A Birmingham councillor has quit the Labour Party over a controversial “rat tax” amid the city’s ongoing bin strike crisis.
Sam Forsyth, who represents Quinton ward in the west of the city, announced her resignation during a full council meeting on Tuesday, telling colleagues she was “no longer a member of the Labour Party.”
The barrister and anti-poverty campaigner had been automatically suspended after refusing to support Labour’s cost-cutting budget last month.
“I didn’t come into politics to make life any harder for poor people, because I know what that is like,” Forsyth said after the meeting.
Councillor Sam Forsyth has quit the party
PA/Facebook
She described the pest control charges as “completely unpalatable”.
The £24.60 pest control charge was introduced last year as part of the council’s efforts to offset its financial crisis. Rat control treatments were previously free to all Birmingham residents but are now chargeable for those in private accommodation, regardless of income.
Council tenants remain exempt from the fee. The charge comes at a particularly difficult time as the city grapples with a severe bin strike that has exacerbated rat infestations.
Forsyth had voted against last year’s budget and had made her opposition to the charge known within the Labour group before her suspension.
LATEST ON THE BIRMINGHAM BIN STRIKES
Bin workers are currently on strike in Birmingham PAShe told the BBC the city’s waste service needed to be more responsive, especially to vulnerable residents.
Birmingham’s bin strike, now in its fifth week, has created a public health crisis with an estimated 21,000 tonnes of rubbish piled on city streets. The situation has become so severe that Birmingham City Council declared a major incident on March 31.
The industrial action began on March 11 over a dispute between the council and Unite union regarding waste recycling roles.
Private exterminators report rat infestations have magnified threefold, with rodents “growing fat off the rotting food waste”.
Despite “intensive talks” between the council and Unite, the dispute remains unresolved, with Health Secretary expressing concern over the “public health situation”.
Speaking after the meeting, Forsyth explained her concerns about the impact on vulnerable residents.
“What concerns me is the charge itself (£24) while of itself might not be a lot to some, but the people for example who use Quinton food bank, it could be the difference between choosing food or rat control, and well, they couldn’t pay it,” she said.
She warned this creates “a perfect storm” where people try to handle infestations themselves unsuccessfully.
Birmingham has been swamped with rubbish as refuse workers strike against payPA
“Maybe because I experienced rats around growing up, that is why this is so important to me,” Forsyth added.
“Rats frighten people, they carry diseases… it’s just not something we should be lax about.”
Conservative councillor for the Kingstanding area Clifton Welch welcomed Forsyth’s decision to quit Labour.
“Birmingham Labour’s rat tax would be bad enough in normal times, but in the middle of Labour’s bin strike when 21,000 tonnes of rubbish sits on the streets of Birmingham, it is a vindictive and spiteful tax,” he said
Birmingham City Council headquarters
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Welch urged other Labour councillors to “show the same courage as Cllr Forsyth and also resign their Labour memberships.”
The controversy intensified when a resident dressed as a giant rat appeared at Tuesday’s council meeting, mockingly thanking officials for allowing rats to “rampage in the streets”.
