Council Housing

Debate between Ayoub Khan and Jim McMahon

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about the different approaches across the UK and how we can all learn from each other on what works, as well as learn from the areas where it perhaps did not go quite as planned. I will make sure that I pass his comments on to the Housing Minister to have conversations across Governments. 

We have also provided greater certainty on future costs associated with the decent homes standard and the minimum energy efficiency standards. We have allocated more than £1 billion through the warm homes social housing fund to improve the energy efficiency of social homes. Quality matters, as rightly outlined by my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) and for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury).

In addition to revenue, we know how important borrowing and the capacity to borrow are for councils’ delivery plans. Since 2023, a preferential borrowing rate has been available from the Public Works Loan Board for council house building. This rate will be extended and we will be announcing more details in due course.

We continue to work closely with councils and the wider sector to understand the remaining barriers to council house building and investment, including the impact of the housing revenue account debt and borrowing rates. We have also increased the threshold at which councils must open a housing revenue account from 200 homes to 1,000 homes. That is enabling small councils to deliver more homes without incurring additional operating costs.

We have also heard from councils that workforce shortages, skills gaps and capacity pressures will constrain their abilities to build. That is why we are investing a further £46 million over the next three years through capacity to build funding, on top of the £17 million already invested since 2025. That will help councils develop an ambitious pipeline, strengthen specialist housing capacity and make the most of the Government’s wider investment in council house building. These gaps have been identified by Members in the debate today, including the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Joe Morris), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham).

Finally, we are taking decisive action to reform the right-to-buy scheme, which has acted as a break on council confidence to invest in new social housing for too long. We are reforming the scheme to ensure that more homes are built than lost, while maintaining an important route for social housing tenants to own their own homes, which was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth).

My right hon. Friend the Housing Minister is at this very moment in the Bill Committee, debating the detail of our reforms. The Social Housing Bill builds on the reforms to cash discounts that we implemented in 2024 to ensure that more social homes are protected, while removing powerful disincentives to build. Notably, we are tightening the eligibility requirements and exempting newly built social housing from the scheme for 35 years to ensure that homes are not sold before councils have recovered their investment.

[Ayoub Khan]

The Minister will have heard me talk about the £400 million being invested through the regional authority for 3,000 homes. I contrast that with the more than £700 million invested of taxpayer money in the Perry Barr athletes’ village, which was then sold at a loss to the taxpayer of £350 million. Can the Minister assure me that that matter will be investigated?

[Jim McMahon]

Today is not about getting into the rights and wrongs of individual programmes at local authority level. The hon. Member and I have had many conversations about Birmingham city council in the past and I am sure that will continue. The matter here today is how central Government ensure that we have the framework, the incentives and the funding to get councils building council homes and social homes in their area.

In addition, we have enabled councils to retain 100% of receipts from right-to-buy sales and provided greater flexibility on how those receipts can be used. That includes permitting councils to combine receipts with grant funding to unlock capacity for house building.

These measures are already bearing fruit. Councils delivered around 10,600 homes in 2024-25, which is the highest level since current records began in 1991-92. Our package of right-to-buy reforms is estimated to deliver a net gain of around 18,000 social homes over the next 10 years, compared with a pre-reform baseline of a loss of 26,000 homes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) mentioned empty homes. We are strengthening powers to bring empty homes back into use by reforming empty dwelling management orders. We are reducing the period for which a property must be empty before it becomes eligible from two years to six months under that programme.

We know that we must go further and faster to deliver the good-quality, affordable homes that people need. We also know that councils share that ambition. The Government are committed to backing councils to build at a scale not seen for decades, and to build the right homes in the right places. We will continue to work with all levels of local and regional government to turn that ambition into homes and better outcomes for local people, so that everyone across the country has access to a home that is decent, secure and affordable.

Birmingham Bin Strikes

Debate between Ayoub Khan and Jim McMahon

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if she will make a statement on the Government’s response to the Birmingham bin strikes.

