Birmingham’s Labour council leader answers questions from us and our readers
Leader of Birmingham City Council councillor John Cotton visits the Birmingham Live offices to chat to reporter Jane Haynes.(Image: Nick Wilkinson/Birmingham Live)
Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton has defended his ‘grown up’ relationship with government ministers and rejected claims he is in the pocket of national Labour party chiefs.
Coun Cotton was answering questions at an end-of-year Q&A by BirminghamLive about his leadership and his council’s performance when his style of ‘getting things done’ was raised.
He was asked why he had appeared reluctant to publicly pressure the government last year when it was dallying over whether or not to lift the two child benefit cap, a welfare policy that was widely blamed for pushing more Birmingham families into poverty than anywhere else in the country.
READ MORE: Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency
The Labour Party had pledged to scrap the move when it came into power – only to delay doing so for more than a year. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced it was being lifted in her Budget last month, November.
Coun Cotton was asked why he had failed to support a motion put to the city council last December by the council’s Liberal Democrat group that wanted him to press the Government to lift the two child cap immediately, given the huge impact it was having in Birmingham.
He resisted the call, instead getting the majority Labour group he leads to support a watered down amendment.
‘Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency’ – in a landmark project we spotlight the shocking facts and impacts behind growing child poverty in our city (Image: BirminghamLive)
He also rejected other measures in the motion, deleting a move to install a child poverty expert to ‘champion’ the issue across local government in the city. That had been one of the asks from Birmingham Live’s landmark Child Poverty Emergency campaign last year.
His group also voted against a call to compel council officers to put homeless families with children only into B&Bs within a walk or bus ride of their schools, to ensure continuity of education, amid concerns about kids facing multiple bus journeys or consistently missing school as a result.
Only when it became clear the government was intending to lift the cap in its winter budget last month did Cllr Cotton come out publicly fighting for it, say critics.
We asked if this reaction showed he was not putting Birmingham first over his party. We also asked if it showed he was under the thumb of the national leaders who had selected him as council leader back in 2023.
Coun Cotton’s response
“I think child poverty is a scandal that has disfigured this city for too long. We know that it is outrageous that in our city, the youngest in Europe, we have lots of our young people growing up way below the poverty line.
“It is welcome that we heard the government commit to its child poverty strategy. We are already working very hard to address some of these issues.
“I have never been afraid of speaking out against any national line but what I will say is that I deal in the art of the practical and getting things done.
“Sometimes it’s very easy in politics to pass resolutions or make statements that don’t deliver the change people want to see.
“I was very cognisant of the fact that the government inherited difficult finances, very similar to when I came in as leader (of the council Labour group in 2023), and so I was keen we actually collaborated and worked with government while pressing very hard on a number of these issues.
“I am glad to see that as a result of that sustained lobbying the two child benefit cap has been lifted.
“We are now seeing the fruits of the child poverty strategy coming forward as well. What I want to do is ensure we have a constructive working relationship with government and our regional mayor so we can deliver practical changes for people and policy change that lasts.”
READ MORE: Birmingham: A Child Poverty Emergency
Asked if he thought Brummies would have preferred to see him ‘banging the table’ and making the case for the ban to be ended urgently, as local leaders elsewhere in the country had done, Coun Cotton added: “You need a constructive grown up relationship with government if you are going to deliver change.
“Government plays an enormously important part in terms of funding and policy change, and have access to policy levers that local leaders don’t have, so what I’m not going to do is engage in a war by megaphone with Whitehall decision makers when I think there is a more constructive relationship you can have that delivers change.
“I have a track record over many years of speaking up for Birmingham particularly on poverty and social exclusion.
“That continues to be the case. I also think I have a track record of making difficult decisions and doing things other people have not gripped.
“I know that doesn’t always make me popular but politics should not always be about being popular, it’s about getting things done that matter to people.”