Birmingham Bin Strikes
Debate between Shockat Adam and Jim McMahon(3 days, 17 hours ago)
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Jim McMahon
The way the right hon. Member starts is where I would hope most local authorities do when looking at equal pay, but the reality is that there will always be winners and losers in equal pay where women have been underpaid for a long time. Councils have options here: they can either compensate and pay upwards for all the female workers in post to the comparable male worker, which for most councils in most circumstances will not be affordable, because there are huge sums attached to that; or, to make a package affordable, they have to equalise it out in consultation with the trade unions. That is exactly what has happened in Birmingham.
The issue in Birmingham is very particular to the waste service, where a previous agreement was reached that honestly does not hold when assessed against equal pay in terms of the tasks that are carried out by those workers. In the end, it does not pass the equal pay test, but that is not to say that we are not urging the council and Unite the trade union to continue negotiations to resolve this. We absolutely want the right outcome for the workers and the residents of Birmingham.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for tabling this urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his answers, and I sympathise with his position, but replacing this workforce, policing the dispute and paying the legal fees has cost the already overstretched council £4 million. All the while, the good people of Birmingham—the very people who voted in a Labour council and many Labour Members of Parliament—are living in foul misery. Does the Minister agree that it would save millions of pounds, improve our relationship with the dedicated bin workers and restore a basic necessity to the people of Birmingham if he intervened to get us out of this stink?
Jim McMahon
Our starting point, of course, is that we want all parties to negotiate in good faith, and we want the local authority to do its best to table a deal that goes as far as it can go, but the red line has to be that it cannot compromise and completely unravel the equal pay negotiations that have taken place, to which all the trade unions—not just Unite—have been a party. Therein lies the issue.
The hon. Member could rightly say—I think this is what he indicates—“Surely you just pay what it takes to resolve the issue with the striking bin workers,” but for the equal pay package to hold, a comparable payment would need to be made to all the female workers in scope, so the numbers he talks about are fantasyland. They are not single-digit millions; they are tens or hundreds of millions of pounds, which goes above both legality and affordability for the local authority. We have urged the council to negotiate in good faith with the trade union and to go as far as it can go, provided that it is lawful, affordable and does not undermine the equal pay liability so far.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shockat Adam and Jim McMahon(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend will know that, for the right reasons, we have put a significant amount of energy and time into meeting parliamentarians from across the House to discuss those local issues. Absolutely, we will meet; that will probably be the sixth meeting that we have had with Cornish MPs on this issue. We understand, respect and are investing in the Cornish identity, but we also need to ensure that the devolution agenda moves on at pace and that every part of England can realise its full potential. I am more than happy to meet on that basis.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
A new report by Crisis shows that only 2.6% of rental properties in my area of Leicester South are affordable to those on local housing allowance. That is a real-terms cut as rents soar, because the Government have frozen housing benefit until 2026. Will the Secretary of State explain how that freeze aligns with the Government’s aim of reducing homelessness, and will the Government urgently review the cap so that people can afford to keep a roof over their heads?