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

Members will be aware of the continuing disruption caused by industrial action in Birmingham. I want to be clear that Birmingham city council is an independent employer and that this dispute is between the council and Unite the trade union. The Government are rightly not a party to it, but of course we have an interest in it, recognising the impact on local residents. This Government’s priority remains Birmingham residents, and we will continue to support the council to keep Birmingham’s streets clear while the dispute remains ongoing. Thousands of tons of waste have been removed, and routine collections have been restored. The council continues to monitor the situation closely to ensure that waste does not build up again.

The background to the dispute is the historical equal pay issues the council has faced, which have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern UK history, and that has to be front of mind. The council has been in negotiation for many months, making a fair and reasonable offer to Unite and being clear about the need to protect its equal pay position. The union rejected the council’s offer. The council has worked hard to offer options to affected workers, including a transfer into other roles in the council on the same grade and, in some cases, to upskill those workers in scope. An enhanced voluntary redundancy package is also available for those who wish to leave the service, and there has already been significant uptake.

Given the union’s rejection of the offer, as of last week, the council is now entering a period of consultation to resolve the dispute while protecting its equal pay position. I urge the union to work with the council on a sustainable way forward that is fair to workers in the council and to the residents of Birmingham.

Finally, hon. Members may be aware that earlier today Max Caller announced that he is retiring as lead commissioner in Birmingham, and I wish him well for the future. Tony McArdle OBE has today been appointed by the Secretary of State as the new lead commissioner, and he will take up his position tomorrow. Tony brings a huge wealth of expertise, and I am confident that he will continue to deliver on the recovery plan to secure improvements for Birmingham’s residents.

[Ayoub Khan]

The bin strikes in Birmingham have now dragged on for over four months, and Birmingham’s 1.1 million residents are paying the price. The Government have repeatedly scapegoated bin workers, yet they refuse to address the root cause and real reason why residents have seen their public services crumble and their council tax bills rise by 21%. At the heart of this crisis lies 13 years of mismanagement and incompetence under a Labour-run council. The Minister wants to blame the equal pay settlement for cuts, but conveniently forgets that the council has had this settlement looming for over a decade. Over 13 years, there has been endless council waste: an athlete’s village that housed not a single athlete sold off at a loss of £320 million, £216 million spent on an IT system that failed, and £53 million spent on consultants. Now the Government stand idly by while their own council cuts up to £8,000 from bin workers. This Government should be defending frontline workers, not their own incompetent council.

The biggest betrayal is the Government’s deliberate downplaying of their involvement. For months, Ministers claimed that this was a local issue, yet it is now clear that Government-appointed commissioners must approve any deal. Just last week, the commissioners rejected a deal that could have ended the strike, despite the council’s managing director being inclined to accept it. The misery in Birmingham has been prolonged not by the workers, but by the commissioners and therefore the Government. This Government have the power to end the strike, and yet they have actively dragged their heels in reaching a deal. That raises serious questions about the Government’s commitment to workers’ rights. The council’s action amounts to fire and rehire. With the Government’s role in these negotiations, we must ask: are they complicit in aiding and abetting the very practices they are legislating to ban?

Finally, will the Minister confirm that the Government have the power to remove the commissioners who are blocking a deal? Will he personally commit to opposing the fire and rehire practices that the council is using?

[Jim McMahon]

I hear the hon. Member’s charac-terisation of the issue, but it bears no relationship at all to the reality of the situation. The council is an independent employer. It is not for the Government to go council by council negotiating trade union disputes or terms and condition changes. It is for the councils themselves as the employers to negotiate with their workforces, and that is exactly the same in Birmingham as for other councils, as he knows. The commissioners are of course appointed by Government and have to act with professional expertise in giving advice to the local authority on whether its plans are affordable and lawful, but the negotiations are taking place between the council itself, and Unite the trade union and the council’s workforce.

