We will clean up Birmingham, new council leader says

Dealing with the long-running bin dispute is the number one priority for the new leader of Birmingham City Council, who said the new administration was "starting afresh" to resolve it.

Liberal Democrat Roger Harmer was elected leader on Friday with his party forming a minority administration with the Greens and Better Birmingham Independent Group.

He told BBC News that he was speaking to council commissioners on Monday and had already had discussions with council officers about the steps needed to "get a deal".

"We need to start with a clean sheet of paper, look at all the facts, talk to everybody and then work out a negotiation to end it," he said.

The previous council leader, Labour's John Cotton said in April before the local elections that a "deal was in sight" after discussions with the unions over the 15-month dispute.

Harmer said the new-look council would look at the proposal, but did not want to get "bogged down" in the history of the strike.

"I think the important thing to say on this is that if we get madly bogged down on what the previous administration did and what was said to people under the previous administration, we'll never get to solving the dispute," he said.

Harmer said that approach risked an argument of "who said what" before the election and was likely to slow the process down.

As well as the leader being elected on Friday, the city's cabinet positions were also revealed, with the posts all shared between the coalition partners.

A group of independent councillors said they had "put the politics aside" to come together with the Liberal Democrats and Greens to run the authority.

However, the role of scrutinising the new administration has immediately come under fire from Reform UK, which said despite being the biggest party on the council it had been "completely frozen out" of the chairperson roles on the overview and scrutiny committees.

Councillor Jex Parkin, Reform leader in Birmingham, said: "The Green-dominated coalition have observed the Tories' weak performance in opposition over the past 14 years and decided they'd like the same cushy treatment.

"All roles have been handed to the smallest opposition party, in a last minute stitch-up to shut Reform out."

A spokesperson for Reform added they were committed to using their new position as the main opposition to hold the city's administration to account and to stand up for residents.

Following May's elections, the party ruled itself out of controlling the authority, stating no one was willing to work with them.

In response, Harmer said: "The public gave them 20% of the vote, 80% of people didn't vote Reform and that's the nature of democracy.

"You put together an administration that can win in the chamber. That's what we did on Friday. We all saw the votes being cast. They didn't win that - one of their members voted for me."

He said he was co-leader of the authority with the Green's Julian Pritchard, who would serve as leader for two years after he had served two years.

Councillor Harris Khaliq, of the Better Birmingham Independent Group, said coalition partners had "put the politics aside" and that residents had voted for change and "deserved better".

"We've put it all aside and we've come together and we have formed the administration as that is what the most important thing was," he said.

"That is what we've set ourselves up to do... we are now looking forward to delivering on those promises that we campaigned for, collectively."

Khaliq, the new cabinet member for city operations and digital, said the way Reform had campaigned on "divisive" politics led to them being "unable to be worked with by anybody".

"It was a clearer message that Reform didn't want to work with anybody and nobody wanted to work with Reform," he told BBC Radio WM.

Speaking about the city's long running bin strike, the Ward End councillor said he wanted to "restore the city to a cleaner place" and a deal to settle the dispute needed to be made.

"It's now time for us to get serious to settle with Unite and to make sure that a deal is the right deal that doesn't leave the residents of Birmingham short-changed," he said.

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