Council - Wednesday 18 October 2023, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting
Council
Wednesday, 18th October 2023 at 7:30pm
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Good evening, Councillors.
I know that Councillors will be at shock and sadden, as I am about recent.
events in the Middle East.
we realised this was, this will be a difficult time for many of our community, particularly those who have families or friends who have died and been had, or remain at hum.
our heart goes out to you.
this is a deeply worrying time for many in London, Jewish and Muslim communities, we also ask that everyone in our community not only stand against antisemitism and Islamophobia, but that we reach out across our communities to share our compassion and love at this difficult time.
I invite all councillors to join me and observe a minute's silence in recognition of innocent Israelis, Palestinians and others who have lost their lives, all of those taken hostage and all those affected by conflicts in the region and around the world, please join me now in standing,
before the commencement of business that the Council maintained by calling on Pastor Fred oesophageal for it to say a prayer.
good evening, everyone.
as we have gathered today to commence our meeting, I want us to just pond down what has just happened, the past few days, just a little over a week in the Middle East, whereby people are being killed.
PE and is our retaliation, but the main sad thing is that it doesn't matter where you belong.
it is about life, the loss of life is something none of us can even put a price on it, and that's why all of us, our hat, goes to, as we have got it this evening, we all belong to a particular party but as a common good that bring us together as a nation and as humans there is also a common good now being asked to get asset people.
no matter how your views or wherever they divide you, it comes from, something bring all of us together and am strongly believe if all of us, no matter where we are.
despite our race, our colour or our religion, or wherever we are coming from.
if we can embrace love.
peace and understanding the whole world would be a better police, I always say to people, look if I'm taken to the hospital that I need blood infusion.
the blunder will be given to me, it's not about colour, it's not about race, it's not about religion as long as it's a match to mine.
they will give that to me, and that tells us that we are all one and we need to embrace that, so as our thoughts and hearts goes to those large that are lost and those that are grieving and those that are asked and die are in pain and those that are not even having the basic amenities to survival shall we all rise to our feet and pray police,
father, we give you praise once again your word ashore as that in all things we should give you tanks, so even in this difficult time, so God in this painful moment, in this moment of lost grief or God and anxiety.
we stand together as a House, we stand together as a nation, we stand together as a Council and we say we thank you. We pray and come meet God, the Middle East crisis, into your hands, all that we desire that there will be peace, you, God of peace, will bring peace and understanding that each one of them will realise that we are all humans and we deserve to live our lives in peace farther. We pray that where those grieve, where there is pain, where there is anger, where there is misunderstanding your peace will come in your piece, will dwell among them. Your piece will overrule that all God Wall will cease in Jesus' name, we pray, as we meet today, to deliberate on issues concerning our communities. We're pray for understanding, were pray for the wisdom we pray, that you will grant, as de grace, even to do the things that we are called to do and the difficult things that we are not able to do. Lord God, you grant as the understanding and wisdom of how to go about them
we give you praise this evening in Jesus' name and all shall say, amen.
please be seated.
apologies had been received from Councillor Akinola status, Cooper Dobres French Frazer, Govindia White Worrall, are there any any other apologies?
did you say Councillor for Surrey?
OK.
and Councillor Les Yeats, although she may attend part of the meeting, but probably not thank you, thank you.
item number 1.
the minutes of the meeting held on 19th of July have been circulated, are there any objections, abstention to merely signing the minutes as a correct record?
I agree.
item number 2.
Good evening, everyone and welcome to tonight's meeting, I must start by saying a huge thank you to all Councillors who supported my first charity event last Friday, feedback from councillors, the charities and guests spoke to how great the events was, we are still taller in the proceed.
but with contribution from enable approximately 10,000 pounds was raised on the night, the charities Committee and HIE continue to look for other ways, to fundraise and to build awareness for the charities, please look out for more information or contact my office if you would like any specific detail.
it has also been great to celebrate activities across Black history month, and if you have not yet participated in an event, please do check out the Council website.
I have also been enjoying celebrating local heroes by saying thank you and hearing their stories, it was great to recently received of the many local heroes put forward to the Wandsworth Civic Awards and a record 81 nominations was received, please note the date.
in your diary 7 Tuesday the 7th of November, thank you all.
on tonight's agenda can members, please note that a member, a number of supplementary item has been circulated and these are required to be considered as a matter of urgency?
the reasons are set out in full at the top of those item is that agreed.
thank you.
please who all speak as keeps the time and wind up your speeches when the red light comes on, I will cut, I will cut your microphone off, if you go over a lot of time, this is to allow as many as possible of all councillors to participate.
members, as I note in my last Council meeting, I am still suffering with a back pain with a bad back, so I may need to stand for a few minutes during this meeting to relieve pressure on my back if I stand, please continue as usual if I need to stand to bring order to the chambers I will announce this before standing up.
this is the end of my announcements.
ITEM 3.
that any Members who have any declaration of disclosable pecuniary interest, other registrable interests or any non registrable interests relevant to any matter to be discussed at this meeting.
nonetheless, we thank you on a landlord in the bar.
thank you, Councillor, I'm a member of London, renters' union, which I think is relevant.
thank you.
item number 5 relates to the sealing of documents is this item received as information?
great, thank you.
item number 5 members please raise your hand to indicate if you have a petition to an end, once I have called your name, please announced the subject title of the petition and who you are presenting on behalf of, please, then come forward and hand your petition to Mrs. Kelly.
are there any petitions Councillor Hedges?
how many?
Councillor Booth.
thank you, Madam Mayor, two petitions tonight from me on behalf of Councillor Hamilton myself, the Balham ward one for Fenside Road, where we have 40 signatures, the other for ambush and road when 32 signatures, the petition is calling on Wandsworth council's community safety team to work closely with the Met police to improve crime and safety following a spate of crime and theft on both of these quiet residential roads thank you.
Councillor Putin, thank you very much, yeah, so a petition on behalf of the residents of Eden Road, calling upon Wandsworth Council to investigate measures to tackle speeding and reduce congestion.
Councillor Graham
for a long time.
5
Councillor constantly Hamilton, Councillor Hamilton,
the housing dangerous.
the Council introduced yeah Mrs. Angela Graham,
thank you imagine that.
I've got a petition from Coleford Grove and Ride Bow Street petition, and it is a petition from residents.
because they are requesting repair of all the dangerous and uneven pavements and resurface our road, this is a growing safety concern which has generated a lot of complaints by residents over the last few years, and we call on Wandsworth council to fix our roads and pavements.
think?
Councillor Burgess,
thank you, my Lord Mayor, I have a petition from the residents of Derby Road Hendon, Road and Crockerton Street, asking for the council to resurface the road and repair the dangerous and uneven pavements.
Councillor Lambert,
I've got a petition from Councillor status and myself, I'm sorry, Councillor status can't be here because he's not well, so could we send her our best wishes from this meeting making Church Walk and granddad alleyways safe for moped speeders signed by 126 local residents.
