MP calls for government to support crisis council

An MP is calling for government support as a council faces financial pressures.

Birmingham City Council announced it was facing a £760m bill, equivalent to its entire annual spending on services, to settle equal pay claims.

Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, Preet Kaur Gill, said the council could not fund it with further cuts.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said it holds discussions with any councils facing unplanned pressures.

"It's a deeply worrying situation," Ms Gill told BBC Politics Midlands.

"What I want to understand is how we got into this situation in the first place."

Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, has already paid out more than £1bn after it lost a Supreme Court ruling in 2012.

Judges found it was underpaying hundreds of mostly female employees in roles such as teaching assistants, cleaners and catering staff.

The further costs were revealed on Wednesday following the implementation of a new IT system and come hot on the heels of separate spiralling costs related to that.

The council said it would have fewer resources in the future and would have to reprioritise where it spends taxpayers' money.

However Ms Gill said the government should intervene at this "very difficult time" to limit the impact on city services.

"What we don't want to see is just statutory services being delivered," she said. "We need to make sure the council can deliver all of its services."

The council said it cannot pay the sum from existing resources and was in discussion with the government as well as external auditors.

There has been speculation it could face a Section 114 notice, as has been seen in other councils like Woking Borough, which bans all non-essential spending.

The DLUHC said such a decision would be made by the council, which has not confirmed this.

Another Birmingham MP, Labour's Steve McCabe, also called for a government bail out.

But Mark Garnier, Conservative MP for Wyre Forst, said it was not so straightforward.

"I don't see why my constituents should be penalised by having some of their taxpayers' money taken away from them to bail out what is actually a wholly avoidable problem," he said.

The council was criticised by opposition councillors as well as the GMB Union, which represents the underpaid workers, for failing to fix the problems sooner.

The authority issued an apology for "the failure to get this situation under control".