. Incredibly, Unite is calling on central Government not to live within its means, but to make hundreds of millions of pounds available to the council. Is that something that the Minister is considering? He talks about an increase of 9.8%, or £131 million, in the council’s core spending power for the forthcoming year. Will he confirm that a significant part of that is being raised by means of a council tax increase of 7.8%, and that that is a clear breach of the Prime Minister’s pledge to freeze council tax this year? I pay particular tribute to Councillor Bobby Alden and the Birmingham Conservatives who, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coalfield, have been doggedly holding the council’s incompetent leadership to account. They have clear solutions to this crisis. Now that Birmingham has today declared a major incident, leading to the availability of new mechanisms, can the Minister confirm that he will meet them to ensure that those mechanisms are considered? I find it extraordinary that the Minister should say that Birmingham city council has not yet requested national support. Will he not insist that it do so immediately? He also said that he would meet local leaders and commissioners. Given that this crisis has been ongoing for 20 days and counting, why has he not already met those local leaders, and when will he do so? Will it be this very week?

Well, well. No one listening to that response would think that the Conservative Government had been in government for 14 years, and were in office when Birmingham had to come to them for financial support. But Birmingham was not alone, was it? Councils were falling like dominoes because of the last Government’s chronic underfunding. The Conservatives talk about Kashmir; they left a cash crisis that affected every council. Every single council, whether it was Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, was let down by the Conservative Government. The Conservatives cannot even look their own councils in the eye. When it comes to reorganisation, local leaders who are doing what is needed for their area and showing local leadership have been being undermined by the national leadership. They are lions led by donkeys. Beyond the party political nonsense that has been deployed, surely we can all agree that we care about the people of Birmingham and want this vital public service restored. Surely we all agree that given the last Government’s intervention in Birmingham, the journey of improvement is fragile. Yes, improvements have been made, but we have to maintain our course. The Conservatives must also accept that one of the biggest barriers to settling the council and giving it long-term stability was the storing up of equal pay liabilities. Resolving this issue is critical, not just for the council but for the people of Birmingham. I can assure the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that regular conversations have been taking place. That includes a meeting with the council leader a couple of weeks ago, and there will be a further meeting this week. We have said that we will do what is needed to help the council achieve what it needs to achieve, and to get the service back on track. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is the right approach, with local leaders showing local leadership and national Government providing the support that is needed. Bizarrely, the hon. Gentleman referred to council tax increases. The council tax increase in Birmingham last year, under the last Government, was higher than this year’s increase. Why? Because this Government have a clear eye on looking after taxpayers and ensuring that any increases are contained. How did we do that? We did not do what the last Government would have done. We did not say, “Just go to the wall and see what happens.” It was this Government who provided nearly £40 million of new money through the recovery grant for Birmingham, to ensure that it did not have to pass that increase on to local taxpayers. That is genuine partnership, with national Government and local government working hand in hand. Is it not time that the previous Government accepted their failings over 14 years in office and accepted that the foundations of local government were left weaker, not stronger, when they left office? Will they now start putting the interests of the people of this country ahead of political interests?

This bin dispute is causing chaos in the city, including in Birmingham Erdington. What discussions have the Government had with Birmingham city council regarding not just the bin collections, but the impact on public health and the environment? It is so important that we look at the health and safety of local residents in Birmingham.

That is the crux of where we are: because the bin dispute has been going on for so long, the scale of uncollected rubbish being left in the streets is now posing public health concerns, which is why the council has declared a major incident today. It is showing local leadership, it recognises the public health implications, and it is working with local public sector providers. As I have already said, I will make sure that the Government stand absolutely ready to work with the council and to provide any support that it needs, as part of a genuine partnership.

Order. Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, I remind Members that if they are seeking to contribute in a statement, they must arrive on time. It is extremely discourteous to the Minister, and indeed to the House, to be late.

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker—I ran all the way from the top floor of Derby Gate, but I was not fast enough. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an elected member of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. The people of Birmingham have a right to receive decent services, and it is critical that the ongoing dispute is resolved as quickly as possible. Like the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), we are concerned about the impact on public health and the environment, and urge the Government to confirm that when waste collection resumes, it will be safely disposed of and recycled where possible, and not just given to the cheapest bidder. Fundamentally, the Conservative Government slashed funding to local authorities year on year, forcing councils to do more with less and plunging so many, of all political stripes, into financial crisis. However, we are disappointed that the Government have not yet addressed some of the financial crises, particularly around confirmation of the special educational needs override, which I know councils across the nation are really worried about, and which is making it more difficult for them to make decisions about their future plans. We welcome the multi-year settlements, which I am sure the Minister will refer to, but we remain concerned about how effective they will be. Two recent examples give us cause for concern: the roads funding, which appears to give local authorities more money, actually cuts England’s road repair budget by 5%; and the employer’s national insurance change, which promised to cover councils’ costs for direct staffing in full, did not do so in some cases, including for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. All that is underpinned by a broken council tax system that is regressive. In some areas, the council tax base is totally inadequate to provide for the growing list of services, and the Lib Dems want to see a radical overhaul. Birmingham should serve as a lesson for the Government, because this matter is a result of the long-running equal pay crisis. What learning are they taking from the situation in Birmingham, and what extra measures is the Minister introducing to prevent public health and community safety issues?

