Fly-tipping: West Midlands

Debate between Laurence Turner and Robbie Moore

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

It absolutely is action that needs to be condemned. Why? Because those who are being impacted are the hard-working residents of Birmingham. They are dutifully paying their council tax—despite its having increased as a result of Labour’s mismanagement of the council—yet they are expected to be taking their waste to an allocated disposal site, either a site that has been allocated by the council to dispose of their waste or a waste wagon; but wagons needing to get out of the depot are being held up by those who are striking, yet the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield will not actively and openly come out and condemn their behaviour, which is having a negative impact not only on his constituents but the residents across Birmingham more widely. Does he want to intervene? I will let him use this opportunity to condemn their actions right now if he chooses.

[Laurence Turner]

I have made my comments. The hon. Member is acting irresponsibly, because we are in discussions—I mean “we” in the sense that the council, which I am not a member of, and the union are in discussions. The most important thing is making sure that the strike ends, and that there is no new equal pay liability. Let us not forget that the first equal pay liability in Birmingham arose under Conservative leadership of the council, with huge costs to my residents. The most important thing is that we get a resolution. The hon. Member can grandstand all he likes; it does not bring the dispute one inch closer to being finalised. I am conscious that this is a long intervention. I commented on the issue over the weekend; those comments stand on the record.

[Robbie Moore]

I note again that the hon. Member has not condemned the actions, yet who is being penalised but the residents of Birmingham as waste piles up outside their houses? The BBC was reporting on that very action last night. It reported not only on the action being taken by Unite trade unionists, but on the residents who are being impacted. It reported on residents who could not even get down their street, blockaded in their own homes, because of piles of rubbish outside that are causing a huge nuisance: a huge impact with the smell and a huge impact on their livelihood and way of life. That is completely unacceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. If you are a resident in Birmingham paying your council tax, you want action. You do not want talks after talks, discussions after discussions. Residents have been impacted for too long—a month in certain circumstances. I was in Birmingham two weekends ago, and the level of rubbish on the streets was completely unacceptable in Britain’s second-largest city, yet what is the Minister doing about it? What is the Minister doing to hold Labour-run Birmingham to account? What action are the Government going to take, other than just passing the buck down the line to Labour-run Birmingham city council to sort it out?

Other local authorities are impacted, too. I note that Lichfield district council has offered its waste services to help Birmingham tackle the mountain of waste. That is highly commendable, but what is the impact on Lichfield ratepayers? Is that what they want from their council tax payments? What is the Minister doing to ensure that the other local authorities that neighbour Birmingham will be compensated for providing assistance? The net increase in undealt-with waste, as a result of Labour-run Birmingham city council, is currently running at an estimated 1,000 tonnes per week. That is enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool with rubbish every two weeks. How will Birmingham residents not be tempted to fly-tip in Birmingham, and further afield in places on the periphery that are likely to be impacted such as Walsall, when they have literally run out of pavement space to put their rubbish on? It is hardly their fault. They pay their council tax, yet the Labour council cannot be bothered to get around the table properly and sort the issue out.

There is also the impact on local investment. Under Andy Street, Birmingham and the wider west midlands area saw a huge amount of inward private investment to the benefit of many residents, yet the level of nuisance the situation is causing—not only in Birmingham, but in the wider area—makes matters significantly worse.

[Laurence Turner]

I must say, listening to this, that I feel there is a real rewriting of history going on. Under the leadership of the Conservatives, the sharpest central Government cuts on any local authority in England were inflicted on Birmingham. Will the hon. Gentleman apologise for his party’s role in that?

[Robbie Moore]

Dare I say it, but the mismanagement under the Labour administration in Birmingham is the absolute result of what residents are now being faced with—an increase in council tax across Birmingham and a significantly negative impact on the current level of service, with their rubbish not being collected.

I fear that the worst is yet to come for the people of Birmingham. We have already had reports of rat superhighways under streets—tens of millions of rats scurrying between rubbish piles and commuting through sewers. But what happens when the rubbish is finally removed, when there are no rubbish bags on the streets and the food in the rubbish has been removed? We will see starved rats running around the sewers looking elsewhere to find food. I fear for the residents whose homes may be impacted, and the additional cost that will be put on Birmingham city council to deal with vermin on the streets, not just clearing the waste.

The terrible lesson from this saga is obvious: Labour’s mismanagement of Birmingham has left residents in the lurch, with literally a mountain of rubbish on their doorsteps, just one year after the budget-busting council tax rises—nearly 20% since 2023. From council tax to local services, the facts show that Conservative councils deliver more for less. In Labour-run Birmingham, they do not appear to be delivering anything. I want to come on to the points that have been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills to do with the initiatives that Conservative-led Walsall council are bringing out, such as the environmental crime scene project, which seems a great idea—treating every fly-tipping scene as a crime scene and taking a robust approach. We have seen reports drop from 40 reports a day to five. That is 70% of fly-tipping removed. A Conservative council taking a robust approach gets the problem solved—delivering a better result for the taxpayer. That is the result of best practice.

Under the previous Conservative Government, we delivered £2.2 million to councils struggling to tackle fly-tipping, helping them get ahead of the problem. We have seen an increase in spot fines, a fly-tipping grant scheme and a better, more collaborative approach. I fear for rural councils and our farmers, who are most impacted and on the periphery of those urban environments—as has been picked up in this debate. So why on earth did the Government remove the over £100 million rural service delivery grant, which was a grant specifically aimed at helping those rural councils deliver services? Undoubtedly, those services are much costlier and harder to deliver in a rural environment.

So far, this Labour Administration have only committed to revising statutory guidelines in the Crime and Policing Bill. It shows a startling lack of awareness that when waste in Birmingham is piling up at a rate of one bin bag every 4.5 seconds, the best that this Government can offer are some revised guidelines and advocating further talking shops in Birmingham. I ask the Minister, what on earth is he doing? What on earth is this Labour Government doing to get to grips with the problems in Birmingham? While there is nothing wrong with sharing and enforcing best practice, it is not the fly-tipping revolution we need. It is simple: as we have seen in Labour-run Bradford council and now in Labour-run Birmingham, “Vote Labour and you get trash.”