Birmingham City Council

Bradley Thomas Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

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.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

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?

[Jim McMahon]

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.