I ask him to bring it forward, Councillor, I much please kind of bring it forward.
in presented electronically, Olga I think you.
nevertheless, thank you.
item number 6 for latest questions before we begin questions, may I remind all Members that the overall period of Members question.
to the Leader and Cabinet Member is four to five minutes with 20 minutes for leaders' questions and 25 minutes for Cabinet Members' questions, however, if the Leader's question overrun, this time is taken of the Cabinet Member's questions.
so question number one to Councillor Sweden, question number 1 to the leader, I'd like to thank the Councillor for that question and thank you, Madam Mayor, and obviously want to associate myself with the comments she made on the awful situation in the Middle East turning to Councillor Sweet's question.
our ambition is that one Swiss councillor should reflect the communities that they represent, working conditions and remuneration are critical to make sure that residents from all walks of life are able to consider joining us becoming a councillor and taking on a leadership role within the Council, the independent panel on the remuneration of Councillors in London shows one's worth being significantly behind some other London boroughs in terms of councillor allowances, so while freezing council freezing our allowances last year in the depths of the cost of living crisis was the right thing to do,
I think there is a balance to be struck here because it is unsustainable if the cost of living keeps rising, the cost of being a councillor, keeps rising, but the pay doesn't keep up, and I think our residents will understand that because it isn't fair if you have to be independently wealthy to to serve on this Council or to leave your job in and take on a leadership role.
so we are taking action. We were deciding, like many other councils, to link the basic pay increases for councillors to those of staff. So roughly this year the staff got 4% increases, the councillors, will the staff get a pay freeze, we get a pay freeze if the staff get 5%, we get 5%, so hopefully this will have public buy-in and it will take some of the politics of the year on year decisions we have to take in future, so I think that's entirely fair and proportionate. He does ask if the cost of living
crisis is over for our residents and of course the answer is, sadly it is not, and that's why we have the biggest cost of living package anywhere in the country, and that includes a council tax freeze, free school uniforms now a local you less support scheme and we're proud of our cost of living response and of our fair and reasonable approach to councillor allowances.
supplementary, Madam Mayor, thank you, thank you, leader for your answer.
have you decided Leader which two of your councillors will be leaving the Councillor Chamber tonight without a special allowance?
Councillor, I'd like to thank Councillor Sweet for that question, no, that that hasn't crossed my mind bit of a weird question, but then pretty weird overall of all the things opposition leader can ask a question on anything can ask a question on housing, can ask a question on healthcare and education, but here we are once again talking about the internal workings of the Council, let me say to him again, our plan is entirely proportionate and fair, but let's go through the proposals. We are linking our pay increases with those of our hard-working officers that's fair and reasonable. We're making changes to some committee chairs to reflect the public service they do, which is fair and reasonable.
by putting the Chief Whip back to the allowance they received under his administration, that's fair and reasonable, and we're better supporting the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, which I think is fair and reasonable, and I'm afraid he's just not right on this, we don't want people to be priced out of serving in elected office, but perhaps he does we want to be fair and reasonable, so that's what we'd be doing second supplementary.
the concept of emerging thank you is clear that the Tories are going to be doing a lot of banging of the same drum tonight when it comes to allowances every time only mentioned in the financials in councillor pay acting as if all the Councillors are just an arbitrary expense there needs to be minimised regardless of what value they bring to our communities you could say the same way they treat every other public service.
can the lead a piece expand on the importance in some of our councillors and the benefits they bring for more disgust?
so I think Councillor Coakley for that supplementary question.
I think there's something really important at the heart of that councillors on a liability were an asset, not a 10,000 pound cost, you are doing incredible work, not just in the town hall, but in the community that is delivering far far more than that you should be careful asking me to single people out because I'm obviously going to start with you Jamie because been a fantastic addition to the team and like tens of thousands of people in our borough,
you work full time, you're you're a private renter, I know hope you won't mind me saying you know, you've experienced those difficulties in being able to find an affordable place, you know sharing homes, and so on. You've done incredible work leading on clean air for us is part of that citizens' assembly really close attention to that riverside walk in beautiful St Mary's, so we just really pleased and proud to have you on the Council and to have people of yore, if I may say so, imagine, Mayor, that's very file, which isn't the same. This is completely of subject. Can we move on
well, let's pick someone else, I don't know so you can see you yeah well then Jamie.
you objected to us paying allowances allowances subject to the question to our champions, and I'd like to highlight the work of similar Varatharajah, who has done incredible work, incredible work as our refugees champion, not just welcoming the 1,000 Ukrainian guests to our borough but also the Syrian Afghan refugees, and it's been lovely when you actually hear feedback from some of the guests we have in our refugee hostel that those women have said they've actually had a warmer welcome here than anywhere else. They've been so incredibly grateful to Councillor Varatharajah and just to note your administration, use that money for the deputy chairs of committees and I'm afraid those of us who'd been around for a while knows that those deputy chairs haven't had a patch of the good that our champions have done and just briefly to
well, let's be fair, let's look elsewhere in the Chamber we see Councillor Grimston who doesn't have a party behind him but puts in as much work as anyone else, he gets round there, we try and contact new people who get on the electoral register he goes round and knocks on the door of new people on the electoral register.
I would say I would say he's written the book about a West Hill ward politics, but he has written the book about West Hill ward politics and he provides good advice and insight from me as well, so this sort of public service also reminds me of Tory councillors of the past that sort of Peter Dawson's the Rosemary towering Councillor Health, please can you run up well I'll just finish by saying,
here's the hardworking local representatives.
question that my question to the Leader
I thank Councillor Sweet for the question, which is almost as bizarre as the supplementary he just asked it totally misrepresented the council's finances and frankly, I don't think he understands how the budget works, so let's start at the start this year we set a balanced budget and froze council tax Wandsworth charges the lowest average council tax in the country and I know you don't like us talking about this but residents told me how much it means to them.
we are the party of sound financial management and now we also, at the same time, have an ambitious housebuilding programme but, unlike your administration, this is a 100% new council homes for local families. Now this is the bit you find confusing. This is funded from a separate ring fenced housing, revenue account. This is legally separate from the General Fund for day-to-day running of Council services and also your question betrays a complete lack of understanding of the plans you had in place before we took control your HR business plan that we inherited in May 2022 included peak borrowing of more than 500 million pounds 505 Councillor Graham, please kindly allowed the Leader to answer the question please.
thank you, so we've taken
so I had a bit, I didn't get to in the first question about how they were petty and pedantic, and it was also the you know, sort of bully-boy politics shouting over other people trying to silence minority voices and I think that we will get round to that later. But the point is we have taken their housing ambitions further and we've committed to 100% social rented homes within the homes for Wandsworth programme. This has naturally increased our borrowing, but we've also been able to secure, I think, 85 million pounds of grant from the GLA which you never did so this means that our additional investment is both good value and it will deliver more than 400 much-needed extra homes, and those are homes for local people and their sons and their daughters, not just homes for overseas investors to buy
under Labour Wandsworth council is insane financial hands and we believe the scale and ambition of this housing investment is long overdue, it will create a significant number of new family homes to residents in most need and we are delivering our manifesto commitment to provide more truly affordable housing and let's be super clear, this is something the previous administration could have done and it chose not to.
supplementary.
supplementary. Madam Mayor, thank you, may I just say, Councillor Hulk, I am very disappointed by how much time you're taking to answer these questions. I thought we'd reached an agreement over the summer that you would be quicker in your answers to questions under the previous mayor and you're just running down the clock. It's it's atrocious for democracy and I would expect better now your your question, your answer to the question 2, I think is classic Labour saying that a question about 500 million pounds of debt is bizarre is classic Labour
now the prudential indicators in your answer were approved under you, not by us, I think it shows that the party that doesn't understand the council finances is the Labour party, not the Conservative party, as you state in your own answer, internal borrowing is still borrowing my question is, has the Leader calculated the cost of this interest over the next half century?
I would like to thank Councillor Suite for another truly bizarre question and the I would not say he was the Wandsworth councillor, who should be handing out advice on how to ask or answer questions, but I'll keep going if that's all right and I'm certainly not going to take financial advice from him and the party that crashed our economy pretty much one years ago. Mortgage or mortgages are up, rents are up, heating bills are up, food bills are up and our residents know it's the Tories who did it? I remember some very enthusiastic backers of Liz Truss opposite, who've gone slightly quiet on that, so I say this to him as well. Avoiding borrowing at all costs is not sound. Financial management in itself borrowing, allows something allows you to have something today and pay for it over the lifetime of the asset. People do this all the time with their cars and their homes. I would love him to turn up to a Wandsworth business meeting and harangue them for taking on debt for trying to invest in the future of their businesses, and we will do it with affordable housing, which will pay us rents for decades and decades to come, and there is much to do. We will need a decade of renewal to make up for the Tory underinvestment that we have seen over decades in our borough.
