Birmingham City Council finance problems clear years ago - MP

Suzanne Webb, Conservative MP for Stourbridge, sat on the local authority's audit committee between 2018 and 2022 when she was a councillor

An MP who was on a Birmingham City Council monitoring committee said leaders at the time were made aware of the financial position, but "nothing was being done about it".

Last month the council effectively declared it was bankrupt, largely due to equal pay claims of up to £760m.

Former Conservative councillor Suzanne Webb, now MP for Stourbridge, was on the audit committee 2018-2022.

She said details of the financial position were clear at the time.

New council leader John Cotton said last month he was unaware the section 114 - signalling the council's spending exceeded its income - was going to be issued.

The Labour-run local authority had stopped all non-essential spending back in July, over concerns for its financial position. By September it faced an £87m budget shortfall.

'Information was available'

The problems date back to a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that found hundreds of workers in traditionally female-dominated roles were denied bonusses given to those in male-dominated jobs.

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Speaking to BBC Politics Midlands, Ms Webb said when she was on the audit committee "what was very clear at that time, is that all this information was there".

"It was being discussed and credit to the fantastic officers and the audit team and the chief financial officer at the time, all that information was available," she said.

"In terms of audit, what's supposed to happen, all those audit reports go through, they go through to then the leadership team - which will be the political leadership team, for them to make their decisions."

MP Taiwo Owatemi said the issues were a result of the Conservative party's "underfunding of local government"

Labour MP for Coventry North, Taiwo Owatemi, told BBC Politics Midlands the problems were a result of 13 years of the Conservative party's "underfunding of local government".

She said the authority had lost an average of 17.5% of government funding since 2010 and had been affected by then prime minister Liz Truss's "kamikaze budget" - resulting in high inflation and costs.

"The combination of all these factors has left Birmingham and many local authorities in the country in difficult financial situation," Ms Owatemi said.

"Since 2010, eight local authorities have announced a section 114 and 25 have said they are going to do it within the next two years."

But Ms Webb said the financial crisis "was nothing to do with the government" and was due to the equal pay issue that was "never resolved".

Speaking on Friday, new lead commissioner Max Caller - charged with helping the city council recover its financial position - said "Birmingham must get itself out of its own mess".