'National embarrassment' Government accused of ‘washing its hands’ of Birmingham bin strike problem

The Government has been accused of “washing its hands” of the Birmingham bin strikes by not intervening to resolve the dispute dubbed a “national embarrassment”.

Communities minister Jim McMahon said the Government “cannot legally intervene” in the industrial action, as Birmingham City Council is being overseen by commissioners after it effectively declared bankruptcy.

Mr McMahon described the dispute as a “local issue” and said the Government “stands ready” to respond to any request for extra resources from Birmingham.

He said any deal to end the bin strike must “maintain value for money”, and encouraged “all parties to redouble their efforts to get around the table and to find a resolution”.

An all-out strike by members of the Unite union has left rubbish piling up in the streets of Birmingham and complaints about “rats the size of cats”, dubbed the “Squeaky Blinders”.

Labour’s Preet Kaur Gill, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, told the Commons: “The Birmingham bin strike has meant many of my constituents haven’t had their bins collected in weeks, and this week my constituent wrote to me to say they had been bitten by a rat.”

She welcomed the council’s decision to declare a major incident, adding: “Does the minister agree with me that it is unacceptable that Unite pickets have been frustrating the council’s contingency plans by blocking their depots, and it is time for Unite to accept the fair deal on the table, because 17 people cannot hold 1.2 million Birmingham residents to ransom.”

Mr McMahon said: “(She) is right to say that the vast majority of the workforce have agreed, through one route or another, a way forward on this, whether it’s about voluntary redundancy or accepting a new way of working.

“It is now down to a smaller number of people who haven’t accepted that, where the dispute in the end lies.

“It can’t be that a city is almost ground to a halt in terms of waste collection in that circumstance.”

'We don't want the problem coming over to us'

Conservative MP Wendy Morton, who represents Aldridge-Brownhills, said: “When the minister describes this as a local matter it’s clear to me that his Government is washing its hands of this problem and that isn’t good enough.

“The residents of Aldridge-Brownhills, which is on the edge of Birmingham, we see, we hear what’s going on – we don’t want the problem coming over to us, we don’t want the Squeaky Blinders in Aldridge-Brownhills.

“What we do want is the minister to get this problem sorted out and get those bins emptied for those residents, it’s quite simple.”

Mr McMahon said the council has to negotiate with the trade union and workforce to get the services up and running.

He added: “We’ve maintained support, commissioners appointed by the previous Government are in place and we have provided additional financial support not just to Birmingham but £5 billion of new investment into local government.”

Sir Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, urged Mr McMahon to “make it clear” that if a resolution is not agreed then he will intervene and “throw all the resources that are required to break this strike and make sure the bins are emptied in Birmingham again”.

Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) said: “May I give the minister some friendly advice, which is not to try and write this off as a little local difficulty.

“I’m half expecting him to use the phrase ‘Crisis? What crisis?’. He can’t be blamed for not remembering the Winter of Discontent because I see from the wonders of Wikipedia that that happened a year before he was born.

“But can I assure him that the Callaghan government and the Labour Party never shook off the pungent smell of the rubbish piling in the streets on their watch, and he really doesn’t want to have the same thing happen to him.”

'I'll tell them what stinks'

Mr McMahon replied: “I’ll tell him what stinks, it’s hearing Conservative MPs line up as if they haven’t been in government for 14 years creating the conditions for this to happen.”

Labour’s Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) said bin services were “not good enough” before the strikes.

He also said: “My residents and constituents deserve better than the current scenes in Birmingham.”

Conservative shadow communities secretary Kevin Hollinrake said: “It is shameful, a national embarrassment, that one of our nation’s great cities, our second city, finds itself in such a bleak situation.”