I know people in Wandsworth are smart and they're very financially literate, they just see through your patronising attacks, there was a recent Tory leaflet and I say it was a Tory leaflet, but you'd need an electron microscope to see the fact that it sort of admitted that it was kind of from the Tories recently because they know they're not trusted by local people and this leaflet managed to mix up general fund spending with HR spending and capital spending with I mean the whole thing was a complete mess they used to be Wandsworth Tories, we used to be worried about their financial management.
you have to be careful these days who you take financial advice from and what I'd say to Councillor Suite is political fortunes can go up, as well as down and from the party that gave billions, billions of pounds of wasted COVID contracts who presided over HS2 as a tale of woe and waste and called people's mortgages to skyrocket.
I suggest people do not take financial advice and the Wandsworth Tories,
Councillor Amash.
second supplementary note and that it's a pity Councillor Sweet didn't attend our recent Finance Committee, the Director of Finance told us that, despite central government's swingeing cuts to local government funding over recent years, many local authorities in trouble of all political persuasions were in relatively good financial health.
but, Councillor Ireland, the Cabinet Member is working on reducing the projected deficit for next year and we have significant resources and balances to help further housing and capital projects, it is quite usual to borrow money for them, my question to the Leader is what will Labour residents get from these Labour administration investments?
Councillor Hogan,
I thank Councillor ambush for the excellent question. Here's what you get from Wandsworth Labour in their same financial management, a thousand new council homes for local families, paying the London living wage, to everyone who works for us, extending library opening hours, opening two new libraries, more school streets, a hundred by Kangas, with plans for up to 300 London's biggest cost of living response, fortnightly mega skips already cut fly tipping by 11% guaranteed weekly bin collections borough wide food waste. Coming next year we've doubled domestic abuse support. We've got an Ofsted rating of good for our children's services, new Wandsworth Bridge delivered on time and on budget, dozens of new homeless staff, landlord licensing for the private rented sector and international, A rating for our climate change work, a London borough of culture bid, bringing the whole borough together the same low council tax with better services for all, and we're just getting started. It will take a decade of renewal to reverse the Tories' impact on our borough, but we will deliver a fairer, more compassionate and more sustainable borough for all. That's the real world, difference that sensible investment by Wandsworth Labour makes.
question question, no motorway cost of living, Councillor Booth, thank you about him, question 3 to the Leader, I thank Councillor Varatharajah for the question.
I am glad to finally move on to something that is of central importance to local people. We know how hard the cost of living crisis continues to hit residents and we're proud to have the most generous cost of living support package in London last winter. You'll recall, we introduced a major package of support and this winter this year we're building on that even more. We've recently set up a grant for the community and voluntary groups that help Wandsworth residents over the winter months and so far we've directed 1.3 million pounds to the voluntary sector and of course they've massively multiplied that impact in our communities. We will continue to run the community spaces this winter to give residents somewhere warm and safe, to socialise, to relax and enjoy activities and meals. Over last winter, 55 1 spaces were open, libraries were open for an extra 224 hours each month and we also serve 27,000 hot meals at our council spaces. I remember Councillor Boles sharing with us recently a story about children having to ask for more food when they're at school, because they don't know where their next meal is coming from. It's absolutely crucial, and obviously this is a wonderful project. Over 600,000 pounds has been brought into ones with older households via our pension credit campaign, which is worth looking at its innovative.
and since last winter we've kept up the work, we've set aside a million pounds for a US scrappage scheme to help residents on lower incomes and their carers to make the switch from high-polluting vehicles to greener forms of travel, and Sadiq Khan has launched universal free school meals which I think bears on the points that Councillor Boswell and Councillor Stock have made so many times.
we want to look to the future now and build resilience, make the structural changes that will support people through the next downturn, which I'm afraid will come so we've established an innovative cost of living commission. I love I would love for Councillor Akinola to be here, so I could thank her in person. She's done incredible work, getting out in the Town Hall across our communities, listening to Youth Council, representatives to businesses, faith leaders, academics, health colleagues and, along with other brilliant work like our citizens' assembly on air quality. The Commission is part of a new approach in Wandsworth of being open, outward-facing and community facing. And just to finish by saying I'm keen to have the input of all Councillors, you will know what works in your local community. So if you know of a voluntary organisation or church, whatever it might be, that needs support over the winter, please get in touch because we want to get that support out to the front line
supplementary question, yes, go ahead, thank you, leader, So awful food bank had one of their busiest sessions just two weeks ago at the start of October, with numbers matching the peak of last winter and over the past year the number of children in food poverty has almost doubled to 4 million. And, as we all know, and as you did mention earlier, the Mayor of London introduced a free school meals for all key stage. 2 children all key stage 2 children, so how does this align with the Council's strategy and policies moving forward?
I think Councillor Varatharajah for that question and I hope we'd all do join her in paying tribute to the work of not just those fuel food bank which is incredible but all of the food banks in our community which we respect and we cherish and we wish did not exist and we're gonna do everything we can to put them out of business and we really welcome the Mayor of London scheme to fund those school meals for key stage 2 making sure it's all.
primary schoolchildren and it's been incredibly popular with local parents. Is it's the main sort of bit of politics? They've been keen to talk about in the last couple of months. The scheme ensures that all primary schoolchildren get at least one nutritious meal a day, helping them to concentrate in the classroom and reach their full potential. I was delighted to welcome this new scheme with a couple of visits to Councillor stock. So we visited Sacred heart school in Battersea, with the deputy mayor for London, London Assembly, cost of living working group heard from parents and pupils' and children themselves about what a success it was been and we were happy to get our hairnets on and serve up some free school meals alongside Dr Rosella Adnan Khan, the local MP, at Elsfield, Primary School
it was an initial suggestion for the latest issue of Brightside that we have the hairnets photos on the front, but you'll be glad to know, we went in a different creative direction and, just to say, the Mayor of London scheme aligns closely with our own food strategy you'll see Magic breakfast coming into our schools starting with those schools with the highest proportion of free school meals.
and I'll I'll conclude by saying we're proud to have extended our school uniform voucher scheme into its second year, this scheme helps families on lower incomes through the cost of their uniforms to make sure that all Wandsworth children can arrive at school, looking smart feeling, confident and ready to learn.
second supplementary, Madam Mayor, it's obviously good that the Council's support, I'm sorry them, the time for this question has now been, while I've already started speaking, you should let me.
OK.
that thank you, Madam Mayor, and of course this is a good excuse for the Leader to keep his answer succinct, it's clearly good that the Council supports the most vulnerable residents during these difficult economic times.
given the long term potential long term nature of these measures, will he commit to funding a an independent report into the are into the efficiency and effectiveness of these schemes, so that we can ascertain whether the Council is achieving absolutely the best possible outcomes for the money it is spending for our residents?
to the Leader some, I thank you for that question, which things are reasonable when we do need to ensure value for money.
I think the body you're talking about is his Finance Committee, but if you have an idea of an external group that you may have worked with before or who is active in this space will obviously look at that because, as I say, all we want to do is for this money to be spent in the most effective way that that gets to the front line. I think you'll see we learned a lot of lessons last winter. You can reflect on the fact that just opening a space, even a library, just opening it and saying come along well, maybe people don't want to spend four hours just sitting in an empty space. She knows it was those spaces where we put on activities where you know people were trusted, they could go somewhere where they normally went to. So, as I say, if Councillors have learned any lessons or if you think there are mechanisms for us to learn lessons vii, very keen to hear
the time to relay this question has now finished.
