A West Midlands Mayoral Elections debate took place at Hockley Social Club in Birmingham between incumbent Mayor Andy Street for the Conservatives and Labour candidate Richard Parker on Monday, April 15
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00:00 There are people in this city struggling to pay their council tax increases, not affluent people like me or residents there, I say it in the affluent suburbs, but people in very normal suburbs for whom the council tax increases are big.
00:12 But then there's also people relying on the services. People are writing to me about youth centres closing, libraries closing. It's a very serious situation.
00:21 The question I would ask you straightforwardly, Richard, if you say you haven't got enough information to judge it, which is surprising given your friends run Birmingham and they have done for many, many years.
00:32 I don't run Birmingham, Andy.
00:33 I didn't say you run Birmingham. I said your friends run Birmingham.
00:37 My friends run lots of companies in the region. I don't understand why they do that.
00:42 But you have to accept that you have done lots of very, very positive, supportive social media posts about the previous leader of Birmingham, the current leader of Birmingham. You are close to them.
00:55 So I'm surprised you don't know the details. The simple question is, do you hold those people who have been leading Birmingham accountable for what has happened?
01:06 Richard?
01:09 So let's be clear. I do know the politicians that lead this region and a good relationship with them is fabric to the role of being a command and authority elected Metro Mayor.
01:20 And that relationship is very, very important.
01:23 But I don't run the city. I've never taken a decision on behalf of the city or made a recommendation to them about how it should operate.
01:29 So let's be really, really clear about that.
01:32 I am not at this point in time going to make a judgment on the performance or otherwise of the people who run the city council.
01:40 I do know not enough about what's happened.
01:42 Until the reports have been produced that will give us an insight into what happened and what went wrong and why, I'm not in a position to make a judgment on who should be held accountable or not.
01:55 And that is frankly my position. And I do that because otherwise I'll be just making it up.
02:00 I'm not prepared to take a judgment on things that I know nothing about.
02:04 So Birmingham taxpayers who are facing council tax increases, when they're sat there and are opening the envelope and think "God, why am I paying so much more?"
02:13 Your response to them is to say "Well we don't know why."
02:16 No, my response to them is there are a number of reasons. But one of those reasons is the government are punishing this region and local government.
02:23 They've taken a billion pounds worth out of this budget and they've outsourced austerity to local authorities.
02:29 So let me carry on then. So you've heard it from Richard, he doesn't know enough, he's not prepared to say who's accountable.
02:34 I will say who's accountable very clearly. Because there's a principle of democracy and accountability here.
02:40 It is true that every council across the country in the first half of the last decade saw serious reductions in their budgets. That is true.
02:48 And conservative councils have gone bankrupt.
02:50 Well five councils have gone bankrupt to be precise across the country.