On this idea that we are scapegoating the workers in this dispute, no party has done more for workers’ rights than Labour. No Government have done more on workers’ rights in a generation than this Government, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister. When I hear Members of this House talking in a way that degrades that, that is a complete and absolute failure to accept not just the legacy we inherited as a Government—that includes, by the way, Birmingham city council and its local taxpayers—but our determination to put that right.

Finally, of course Birmingham could and should have made some big financial decisions much earlier. That is a matter of fact, and that is why commissioners are in there today. But the local government finance settlement had an increase in core spending power of 9.8%—that is, £131 million of additional money into Birmingham. That included the largest settlement through the recovery grant of any council in the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ayoub Khan and Jim McMahon

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

In all areas, there is more than adequate time to prepare final proposals. Councils in the devolution priority programme have until September, and all others—the majority—have until November. That is more than adequate time for councils to be able to marshal and get their plans together and make an assessment on that basis.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

It has been reported that the Birmingham bin strikes may last until December. How can this Government claim to support workers when they refuse to fund Birmingham city council properly? This dispute boils down to cash, yet the Government are failing Birmingham’s bin workers, residents and businesses. The Government backed our steelworkers. Will they back the bin workers with extra funding?

[Jim McMahon]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. On the calls that we have with MPs when we update them on these issues, his tone is quite different. We need to separate the rhetoric from the reality. The reality is that for the first time we had £600 million in the recovery grant, which was about those councils suffering high deprivation and historically low tax bases. Birmingham was the biggest beneficiary of that, receiving nearly £40 million.

Birmingham: Waste Collection

Debate between Ayoub Khan and Jim McMahon

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I do not think there is a single example—although I am prepared to be corrected—where equal pay has not had winners and losers on the edges. That is an element of equal pay that we have to accept. The envelope is not limited, so the books have to balance.

On the issue of how the WRCO role is being changed and whether workers need to lose pay, the council is offering a sideways move in the street scene division on the same grade 3, which will mean no loss of income. It is offering workers a move to an equivalent grade 3 role even if training is required, and it will provide that training. It is also offering LGV driver training, so that loaders can upgrade to being a driver, which carries a higher payment than their current role.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

I recall asking the Minister on a previous occasion about getting support from military personnel, and he said that I had gone “from zero to 100” very quickly. The difficulty with this Government is that they have been very slow to react. I was out last Thursday picking up bin bags with youth workers from a local organisation who had worked 12-hour shifts and were then spending their evenings cleaning up the streets. The Minister has failed to raise the fact that thousands of tonnes of recyclable waste have not been collected, encouraging further fly-tipping. When will this Government intervene and resolve the issue? Bin workers work hard. Up to 200 of them will lose up to £8,000, and that needs to be resolved.

[Jim McMahon]

I share the hon. Member’s appreciation of community volunteers who are cleaning up the streets, just as I welcome the hard work of hundreds of frontline council workers who have stepped in. Their efforts have meant that 26,000 tonnes of accumulated waste has now been cleared. We can agree on that, at least.

On the question of when it is appropriate for the Government to offer support, it is when a major incident is declared. As the hon. Member will know, I have been in Birmingham every week since then. There have been daily update calls with the council, and we have been providing essential support to the council to clear up the city.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ayoub Khan and Jim McMahon

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

This morning, firefighters in Birmingham made it plain that they will stand in solidarity with the bin strikers in Birmingham and not collect the rubbish. We know that there are only 17 workers, which means this is a drop in the ocean financially. Given that the Government have said they will do all they can to bring the strike to an end, will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that they will force the council to make the payment, and that they will deploy the Army to assist the local charities and organisations that are helping to clear up and need extra support?

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Gentleman does very well to go from zero to 100 pretty quickly on the issue, but let us step back from the immediacy of it. Clearly, we want all parties to be in the room negotiating the underlying pay, terms and conditions dispute that is at play. To be absolutely clear, there has to be a red line. This cannot stray into potentially compromising the equal pay settlement that has been agreed, so that that all begins to unravel. Bear in mind that that has already cost the local authority £1 billion. We support them, and we want people in the room. The deal has to be a sustainable one that will hold.