Councillor Hampson, thank you, I'd like to make her a standing order, denying be like to raise a standing order under 9 B rather, which is to reverse to take item 10 as item 9 and item 9 as item 10.
do you have a seconder?
seconded.
is the motion to amend?
OK, it is a motion to amend the order for business in this way agreed.
standing order 28 million man.
I move that the Council adjourn for two minutes to join the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for full solidarity with the Jewish community in the face of disgraceful hatred and prejudice we have seen on our streets online and on campuses.
do you have a second seconded?
how long do you wish to hadn't you wish the Council to agenda 2 minutes 2 minutes?
please speak into your motion.
on Saturday, the 7th of October, the terrorist organisation Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli civilians.
hundreds of men, women and children, including babies, were mercilessly and with sic celebratory intent, slaughtered children shot in front of their parents, women raped and murdered their corpses paraded through the streets, festival goers rounded up and shot countless, more abducted.
meanwhile, in this country and around the world, antisemitic hate crimes have surged, as some who think these killings justified seize their chance to capitalise on Hamas's brutality to terrorise any Jews within their reach here, the Mayor of London's response has been exemplary, lighting up City Hall in blue and white meeting with Jewish organisations to show solidarity.
and working with the Met police, to ensure Jewish communities and schools.
are protected.
given the scale of this outrage, it is beyond disappointing that once with Council has done so little to acknowledge the attacks or to reassure local Jewish population, a community on edge and concerned for their safety.
sadiq Khan has shown that it is perfectly possible to recognise the evils of Hamas's attack against Israel, while also speaking rightfully, about our deep concern for the safety of innocent civilians in Gaza, as the Israeli government seeks to dismantle Hamas, the question has to be asked, why did the Council not follow the Mayor of London's lead in marking this tragedy? There has been cross-party support in this Council for doing so for others, including the war in Ukraine.
if the administration was not minded to do so, then perhaps it could have at least put flags at half mast. Surely the murder of over 1,400 people warranted this basic respect? The Deputy Mayor's candles of hope event with faith leaders on Monday. The night was the right and welcome thing to do, but the first of the public, and indeed we knew about it, was a short press release published two days later and press release might be stretching it. A three sentence quote from the archbishop from the Archdeacon of Wandsworth, giving almost no context to the event it denied the grim proudly proclaimed intent of the killers. We have a duty to speak plainly about what this attack was really about. Over 1,000 people were murdered in cold blood because they were Jews. That is important to acknowledge, and it is important to that same community of people who call this borough the city, this country, their home
like the Deputy Mayor's event, the leader's visit last Friday to the Wimbledon synagogue was welcomed, while not the subject of a council press release the tweet promoting it did at least acknowledge the rise in antisemitic hatred across the country, but it did not acknowledge why there has been a rise, it did nothing to assure the local Jewish community of their value and place in our borough, nor did it mention whether he has spoken to the police about the safety of the music school in Roehampton.
all of us are concerned for the safety of civilians in Gaza.
calling for their protection is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, many recent protests under this banner have been exploited by those who seek the eradication of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews. I hope the Leader will ensure that his group will have taken heed of their party's sensible, strong advice that elected Labour representatives should not have attended any of these events to avoid sharing a platform with individuals that threatened to undermine the values and principles the meetings we attend, those we associate ourselves with our comments in the press and, crucially, the things we choose to emit communicate important messages about our values. This administration should think more carefully about how it can communicate its support for the Jewish community in Wandsworth
on the evidence we've seen so far, the plans for more inclusive borough have a glaring gap, supporting this motion, declaring this Council's unambiguous support for our Jewish neighbours will go some way to bridging it on a par on a point of order Parma.
can I just say.
as far as I'm aware, I'm the only Jewish councillor in this room outwardly.
I am absolutely disgusted.
I am devastated and disgusted that unless I could be wrong and I'm happy to be corrected, unless anyone on your side of you if you spoke in a Jewish, I think this is disgusting and I am going to walk out of here now because I have never ever been this upset, I may have had antisemitism, my whole life, hello Councillor Surrey police experienced here, excuse me we're standing order is that my personal life I did not expect in this position for someone to come and stand up and claim to speak on behalf of my community after what I've been through in my life what my friends are going through in Israel, people that I knew when I lived there, how dare you claim to speak for me?
this is shocking absolutely shocking.
Councillor Hug, would you like to respond?
while I'd like to know the
the heartfelt sentiment and the the strength of feeling on this issue, and I know all councillors, will join me in a deep sadness at the terrible violence in the Middle East, the situation is a humanitarian catastrophe and our thoughts and prayers are with everyone.
affected by the horrific violence that we've seen.
we remain proud, very proud of the compassion shown between the people from all backgrounds in Wandsworth and will continue to work with our partners, including the police, to ensure that everyone continues to feel safe in our borough.
the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Jeffery, has been mentioned, held a multi-faith event at the Town Hall, with rabbi Geoff, Berger imam, cited Alireza's Zowie, and the archdeacon of Wandsworth John Kidal to light candles of hope, and it may not have seen much, but it's what we had at the time.
and as Leader of the Council, I have listened to the Chair of Balham, mosque and Tooting Islamic Centre have been attended the Kabbalah sherbets service at Wimbledon synagogue on Friday to join Jewish residents in prayerful reflection of the terrible situation unfolding and all of these meetings and events we've reiterated the importance of the community coming together and supporting each other at this very difficult time.
and all of those institutions, the the mosques, the synagogue, the police, the Council accepted as a guiding principle that everything they did would be to bring the community together, not to divide it, not not to try and pit one side against the other for party political advantage.
and I think the opposition group had a chance to approach to craft a bipartisan resolution if they were trying to bring people together rather than divide them for party political gain. That's what they would have done. People watching may not know what's happened is, just as so the surprise motion, where you can pick anything without consulting without trying to build consensus, and it's deliberately used to surprise and embarrassed politicians, and I'd like to apologise to Councillor Mayorkas who has just been traumatised for the party political gain. If the Conservative party and I hope Councillor Jeffreys will reflect on this, I can reveal to him because this is what he wants, that the Labour party will abstain if he pushes this surprise, a German motion to a vote for reasons that he's perfectly well aware of. This is not to bring people together. This is not to heal division. This is to create quick headline on a blog and you get to go home and when you're trying to go to sleep tonight you get to think about what you came to Wandsworth Town Hall and tried to do to our community, and I hope you think about what you did to check this evening. Any reports of hate crime should be reported immediately and will be investigated by the Metropolitan police. This week is Hate Crime awareness week, and the council is running a strong campaign to ensure all residents aware of places to find support or to report any potential hate crime incidents,
we will continue to stand in solidarity and support our local community and pray for a peaceful and swift end to this conflict, thank you, madam.
Councillor Geoffrey, are you satisfied with the explanation provided and would you like to withdraw your motion or would you like the motion be put to a vote, I'd be grateful to move the motion to the vote.
the motion
the motion now before the Council is that the Council do now adjoin for two minutes to draw attention to.
this Council adjourned for two minutes to join the Archbishop of Canterbury, called for a full solidarity with the Jewish community in the face of disgrace, hatred and prejudice we have seen on our streets.
online and on campus.
the Council now.
OK we all right, so all those in favour.
all those against.
abstentions.
the adjustments
motion is carried.
I turned into two minutes here.
the whips have agreed that item 16, the motion on tackling the climate emergency will be taken less, can I ask Councillor Gasser to move and Councillor Geoffrey, to second the motion in their names?
