Wendy Morton

No, I am not. The reason why the commissioners were put in place was that Labour-run Birmingham city council was failing. That is why the commissioners came in. I am saying that we are facing a lack of political leadership. I try to raise this issue in various fora, but nobody seems to want to get it resolved. What bothers me most is that there are residents who pay their council tax and who need a voice. They need somebody to stand up alongside other Birmingham MPs and councillors and say, “It is time to get this fixed.” The other reason why I am standing up on this issue is that I have constituents who work in the sector. They are being impacted, as are the peripheral parts of my constituency, as in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas). It is my constituents who have to pay the extra cost for the extra fly-tipping. That cannot be fair. The net result of cancelling recycling is that the already poor figure of 22% has plummeted to just 15%. There are major fly-tipping hotspots right across the city; when bins go uncollected for months on end, fly-tipping respects no borders. In Pheasey Park Farm ward, which borders the Birmingham city council area, we have seen a constant uptick in people crossing the border to fly-tip. In all of this, the point about the consistent lack of political leadership keeps cropping up. Where has the Labour Mayor of the West Midlands been through all of this? Nowhere. As recently as 18 December, he said on Radio West Midlands: “I don’t employ the workforce”. He also said: “I have done all I can.” To be honest, to the outside world that does not appear to have been an awful lot—that is my reply, Mr Mayor. The mayor may not employ the workforce—I get that—but he knows the reputational damage that is being done not just to Birmingham but to the wider west midlands. As the most senior elected politician in the region, he should have been far more proactive and visible in ensuring that a resolution was found, or in encouraging people to get round the table to sort the situation out. Does anyone believe that had Andy Street still been the Mayor of the West Midlands, he would not have moved heaven and earth to ensure that the escalation of the strike was stopped, and the dispute resolved, at the earliest opportunity? I am pretty damn certain that he would have done so. Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, some of whom were appointed as far back as September of last year, have responded to me and others in the House, but it appears that they have not even held meetings with the leaders of Birmingham city council so that a resolution can be moved towards.