Jim McMahon

I am pleased to say that we are making sure that we deal with the waste piling up in the streets and that the council gets the support it needs, but the hon. Lady is right to say that there is an interrelationship. This dispute does not sit in isolation; it is part of wider considerations on equal pay, and we have to bear in mind that the cost of meeting the equal pay liability for the people of Birmingham is £1 billion. There can be no steps forward in this dispute that double down on the inherent problems that led to the equal pay crisis that the city has faced. These are sensitive negotiations, but it is important that the council continues to negotiate and that people get around the table to find a way through. The hon. Lady talks about the multi-year settlement that is being prepared for and the simplification of the funding mechanism, but she also mentions redistribution. Birmingham and councils like it have not found themselves in this situation in a vacuum; it has been partly driven by central Government not distributing money in a fair way to deal with service need and deprivation, and it is very important that we get the money to where that deprivation exists. Even under the current one-year settlement, Birmingham has had a 9.8% increase—in cash, that is £131 million.