Councillor Atkinson,
thank you, Alan, for it is another very serious subject that is not going to be a lighthearted speech.
going to start as Councillor gossip woman is dead personal here, she's not here, so we can just take the assistant.
anybody wants to take anything off the hook.
all right, please go ahead, OK, thank you.
so I'm going to start with a quote from somebody that we all know, unfortunately he's not here this evening.
this is from him, climate change is the ultimate global issue, global issue, it affects all of us today, in countless different ways, it is a very real and quantifiable threat to the way of life of current and future generations.
and the person that said that was actually Councillor Rafiq of India when he was Leader its introduction to the Wandsworth environment sustainability strategy.
all of us here in Wandsworth know how real the crime emergency is, we declared a climate emergency together in 2019, we supported you and now you support us.
there is still an emergency, it's accelerating all the time this year we have seen terrible climate extremes, floods, heatwaves, fires, typhoons, hurricanes on approximately one third of days this year, the average global temperature was at least 1.5 degrees centigrade or higher than pre-industrial levels and that's the tipping point.
in the first week of July this year, the planet saw the hottest day ever recorded and we're seeing a catastrophic loss of biodiversity, one in six species at risk of extinction in the UK, one of the worst rates in the world.
last year in July, as the UK sweltered in record temperatures, the High Court ruled against the government's inadequate Net Zero Strategy, concluding that it breaches the climate change Act and needs to be strengthened. Your prime minister and your government just don't get it and we're reneging on its commitments allowing new oil and gas fields to be explored, pushing back the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars, pushing back the deadline for phasing out gas boilers
this move has been condemned by everyone from Alok, Sharma and Zac Goldsmith to Al Gore, even Boris Johnson, even Boris, got it, he understood the climate emergency.
the automobile and energy industries are in despair, they don't know what UK policy is from one day to the next.
and actually industry gets hit all the big companies are working on their own net-zero strategies, just as civil servants, both nationally and locally, get it and are working on these strategies, we all know we have to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as fast as possible. You guys know it, we know it is just that your prime minister keeps changing his mind.
so this evening this Council reaffirms its commitment to combating climate change in every way we can, we have set ambitious targets, our goals for the Council to be Council carbon neutral by 2030 for the Borough of Wandsworth, to be a net borough by 2043.
and we're on the way we're replacing our highways fleets with electric vehicles, and I've been lorries with vehicles that will run on recycled vegetable oil. We're improving waste and recycling and food waste collection will roll out across the borough next year. We're applying for all the funding we can to modernise and decarbonise our council buildings, our schools, our leisure centres, swimming pools. We've written ambitious air quality action plan and will not rest until all our air is safe for our residents to breathe. We're supporting new lows, it will save many lives
and we're also supporting ones with residents, with a 1 million pounds scrappage scheme on top of the mayor scrappage scheme for all low income residents, we know life is very tough at the moment and we're doing every every bit of help we can.
we would like to be helping our residents and council housing to insulate their homes to save on their fuel bills, but the government has made what little funding there is impossible to access, we desperately need to be insulating all our homes, but this government just doesn't get it, they refuse to help and they refuse to take the problem seriously.
here in Wandsworth, we're taking it very seriously, and I am sure we all join together to vote for this motion motion and reaffirm our commitment to do absolutely everything we can.
Councillor Hamilton, thank you very much, Madam Mayor, I hadn't intended to refer to the Adjournment debate, but I just wanted to associate myself with the dignified and, I think, moving comments made by my colleague and friend James Jeffries in his speech a few moments ago.
madam Mayor, I would like to also thank Councillor Gasser and Councillor Jaffray for moving this motion this evening. When it comes to climate changes is clearly an issue. Every single person in this Chamber and every single person on this Council cares deeply about, but once I welcome the spirit of this motion, I cannot accept the premise that our Conservative governments, although sitting in this group who, for so many years, have done so much to write issues to do with council climate change into Council policy, are somehow failing to meet this challenge. There are some challenges, I think in some fundamentals. We need to be very clear on when we look at the climate change debate. First is to recognise the genuine global leadership that the UK has taken in tackling climate change. We've already cut our carbon emissions faster than any other country in the G7 of particular relevance and interest to Wandsworth residents. The UK is already far below the European average in terms of carbon emissions, but also in terms of emissions that are coming from vehicles and fuel. We are already making significant progress in this country, and indeed this city to cleaner air and cutting pollution. Second, is to look again at the issue of global leadership. This motion, I think, quite appropriately makes reference to extreme weather conditions like floods, heatwaves, fires, typhoons and deforestation, which I've seen in my mother's own country, Brazil, which has been racked with this particular climate change disaster for a number of years, and it's particularly developing countries that are impacted worst by climate change to that end, the UK has already pledged 1.6 billion to the green climate change fund
this is the largest single investment the UK has ever made in tackling climate change and in terms of investments, it's far more than it's been provided by France, far more than Germany, more than Spain and more than Canada, we are leaders on this issue.
third, let's look at the United Kingdom's investments in renewable energy that have been made under this Conservative government since 2010.
in the first three months of this year, more than half of our energy came from annual energy sources, but we can't only rely on renewables to meet our energy challenges or accept that renewable energy is the only clean energy that exists. I'm sure Councillor Grimston would agree with me that nuclear must form a part of that energy mix. There's no doubt that in the last few months the governments had to make some very difficult decisions about the way that we approach climate change as a challenge, and I wanted to read a quote which I think encapsulates my view and I think most sensible Conservative party's views from the Environmental Audit Committee
in which they say that that a debate about climate change has been produced to the presentation of the debate over Net Zero measures as a binary choice between those who oppose net-zero policies on the grounds of excessive costs, excessive burdens or the regulation of the evidence of climate change or those that demand change at a pace which is impractical and unaffordable. We need to be realistic in terms of what we can do, and in this Council Chamber I think we are already being realistic. I look, for example, at the investment that's been made in the electric vehicle charging points wildly popular with residents, but also recognises that by 2030 most vehicles will have moved to being electric charge. I also listened to the comments about the retrofitting of the council estates and I know that the government is making funds available, and I hope that gas meets the Councillor gas that will work extremely hard with central government to get more money into those retrofitting and insulating programmes.
madam Mayor, this is a Conservative government nationally that has invested unprecedented amounts in in tackling climate change in investing in renewables, and, I believe, sets us up extremely well for an extremely successful future in the UK and equally as a global leader in this field.
greenhouse gas emissions are down in the UK, 50% since 1990. That's far more than the 22% achieved in France, and it certainly more than the 300% increase that's been seen in the People's Republic of China, even that great symbol of our skyline here in Wandsworth Battersea power station has gone from being a coal belching power station to being a building that has won international awards for its energy efficiency and insulation. That's the future. That's the reality of where this country is in terms of our contribution to climate change, and I urge, however, Conservative colleagues to join me in voting against this motion tonight because we're proud of what our countries achieved in this sense and we're not going to play petty party politics like the Labour administration of with this motion. Thank you
Councillor Geoffrey.
thank you, Madam Mayor, so the climate crisis is here, it might not yet be here in London, but it has arrived in the global south and there are signs it won't be long before we are seeing catastrophic impacts here, even in Wandsworth last year the worst disaster hit Paxton, more than 7,500 people lost their lives in the flooding and also almost 13,000 people were injured, many people still haven't recovered from the aftermath of the flooding.