I am pleased to say that we are making sure that we deal with the waste piling up in the streets and that the council gets the support it needs, but the hon. Lady is right to say that there is an interrelationship. This dispute does not sit in isolation; it is part of wider considerations on equal pay, and we have to bear in mind that the cost of meeting the equal pay liability for the people of Birmingham is £1 billion. There can be no steps forward in this dispute that double down on the inherent problems that led to the equal pay crisis that the city has faced. These are sensitive negotiations, but it is important that the council continues to negotiate and that people get around the table to find a way through. The hon. Lady talks about the multi-year settlement that is being prepared for and the simplification of the funding mechanism, but she also mentions redistribution. Birmingham and councils like it have not found themselves in this situation in a vacuum; it has been partly driven by central Government not distributing money in a fair way to deal with service need and deprivation, and it is very important that we get the money to where that deprivation exists. Even under the current one-year settlement, Birmingham has had a 9.8% increase—in cash, that is £131 million.

I welcome the Minister’s statement. The Birmingham bin strike means that many of my constituents have not had their bins collected in weeks, and this week a constituent wrote to me to say that they had been bitten by a rat. I have been raising the public health situation and calling for the council to take emergency measures, so I do welcome the fact that it has declared a critical incident today. Does the Minister agree with me that it is unacceptable that Unite pickets have been frustrating the council’s contingency plans by blocking depots, and that it is time for Unite to accept the fair deal on the table? Seventeen people cannot hold 1.2 million Birmingham residents to ransom.

My hon. Friend is right to say that the vast majority of the workforce of the service have agreed a way forward, by one route or another—whether by taking voluntary redundancy or accepting a new way of working—and that this comes down now to a small number of people who have not accepted that. In the end, that is where the dispute lies. I do agree that a city cannot almost grind to a halt because of such a circumstance in its waste collection service. I encourage all parties—the local authority as the employer and the trade unions—to get around the table, and focus on the bigger prize here. After almost a decade of uncertainty on equal pay, the council and the trade unions have agreed a position from which they can move forward together. That is a significant moment in which I think all parties should take some pride. Let us not spoil it by the action today that could undermine the equal pay negotiations that have been so successful.

The Minister really cannot get away with blaming the last Conservative Government for this situation. Labour’s own campaign improvement board said: “Budget cuts and the size of the City are used as reasons to explain the situation however, this does not hold up to scrutiny”. My constituents in the Royal town of Sutton Coldfield, which is part of Birmingham if only for local government purposes, are absolutely furious at this latest evidence of paralysis and incompetence under Labour. It follows Labour bankrupting the city, rocketing our council tax, seeking to close our libraries and trying to charge us for parking in our own park. Does the Minister not think that we now need a judge-led inquiry into the cause of the equal pay crisis, Birmingham’s bankruptcy and this dreadful bin strike? Surely the people of Birmingham, Britain’s second city, deserve better from the Labour party.

I am afraid that the picture that the right hon. Member paints of increased charges at a local level—whether for car parking or other types of charges, or the council tax going up in a way that some households will find difficult—is the story of English local government for the last decade, and Birmingham does not sit in isolation. In many ways, the size of the local authority—the fact that it is the largest local authority in Europe, not just in this country—goes some way to explaining how a ripple in one council of a much smaller size in Birmingham has a much bigger implication. The right hon. Member talked about a judge-led process. This situation does not need a judge; it needs judgment. The judgment is that, after so much progress has been made on equal pay, now is the time to resolve the dispute, settle it and allow the workforce to move on with fair pay for men and women in equivalent roles across the local authority. I am sure he agrees with me that that is the way forward.

My residents and constituents deserve better than the current scenes in Birmingham. Bins are not being collected, and the council is losing future revenue because commercial contracts are being cancelled. The reality is that bin services were not good enough even before the strike. When the strike ends—and it will end—what assurance can the Minister give my residents that refuse and health services in Birmingham will be decent and fit for purpose? May I respond to the comments of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), whom I respect? He sought to deny a share of the blame for his party, but will the Minister confirm that last year’s 10% council tax increase was signed off in No. 10 and the Treasury at the time and that, under the previous Government, Birmingham lost 40p in the pound, with the sharpest cuts of any unitary authority?

My hon. Friend rightly sets out how difficult the operating environment has been for local government and in particular for Birmingham. It was the previous Government who introduced the commissioner process, the previous Government who started the exceptional financial support process, and the previous Government who introduced the 10% council tax increase in Birmingham. When we came into office, we were determined not to let Birmingham stand by itself and that we had a role to play. The recovery grant was our contribution to that. The benefit for local people is that we are now able to manage the impact on council tax payers at a local level in a way that, frankly, the previous Government did not seem to care too much for. How we move on from this point is what I think people in Birmingham want to know. How can we clear up the mess that has been left on the streets? How can we restore a waste collection service that delivers for the people of that great city? How can we have an equal pay agreement that really holds, and is not unpicked by a short-term agreement just on the current crisis? As I said, I think the council has done a good job in navigating very choppy waters, but it is not at the other end of them yet. The improvement journey for Birmingham will take some time. It requires a clear eye on the end that everyone is trying to work towards.

