Waste Collection: Birmingham and the West Midlands

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this debate.

Birmingham is the city where I was born and raised, and the one that I have had the privilege to represent for the past eight years. It is a proud, resilient city of hard-working families, students, older people, businesses and communities who care deeply about the place they call home. Yet for more than a year, those communities have been living with a broken waste collection service: overflowing bins, rising fly-tipping and streets that do not feel clean or safe. These are not minor inconveniences; they are public health risks, environmental hazards and a source of stress for many families, for those with mobility challenges, for older residents and for everyone who cares about their neighbourhood.

Last year I wrote to the council, urging it to declare a public health emergency, and it did so. That declaration allowed the Government to provide logistical support and for waste to be collected. But the reality is that the dispute has dragged on for far too long, and residents are paying the price. We need to be honest about how we got here. Years of Conservative austerity and underfunding of local government hollowed out councils such as Birmingham, with nearly £1 billion of funding having been cut since 2010, the workforce halved, services that people relied on stretched and resilience stripped away.

On top of that, historical equal pay liabilities—some dating back decades—have placed immense pressure on the council’s finances. Those pressures are not abstract numbers. They shape whether residents get their bins emptied, whether streets are clean and whether public services can function effectively. That context matters, because it explains why any solution now must be sustainable. It is about fairness: fairness for women in being paid the same as men, and fairness for the citizens of Birmingham in knowing that their money is being spent on the services they need.

Let me be clear about my position: I am on the side of Birmingham’s residents. I am not here to take sides between the council and the union, or to attack anyone involved. My concern is the people who live, work and raise families in our city, and who depend on a clean and reliable waste service. I support the transformation of Birmingham’s waste service because, before the industrial action began, I regularly received complaints from constituents about missed collections. Residents and businesses deserve a service that is modern, reliable and in line with other major cities.

[Tahir Ali]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. On fairness of pay, does she agree that we should not be equalising downwards, but that women’s pay should be equalised up to what men are paid?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Prior to coming to this place, I worked for the city council for many years. I saw the impact of equal pay liabilities, and how they cripple public finances and the very services that the last Labour Government invested in. Children’s services were decommissioned and youth services were stripped away, and many of my communities do not want to see our city council’s public finances go in the same direction. That is why the council must take legal advice, and the right steps, to agree and come to a settled negotiation.

The council does now have a plan for transformation, including a new fleet of council-owned vehicles, changes to how services will be monitored and a phased roll-out of a new collection model from June 2026. But transformation cannot mean endless disruption, and it cannot come at the cost of reopening equal pay liabilities, which would put the council back into crisis and risk hundreds of millions more being taken away from public services—this is taxpayers’ money that we are talking about.

Our Government also have a role to play. Having raised the issue of fair funding for Birmingham with Ministers, I was pleased to see that the local government finance settlement will increase the council’s core spending power by more than £650 million over the next three years. Ministers must now also hold Birmingham’s commissioners to account; they must bring both sides back to the table and reach a negotiated settlement. Leadership and accountability are required at every level.

Next week, I will meet directly with Unite workers to hear their perspective, to understand the challenges they face and make sure that their voices are a part of any solution. Let me be clear that residents, not politics, must be the priority. My message to all parties is simple: “Enough is enough. It is time to return to the table in good faith. It is time for negotiation, compromise and delivery.” The council, the commissioners, the workers and the union leadership all have a responsibility to make that happen. The Government must ensure that the conditions are in place for a settlement to succeed, alongside holding commissioners to account, and secure agreement, not stalemate.

Birmingham is a proud city, and its people are patient, but that patience has been tested long enough. It is time to end this dispute and restore a reliable waste service that puts residents and businesses first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

Good afternoon, Ms McVey. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this debate.

I am a proud trade unionist, and I declare my membership of Unite the union. For generations, trade unions have fought for workers’ rights against right-wing Governments, which always have the richest and most powerful economic interests behind them and are often supported and propped up by a hostile media. Having an ideologically right-wing Government as one’s opponent is, in some ways, rather easy; working-class people can generally recognise that a Conservative Government will be diametrically opposed to their interests.

But the British political landscape is changing. Now, working-class people also need to appreciate that any future Reform Government would be no friend of theirs. Reform was bitterly against the Employment Rights Act 2025, though its Members are not in the Chamber today—and when we look at its latest recruits, it is abundantly clear that they are no friends of working-class communities. But, as a trade unionist and as a proud Labour party member, what really devastates me is that the Labour party under the current national leadership is abandoning the bin workers of Birmingham. For a party born out of the trade union movement to imagine that it is okay for workers to receive an £8,000 pay cut is nothing short of a betrayal of what a proud Labour party should always stand for.

As Gordon Brown once said:

“Leaders come and leaders go”.

But the mission remains the same. At one time in the dispute, Unite were making progress with the Birmingham city council managing director, Joanne Roney. Unite states that she met with general secretary Sharon Graham in ACAS talks last summer. They discussed a “ballpark agreement” that both sides could work with as the basis of a written deal, and agreed to meet again in two days’ time.

Joanne Roney then delayed the meeting, messaging:

“I need some more time to deal with the commissioners. I’ve asked the team to keep you informed and ACAS advised. Not clear on the issues but you know the discussion is not just resting with me...also the commissioners...it needs wider approval. Frustrating for us all.”

Then she went quiet for three weeks. Finally, she messaged again:

“Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. It’s been a challenge for me, it’s not how I usually do business and I share your frustration. However, I now have an offer for you to consider and will meet on Sunday, I am free after 5, I hope you know I fought really hard for this offer which is the closest I can get to what we discussed.”

Finally, there was a second meeting, with a written offer agreed by the Government-imposed commissioners, but it was much lower than the ballpark deal, and was by no means a fair offer. Members should bear in mind that workers are getting a pay cut of up to £8,000. The council presented this as a “take it or leave it” offer, then stopped talks and sent out redundancy letters in July. It has not come back to talks since then.

All this time, while thinking it is acceptable for working people to become poorer by thousands of pounds, Birmingham city council are spending millions on the dispute. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) said, more than £20 million has already been spent on the strike, including on lost revenue and agency fees. How much does a fair deal cost, Minister? What farcical behaviour from Birmingham council, the commissioners and, frankly, any political administration at any level of government that claims to be left wing and socialist in its nature. The truth is that I do not care about the Tories or Reform. I know what they both are. I know who they represent in this place, just like I know what and who the Labour party should always stand for.

As well as asking what a fair deal would cost, I put the following questions to the Minister. Does she think that working-class people should be £8,000 worse off? Does she agree with agency and contract workers being used to break a strike? Does she have any appreciation that the Labour party is facing electoral oblivion in Birmingham, and that the polling from Scotland and Wales before the devolved Parliament elections in May looks dire? Does the Minister not see that issues like this in Birmingham, cutting welfare to disabled people, letting down WASPI women, delaying the Hillsborough law, trying to limit people’s right to protest and removing citizens’ right to trial by jury are not the policies and actions of the real Labour party?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Brian Leishman]

I will.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

Order. Before you do, I think we are going off topic. Can we keep to the topic?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I say gently and respectfully to my hon. Friend, who is not from Birmingham, that given that I was born and raised there and have represented a seat for eight years, I can see the difference that the Labour Government are making after the impact of austerity, when nearly £1 billion was taken from the largest council in Europe. Pride in Place money is being given to Woodgate and Bartley Green, an area with a high population of people not in education, employment or training. It is about investing in our communities. My hon. Friend is doing a disservice to the Labour-run Birmingham council and the Government. Since coming to power, they have been trying to make a difference for the communities I represent.