33 million have been impacted, 8 million people still displaced, unimaginable numbers of families grieving uprooted with their lives devastated since 1973, the worst outbreak of malaria triggered by the floods have further impacted the country, furthermore, other viruses have affected people, floods are threatening lives in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the rest of South Asia. I recall watching the news and seeing the floods wipe away houses, cars and people, it was so distressing to watch people's whole life savings floating away in front of them and facing destitution.
and it's so unfair in its effects, despite, despite pakistan's carbon emissions being less than 1% in the global carbon trajectory, it is ranked among the 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change, climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are threatening human development and the survival of humanity in Pakistan and surrounding countries.
at COP 26, the UK government pledged over 55 million pounds to partner with Pakistan. To fight climate change, manage water more sustainably and unlock climate investment. The UK also pledged to help poorer countries by giving 290 million to to those countries to tackle climate change and to protect nature. When was this honored? Is this another false premise the government has made to the vulnerable countries? In recent years, the world has been experiencing extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods, fires and hurricanes. It is very alarming to see that the government does not have a grip on the climate emergency which affects people not only in the UK, but worldwide. It is surprising to see that the government turns a blind eye to the biggest polluters
if action is not taken immediately, the future of humanity and the planet will be under threat. More glaciers will met melt sea levels will rise, crops and wildlife will be endangered. Parts of the world will be inhabitable, with less land to grow food. This will push people deeper into poverty and they will struggle to survive, which will be a grave injustice. The climate crisis is not just an environmental crisis, it's an inequality crisis, as those countries, such as those in Asia living in low income countries, are suffering the most. Those countries will face further vulnerability of extreme poverty, systems of race, gender oppression and discrimination can also force people further into poverty which make them most vulnerable to the climate crisis. People living in poverty are often the first and worst affected when crime crisis strikes. They are also the last to be protected. Therefore, the climate crisis is making poverty and in inequality worse. Wealthy countries such as the UK have contributed most to the climate crisis and have the most resources to address it, so they should lead the way in tackling the crisis in COP 26, a new system was set up, but nothing was done. The new administration in Wandsworth is making every effort to actively tackle the climate emergency. The Council reaffirms its manifesto pledges to be carbon neutral by 2030 and to reach his targets on air quality. We have implemented our cleaner borrow by improving waste and recycling services. Our manuscripts have been mega popular. Just last week there was 18.
in De. Burgh, we continue to collect waste weekly, our new fleets of vehicles will not only keep our borough clean but will also cut carbon emissions, above all, we have listened to our residents, they told us they wanted us to collect food waste, we did it.
and the government did not help they broke that promise as well, the Conservative opposition have also failed to support the collection of food waste in the borough, they voted against it.
but we are so pride proud that, despite the lack of government support, our food waste collection service will be rolled out borough-wide by December 24, we are always working in the best interests of all of our residents and beyond.
Councillor Griffin.
thank you, Madam Mayor, and thanks for the opportunity to talk on an issue which I've been raising throughout my 30 years on this Council.
cultural change in any organisation, of course, takes time, and if we take that great statement about the environment, think global at local, then I would suggest to colleagues that we need to be a little bit careful in assuming that just because we pronounce things from the political angle, this necessarily catches on throughout the whole organisation overnight and when we say we're going to do everything we can for the environment, I think it does mean that we need to be very careful in what we're doing. One thing, just as a general point, let's say, is that the quality of we must be clear, even when it's inconvenient that we do actually state the facts with this, whether it's confusing energy and electricity, as has happened in an earlier speech, or whether it's not simply noting that actually, over the last year up to July, there were only 17 major hurricanes in the world, that's 96 knots or more. There are only 38 hurricanes of all description 64, not so Ohio, that's actually the lowest level since 1,009 86. That's, in a sense, inconvenient for the arguments about climate change, because it doesn't negate what's going on, but I think we must be very careful that if we continue to overstate some of the issues, there is a danger that people are going to start feeling that we're crying wolf. Having said all of that, there are a few observations that I've made over recent months that I think are worth considering. Some of them are fairly trivial. Is it really necessary that we, each of us, have received a printed copy of the 184 pages of the public spaces Protection order in our Council agendas, who is it who is actually sending a message out to officers that we need that amount of printed paper just for a meeting where we're all capable of reading that online? I've mentioned a number of occasions, the idling council vans that I've challenged, one of which you said said to me Well, don't you know? This is a low emissions vehicle as if charging up an electric vehicle does not create considerable amounts of greenhouse gas emissions at the source of the electricity and we'd drive at the moment, there is a construction of of flats under the under the thousand homes initiative and there is a diesel generator there, and one of the residents asked why this was the case. They were told that the contract stipulated that the developers had to generate their own electricity. Now that is needed for lifting very, very large bits of equipment up to the top of the building. That is a very intermittent load, and yet those diesel generators have to be kept ticking over ready to deliver that load, when the work is actually happening. I don't know how many idling cars that represents, I suspect it's probably rather a lot, but again are we sure that the message that that kind of unnecessary environmental damage is actually written into the contracts that we are asking of our contractors? I asked a question earlier of the Leader earlier and it's encouraging to see that some of the something like 700,000 new homes are going to have heat pumps, but the current legislation says that by the year 2025 there will be no new gas boilers, and by 2035 all existing gas boilers should be phased out in order to in favour of heat pumps. I don't see how it's consistent that about 30% of the homes that are being built by the Council at the moment do not fit that,
criteria and some of the areas are very difficult planning policies very often, and if colleagues are there, but we hear that homes cannot put solar panels on the roof that faces the sun because of a conservation area or other planning issues. Now, if the Council really does want to take this seriously, if there's two major things that can we think we can do firstly, this is, let's have a carbon budget that runs alongside the financial budget. If we're really serious about climate change, let's treat it on a par with finance and alongside that let's have director of sustainability comments on any paper which is deemed important enough to have director of finance comments. There are councils beginning to do this and I would urge that Wandsworth should be there as a final point. We're responsible for about 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Wandsworth borough, but we're in a unique position, as the directly elected local representatives, to take a lead with our colleagues. Now there are local enterprise partnerships in many local authorities where local businesses and others involved in the economy come together, we could be having a local environment policy, we could be pulling together all of the major greenhouse gas emitters within the borough and seeing if we can work together to reduce those
a lot of good stuff has gone on. I think the citizen assemblies are a great many other things are, and I congratulate them there, but personally my observations do not let tell me that environment is deep in the bones of everything that this Council does, and I think there's still work to do
Councillor Glover.
thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Mr Councillor Grimston for those comments, I think, will take some of those away.
getting back to the subject of this debate, as we've said, we are alarmed at the rollback of policies by the current government in this area, the Conservatives tried to frame this debate now around the cost of living, I mean who knew this was their priority and ones worth Tories have fought us at every point on our cost of living support package, it's totally disingenuous to frame the recent rollbacks in recent U-turns by this government on the environment as being about the cost of living and no one is buying it.
a recent Ipsos report looked at public attitudes towards climate change and found strong levels of concern, and at that time, so before this rollback, 60% of voters already thought this government was failing on climate change and they're right, the climate change committee was already warning that the government that it doesn't have the right policies in place to meet its targets they were saying then,
and now they're saying that the new announcements take the UK further away from meeting its legal commitments.
maybe it's a bit old-fashioned to think to worry about legal commitments, but we don't think so, what we hear from the other side this evening is complacency and what you see in our motion is ambition.
Rishi Sunak has been very clear on one thing, he's on the side of motorists, he can't talk enough about cars, seems to be the same here in Wandsworth, we roll out our air quality action plan, the Tories say there aren't enough photos of cars in it, I mean I wish that were a joke.
and we know where she thinks differently about transport.
travelling by private helicopter and jet, I don't know, does he think he's in an episode of succession effectively, he is here, we all know he's on his way out and desperately clinging on to the last minutes where we will we be on the doorstep this time next year or will he make us all wait even longer either way we will be there and we won't mind the cold or the dark nights if it means getting rid of this pitiful government.
to paraphrase Logan, Logan Roy, the current government are not serious people but, as my colleagues say tonight, this is a serious issue, Councillor Jeffreys talked about the effect on the global south, my colleagues could tell you in chapter and verse extreme weather is a driver of hunger in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan,
7 billion lost in livestock last year, 30 billion pounds worth in economic losses due to climate change, 31.5 million people suffering from hunger as a result of drought, and here in the UK for hundred companies, climate leaders and politicians across the political spectrum wrote to the government ahead of these recent announcements asking them not to water down their Net Zero policies but they went ahead and did it.
among the critics of this government, the heads of companies that literally provide the cars Ford still antis, Volkswagen even also trader
and what does the chair of Ford UK say to this government, our business needs three things from the UK government ambition, commitment and consistency, but what do we get back-pedalling, you turns a new oil fields.
