Birmingham City Council and Unite: Refuse Workers’ Pay

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I have said, it is not correct to say that the commissioners blocked a viable deal. We want to urge both parties to get back around the negotiating table to find a sustainable solution to end the dispute in the interests of residents. Of course, it is very important that both the equal pay settlement that has been agreed in Birmingham and the best value duty are met in the course of those negotiations.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, is the truth not that these insanitary and insalubrious horrors being visited on our second city are the result of an act of grotesque judicial activism? Everyone understands what equal pay means: men and women should get the same for the same job. Here is a court saying that if one profession mainly has men, that allows it to intervene. That disregards what the law says in favour of what it thinks the law ought to say. How many other local authorities in this country face potential bankruptcy because of these perverse and expansionist rulings by politicised judges?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Lord that this year, very recently, the council passed a balanced revenue budget without the need for exceptional financial support for the first time in recent years. This is possible because the Government delivered fairer funding, meaning that Birmingham will receive an increase in core spending power of 45% to help restore its services and the recovery of the local economy. That is very positive progress for delivering financial sustainability for the residents of Birmingham. I commend the hard work of the council leader, members and officers, and the commissioners, in getting to this point.

Birmingham: Waste Collection

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is, of course, quite right to say that the leadership of the council until 2012 left not only the toxic legacy of not sorting out the equal pay issue but £1 billion-worth of debt, which is part of the issue that Birmingham is now having to deal with alongside the cuts to funding it had before. We are under no illusion about the financial issues facing councils, and we are determined to make progress on the inheritance we have been left. As he said, we continue to support the leader and his team in Birmingham, both directly and through the commissioners, to move the council on from those historic issues. Indeed, we have provided an increase in core spending of up to 9.8% for Birmingham for 2025-26. As we go through the spending review, we continue to look at how we might redress the long-standing deficit in funding that councils such as Birmingham have faced.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, rats are spawned by DEI, are not they? They are the fell and monstrous product of equalities law. There was an utterly perverse ruling that said that although there was absolutely no sex discrimination, it was not allowable to pay people a bonus to do a job that people of either sex were otherwise willing to do. That is why Birmingham went bankrupt, hence the strikes and the rats. If we are serious about growth, do we not need to roll back this tendency for judges to legislate from the bench?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That was more of a rant than a question, but I will answer it anyway. Workers have the right to make representations, and the council must take all its workforce into account, including the 7,000 women who historically were paid far less than their male counterparts for equivalent roles. Every council has had to do that, and it is right and proper that they do so. It has been an enormous exercise. In my own council it took nearly three years to work through the process, but I was happy to do it. It is absolutely right that people doing equal work deserve equal pay.