When the Minister describes this as a local matter, it is clear to me that his Government are washing their hands of the problem. That is not good enough. The residents of Aldridge-Brownhills, which is on the edge of Birmingham, see and hear what is going on and we do not want the problem coming over to us—we do not want the squeaky blinders in Aldridge-Brownhills. What we do want is the Minister to get this problem sorted out and get those bins emptied for residents. It is quite simple.

I said that this is a partnership. Of course, Birmingham city council, as the employer in this trade union dispute, has to negotiate with the trade unions and the workforce to get those services back. That is a statement of fact, not an opinion. The question is then: what can we do, as a national Government, to support local government to achieve that? We have maintained support. The commissioners, appointed by the previous Government, are in place. We have provided additional financial support—not just to Birmingham—with £5 billion of new investment in local government, bringing the total settlement to £69 billion. As I said before, £40 million alone was for the recovery grant for Birmingham, so I feel the Government are doing as much as we can, but we always stand ready to do more if needed.

Over 14 years, Birmingham city council lost £736 million of funding under the previous Conservative Government. Does the Minister agree that that is a big recipe for the situation we are in now? Does he agree that both sides, the council leadership and the trade unions, need to put public rhetoric to one side, get around the table and sort this dispute out?

If we look at the progress made on equal pay, the trade unions and the local authority worked in partnership to agree a way forward. In the end, they recognised that they all care about the same things: they care about the people of Birmingham, about the workforce and about the long-term viability of the local authority. When common interest is applied, people can find a way through. I hope, going forward, that all interested parties can get around the table, find a way through and get the bins emptied.

Residents of Birmingham will have heard the Minister talk about monitoring, overseeing and reviewing what is happening. What they want to hear is what the Minister is going to do. Can he make it clear that if the talks are not agreed, there is no return back to work and the bins are not emptied, he will intervene and throw all the resources that are required to break the strike and ensure the bins are again emptied in Birmingham?

There is a difference in tone between resolving the strike and breaking the strike. We absolutely stand ready to support the council and the workforce more generally, who do want the situation resolved as many who work for the council also work in the city. They take pride in being local public servants and they want the city to be proud of the council in return; for many, that is being tested. We absolutely stand ready to work with the council and find a way through this issue. The council is working hard to resolve it; it understands that people are angry and frustrated, and that, from a public health point of view, it just cannot continue.

Chelworth Road in my constituency is a road of two halves: on one half of the road, which is in the Wythall division of Worcestershire, the rubbish is collected; on the other side, which falls under Labour-led Birmingham city council, the rubbish is piling high, council tax is going up by 21% and a major incident is being declared. Labour is delivering rubbish, while the Liberal Democrats are prancing around on their hobby horses on social media. The Minister talks about priorities, including putting residents first and delivering value for money, but surely this is further proof that only Conservative councils will deliver on those priorities. Will the Minister tell us at what point he will step in to get those bins collected?

The hon. Gentleman is trying to set up the good council and the bad council by party politics, but I am afraid that has been exhausted. The previous Government did this all the time: they would parade councils of a different colour around for shaming, whatever the issue, while for one of their own they would just hope that everything would move on and that nobody would notice. We are not interested in doing that. This is about a new partnership, where national Government and local government work together to resolve these issues. If a Conservative council finds itself in trouble—there have been some, I should say, and there may be more in the future—I am not going to name and shame it and parade it around in the way the hon. Gentleman is trying to do today. We stand ready to work with councils of all political parties in the interests of the people at a local level, because that is what matters.

May I give the Minister some friendly advice and suggest that he does not try to write this off as a little local difficulty? I am half expecting to hear him use the phrase, “Crisis, what crisis?” He cannot be blamed for not remembering the winter of discontent—using the wonders of Wikipedia, I see that it happened a year before he was born—but I can assure him that the Callaghan Government and the Labour party never shook off the pungent smell of the rubbish piling in the streets on their watch. He really does not want to have the same thing happen to him.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what stinks: hearing Conservative MPs line up as if they were not in government for 14 years and creating the conditions for this to happen, while the foundations of local government were eroded. With that record, I would honestly keep the advice to myself if I were him.

We have Birmingham Labour MPs campaigning for a new airport in Pakistan; meanwhile, we have rats the size of cats feasting on a month of rubbish in Birmingham, courtesy of Labour’s trade union friends. My simple question to the Minister is this: when will this rubbish be cleared?

We both share the intention and ambition that it will be cleared as soon as possible. There should not be any further delay in reaching an agreement when it is quite clear that the volume of waste to be collected is proving to be a waste hazard. With his background as a councillor, the hon. Gentleman will know that it is for the council, as a local employer, to resolve this matter with the trade unions by agreement. That is what we want.