Even the Tory MP, Chris Skidmore, admits it is simply not possible to achieve our Net Zero commitments by opening up new oil fields, and the new towns of this government on green policies and transport are absolutely dizzying the 2019 clean air strategy promised support and new local powers to create clean air zones for four years later Rishi Sunak says it's not the right priority.
cleaner air was trumpeted again by the Conservatives in 2020, with an investment strategy promised around active travel. In March this year, the government cut the Bunnage budget it had promised by 80%, and the top priority in the in the Conservatives 2021 decarbonise a decarbonising transport plan was accelerating modal shift to public and active transport and using our cars differently. And then Rishi Sunak, as chancellor cuts, fuel duty and encouraged us to encourages us to use our cars more often. I could go on with these examples, but we only get five minutes in these speeches and the list is depressing. Why are they doing this desperation and party politics and it's shameful and we know it
as my colleague said, climate change is inextricably linked to poverty, from Kenya to Pakistan and here in Wandsworth those on the lowest incomes here in our borough have by far the lowest access to cars, those on the lowest incomes travel, at least by car and those living in the most deprived communities have the highest exposure to our air pollution.
a lot might change between now and the next general election, but one thing is for sure when a police, thank you, transport will still be the largest driver of our greenhouse gas emissions, we have the courage to say so and to act, and we have the policies to address this, thank you, Madam Mayor.
all those in favour of the substantive motion.
those against.
any abstentions.
the motion is carried.
carried by 26 to 2026 to 20.
there will come.
question to the Cabinet Members will now be taken question number 12.
question number 12 to the Cabinet Member for Housing.
console, educating.
Elena, please go ahead, you have five minutes, thank you.
yeah, I'd like to thank you for your question on the Ashburton.
I think it's a, it's a really important question and we've talked about it considerably at Committee, I think, the the the discussions around how we make sure that people who are part of the thousand homes programme consultant, 1,000 home programme, engage on a thousand homes programme is essential to getting getting buy-in.
you'll know that, on every scheme we propose and the schemes that were proposed before we took the Council, there is considerable anxiety, development in all its forms, wherever it's a private development next to where you live or a councillor development excuse where you live, will bring around a lot of kind of worry and anxiety for people, but I can completely commit to the fact that the process that we've been through across many different schemes that I've been attending, the engagement, events on, show that this is a process that leads to considerable and sometimes quite meaningful changes to the way buildings are built to the way they look to the additional benefits that are provided
and I think that it's really important that residents understand that and that we talk about those processes, but it's not always going to be something that satisfies everyone, and you'll know from the committee meetings that we had, where sometimes you'll say you know, what is it that could be on offer, what is it that could make this development seem more attractive to you or what is it about this development that you have problems with?
we, we go on the strength of those arguments, we go on the strength of those arguments based on the good we are trying to deliver with those council homes, so that does sometimes realistically mean that there is a philosophical and political discussion around. Is it more important that we have the parking space or is it more important that we build the home and that is a political decision that I take and I take responsibility for it and I take responsibility for it, at Committee meetings and at public engagements, and then people come and they say I'm really upset for these and these reasons and we try to address them in as honest and politically honest way as possible. I mean, I've you will know, I've been to 200 people plus packed public meetings on this. I've attended every single engagement event bar, I think one which was on my birthday
and so, in answer to your question, yes, there is a meaningful process, but that process is weighted and balanced against the thing that we are trying to deliver, which is council housing and
I'm gonna kind of leave it on this final note, which is that everywhere we go people say we are completely support council housing. I love what you're doing, but this isn't the right place, and that is what we hear on every single scheme, and that is the political challenge that all politicians and it's a national question. You see it at the party conferences, if they have, I'm talking about it at some point, if we are to deliver that council housing, that we all know is really necessary, it does mean that we are going to have to build in some places where some people will be like this. This can be a bit disruptive and the process is going to hopefully show that they can trust us going forward doing that a supplementary murmur, please go ahead and I would like to thank the Cabinet Member for his elaboration on his written answer and have taken the time to do that, but I'm still not sure whether he's probably answered the main thrust of my question. Which is that there are certain criteria, certain pillars of an effective public consultation, so residents should be provided with adequate correct information. They should be given enough time to consider this information and that all residents are treated equally.
in terms of their opportunity to provide feedback, so can the Cabinet Member give his total assurances that these criteria have been met and if they haven't been met, does that render the whole process of the public consultation invalid and meaningless?
so that only the main, I would say, on the Ashburton scheme, the kind of biggest hurdle we faced, was when the original for the first just site space, no design or anything like that, at the first consultation we held was when there were postal strikes and,
we've discussed that very openly and publicly with residents at meetings, and apologise for that, and now we deliver everything by hand.
but.
Councillor, you often ask me questions about Ashburton. I have never seen a single aspect and consultation or engagement with Ashworth, but I have never seen you come and see the process, so why I find it frustrating is because you've asked me some quite technical questions about the process and I've never seen you a single 1,000 homes consultation, I mean, do you even know the name of the consultant that we use on the Ashworth himself consultation, personal engagement, have you met with any of them? Have you engaged with them yeah I mean the reason why I asked these is because it's I thought if I was, if I was going to be asking questions like this when I was a backbench councillor I would turn up, I would turn up and actually look at the things that the Council are doing. I would turn up and look at the things that the Council are doing and then say I'll actually, while this this seems weak or busy, so it does seem a bit hypocritical that you haven't come to a single one of the public engagements you haven't, I don't think you know who the architect is on the Ashburton I don't think you know who the consultant that we hired for the engagement, I don't think you know much about the actual skills, so that's just my own kind of pushback on some of the answers around this
I think that the and you'll know I mean given, you know, the residents that I'm talking about you'll know that I'm meeting them on Thursday night, I go to I go and visit people in their homes, I'm gonna be in Boyd Court on Thursday I am as engaged in the process as possible, so thank you very much that's now.
yeah, Councillor Amash supplementary Councillor Goshen, I think it's a good question you've asked, but I'd like to congratulate the cabinet member for his personal involvement in the consultations he has spent many hours talking to residents all the sessions that I've been to and he's also engaged with very many members of the community and community groups have asked him to meet between meetings to give them information, your Arcelor,
cabinet Member to Councillor Goslin states were clearly demonstrate that schemes evolve based on residential engagement.
so my supplementary is how has the Ashperton South regeneration scheme developed as a result of the views expressed by local residents in that area? Councillor Nick, any thanks for that, and I thank you for the question and it's not the usual soft-touch questions from backbenchers. That's a serious question that it speaks to the heart of what I think a lot of residents are worried about and frustrated about, because on the Ashperton they feel like there haven't been and you know they, they feel like they haven't been listened to, so the first thing is that you know, if I'm going to try and be careful not to prejudge, because we haven't got the planning application in and therefore this is a live consultation, but in terms of things that I can broadly speak to, that have changed since
I've witnessed the process, I'll say one people raised with us very clearly that they didn't want stand-alone architectural blocks compared to other places, so they don't want something that is going to look distinct from the existing buildings they want it to fit in and that is definitely showcasing the most recent designs.
