Bins strike fury and talk of ‘cat-sized rats’ - 5 key moments from dramatic Birmingham Council budget meeting

It saw Labour council leader John Cotton say the proposed plans for the next financial year had shown that the crisis-hit local authority had ‘turned a corner’.

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“Birmingham is my city,” he told the council chamber. “I’ve lived here all my life – and I was determined to get this council, and the city, back on track.

“This budget does exactly that.”

But opposition councillors condemned the recent turmoil from both the council’s financial crisis and ongoing bins strike, with Conservative councillor Robert Alden slamming the ‘double whammy of higher taxes for fewer services’.

“This talk of fixing the council from the failed Labour administration is just that – talk,” he said.

“Do the Labour group really expect residents to thank them now they’ve claimed to have fixed the council after they effectively bankrupted it?”

Liberal Democrat councillor Roger Harmer meanwhile argued that a “full recovery” from the financial crisis is still “some time way away”.

“We are far from being out of the woods,” he warned.

Green Party councillor Julien Pritchard criticised Coun Cotton’s claims that the era of ‘bankrupt Birmingham’ was over, saying: “Tell that to the residents in […] left behind neighbourhoods across the city.”

Here are six moments from the meeting as tensions over the recent strife continue.

1. Meeting adjourned

There were cries of “shame” from the Tory benches when council leader John Cotton said the budget meeting would be adjourned until early March.

There had been questions before and during the meeting over whether Birmingham Labour had the numbers to pass the budget through, with their majority being diminished due to resignations.

A further meeting will be held before March 11, the date by which the authority is legally obliged to set a budget.

After a debate that lasted several hours, Coun Cotton told the chamber: “I think it’s vital that we [agree a budget] in a manner that doesn’t imperil this council’s improvement journey and commands the widest possible agreement.”

He went on to say they needed to “take some additional time to find a way forward”.

Conservative councillor Robert Alden said in a statement afterwards: “This isn’t governing – it’s a shambles.

“After bankrupting the city and enduring over a year of bin strikes, Labour can’t even get their own budget debated and voted on in one sitting.”

A Birmingham Labour spokesperson said: “Only Labour can unite the city and we are determined to pass a budget that puts the council back on track.”

2. Bins strike fury

The bins strike, now in its second year, was perhaps unsurprisingly a major talking point during the meeting.

Striking bin workers have previously claimed they face a pay cut of £8,000 – the council has disputed this figure and insisted that a fair offer had been made before negotiations came to an end last summer.

But during the meeting, Conservative councillor Deirdre Alden argued: “14 years of Labour have transformed Birmingham into a city known across the country as one piled high with rubbish and litter, which is being picked through by rats as big as cats,”

Bin workers and their supporters also gathered outside the council house, putting up signs urging Labour to ‘end the bin strike’ and demanding a ‘fair deal now’.

Bin worker Matthew Reid said the council’s Labour administration should “manage their finances correctly”, adding: “Put efficiencies into every service but efficiencies do not include taking £8,000 a year from dustmen.”

3. City’s choice between ‘unity and division’

During his speech, Labour council leader John Cotton said Birmingham now had the “stability it needs to build a better future”.

“It’s a future we can now seize because we had the resolve not only to make the right choices over the last two years – but to see them through,” he said.

He then went on to say that the city “also has a choice to make”.

“A choice between fresh ambition, unity and progress with Labour,” he said. “Or opening the door to a politics of division and despair, where Reform and so-called independents turn our communities against each other while investment in jobs, homes and opportunities is driven away.”

Reform has previously insisted that it wants to show it would represent people of all backgrounds and faiths.

4. ‘Lipstick on a rat’

Talk of Birmingham Labour providing “fresh ambition” was attacked by opposition councillors, with Conservative councillor Clifton Welch asking: “Is that a sick joke?”

“Fresh ambition?” fellow Tory councillor Matt Bennett added. “It smells like the rotting corpse of a rat on a six week old pile of rubbish.

“That’s what Labour’s fresh ambition amounts to.

“They are attempting to persuade the people that this is something new, something different. They’re putting lipstick on a rat.

“That’s what they’re doing. That’s what this budget is – it’s nothing more.”

5. Birmingham – the ‘cesspit of Europe’?

Opposition councillors argued during the meeting that recent turmoil had damaged Birmingham’s reputation.

Coun Jane Jones, an independent councillor who quit Labour, suggested that Brum had turned into the “cesspit of Europe” and a “laughing stock” on the world stage.

This prompted a defiant response from Labour councillor Katherine Iroh, who said she was “disappointed by opposition councillor after opposition councillor talking down our city and calling it dirty”.

“We are the city’s elected members – it is our duty to talk up our city,” she said.

“Birmingham is amazing, it’s thriving, it’s inclusive, it’s friendly, it’s got an incredible cultural heritage, food and entertainment offer.”

Birmingham specific-issues, such as the equal pay debacle and the disastrous implementation of an IT system, contributed to the financial woes which engulfed the council.

The fallout of the crisis also saw Labour councillors point finger at funding cuts during the previous Conservative government.

Looking ahead to the future, Coun Cotton said there are plans to invest an extra £130 million in council services and highlighted a number of planned regeneration projects, including Birmingham City FC’s Sports Quarter.

He also said the city was already benefiting from the construction of HS2 and that the creative quarter in Digbeth was “flourishing”.