there was a big thing from Hayward Gardens about not closing off the the the square and having it into an enclosed square, so outside of Elliott you've got currently a walkway through one and so the architects have designed it so that that that that flow still can maintain and one of the things we offered was a community centre on that bottom floor in Hayward Gardens and that was rejected, so sometimes we offer things we say you know, would this make things better and in the case of Hayward they that's not that's not something that they wanted and they would rather it be be flats.
so those are three things that I can. I am on unwitting away, for instance on the garages site. There was a lot of anxiety about the height of the buildings, on the on the garages site way by you're looking down into west into West Putney, and so obviously we've had a discussion with architects around how we can reduce the height, because I think on planning terms, we could go to five storeys, but we've actually reduced it because of the the the engagement with residents and the real concerns there. Those for in Roehampton will know what Toland Square. The plans have changed significantly. Part of that engagement was real anxieties about the wings and how those would affect the Square. So I'm obviously balancing my desire and need to maximise the number of homes that we build, and I know that Ravi had exactly the same challenge, whereby obviously you want to get as much or as much out of the sites as possible because it once in a lifetime opportunity with public land. But we have drastically, and you can see the engagement has led to concrete architectural outcomes and on things like Poland and Orbán, you know we're getting letters now, saying thank you, you did listen, you did you did actually change things, so I have confidence in the scheme, but I know that there are some people who will never be happy and we saw that at Committee and we asked the question, Is there anything you'd like to see and people said no, and that is hard, that you know that that is always going to be hard, and that's why we've been honest and never said it's a referendum on council housing, but we're just trying to deliver council housing in the most equitable and fair way to the neighbourhoods that are gonna be affected by it.
could I have a point of per councillor?
personal explanation, not excuse me, Councillor Atha, what Councillor Burton confessed Councillor bedroom 20 bills.
pimento asked for a second supplementary has already taken, so thank you, Madam Mayor, it's very unusual for me to turn down the chance to speak, so I will try and make the most of it, but I don't say it.
but Americans like a serious, less lethal nicotine.
Councillor Dick Adam makes the point about me not actively meeting with Ashburton residents, I have.
well, I just want to say I never said that I said he's never attended a single one of the engagement events that he's asked me, questions about which I think is a separate from saying that he's not involved in whipping up a lot of political opposition on instinct, well I think.
if you ask the vast majority of Ashburton residents, which of the two of us Councillors most, on the other hand, if we're going to have a really irrelevant discussion about Scotland having to do with the last question I will take advantage of speak on my particular point is that it is time we moved on to the next question.
question maternity in
Councillor Paul question 13 to the Cabinet Member for voluntary sector, business engagement and culture.
so the hole in Councillor O'Connell is absent, so I'll just confirm that we are changing into a more outward-looking, modern and open place, and our bid for borough of culture is absolutely at the heart of this change. Since announcing that one's worth would bid for this prestigious prize, we've been engaging with local communities and a wide range of partners to get their ideas and input in developing the bid. Indeed, we've worked with 1,500 people and 400 organisations, ranging from businesses to the voluntary sector, from statutory agencies to young people and, of course, our fantastic cultural sector. Just to say briefly, the sort of three emerging broad themes are for the bid, our contrasts, the diversity of our borough in all its forms, connections, bringing our communities and places together and compassion, using arts and culture, to support mental health and wellbeing for all. Had a fantastic so the partnership event at the Clapham Grand a couple of weeks ago where we were testing these ideas coming up with new ideas. The bid goes in next month and we find out in the new year,
thank you supplementary yeah.
given its black history month, and as a reminder to everyone, the theme this year is celebrating sisters.
how can we be sure marginalised groups are being included,
Councillor Hall,
I thank Councillor Pope for that question. I agree it's very important to celebrate black history month, as you say, this year is black history month. Theme is celebrating our sisters, saluting our sisters and honouring matriarchs and movements, to honour all the remarkable black women you have made and continue to make such a difference in our society in Wandsworth. We celebrate we celebrate black history month, 3 6 5 black history 3 6 5 all year round, but in October in particular, we put on a range of events, including free photography, workshops, dance and creative skills workshops. I know it's a priority for Councillor Akinola who proudly traces her heritage to Grenada and to Nigeria that black culture is part of the Borough of culture bid and she's been reaching out to those groups who represent black residents to make sure their voices are heard in our bid. This week she got the heavyweight endorsement they will wanted as local lad, Frank Bruno, in doorstep ID and last week the mayor and I had a lovely morning actually with J Joseph Cuéllar, the children's poet, in your parlour, who's from Roehampton, and who's whose
been round hundreds of local schoolchildren to get them interested in poetry here in Wandsworth in recent weeks, and he backs our bid to.
so there are great events coming up in the Town Hall and in the community, so please all get involved, as the Mayor said earlier, if you haven't take part in an event, please do let's do this together.
Councillor Hamilton, thank you very much by the Mayor.
the Conservative Group do welcome this welcome this paper we had a couple of questions would be good to get some further clarity on, firstly, it would be fascinating to know what lasting difference this bid will make to the borough, what projects do you envisage taking forward and making a lasting difference here and secondly a bit more clarity on the level of business involvement in this scheme? Thank you.
Councillor hug.
thanks very much no, so you'll see, as the bid comes together, very keen for your input, on that. That legacy is an absolutely crucial part of it. You know you have to demonstrate the lasting benefit and talking to previous soderbergh culture winners, that's actually the internal culture of the Council can benefit. You know your relationship with partners can benefit. It's not just your arts sector and actually improving your arts delivery, our relationship with fantastic organisations like Battersea Arts Centre, Tara, Arts and so on. So I think it will have an incredible legacy and, as I say, we had this wonderful event
Clapham Junction, where there was people from a range of local businesses, voluntary sector, small enlarge, and obviously we won't reveal them just yet, but some very significant employers in the borough have already indicated that they they'd smile on the bid and they'd love to be involved in hosted events.
question number 14.
Councillor Cook.
yeah, thank you, Councillor Cook, annum for people that sit down to the question in front of them. As Councillor Cook Ox asked about the procurement of the new waste contract and he asks why we didn't go to a full market procurement and I can tell him why, because we just didn't have time because the whole market procurement would you have to start with soft testing the market, then you have to write your specification, we didn't have enough data to write a proper specification, then you have to go to market, then you have to make your decision, you have to appoint. You have to mobilise that all would have taken about two and a half years, so had your administration started that process and have been in a position to carry on that process, but you didn't have 18 months to think about this, and so my focus was very much in food waste. As you know, I've talked about that all the time. Food waste and looking for possible alternatives which wouldn't require all that mascot tasting. The best possible alternative in the end, for the Borough for the residents, was a four year extension with the current contractor. We're very comfortable that going forward we're going to do things differently. I got now four years to look for what we do after that we will go through that very theory very thoroughly and take you with us on that journey.
but actually what we're going to have as a result of this new contract is, we're gonna, have a whole new, cleaner borough, and this is our big catchphrase if you like, outline a borough plan.
and we're going to have weekly collections, we guarantee the weekly collection, so we're going to have much improved recycling services, we're gonna have food waste rolled out across the borough, we're going to make it easier for people to recycle anything and, in particular electrical goods we're going to have many more manuscripts we know how effective those are there.
people are enjoying using them and it's improving our recycling rates, so that is our plan under the new contract Ocarina barracks.
a supplementary. Please go ahead and I thank Committee members for their response, which should surprise no, I found thoroughly unconvincing. Had you got your act together, much more quickly, we perfectly possible. So many contracts have been re-tendered and it's it's perfectly possible to do it in the time in the time that you had available to. We're now in a remarkable position where the same contractor will be providing a service for the best part of two decades, potentially longer and is also funnily enough. The same contractor who you use to make a rushed and necessarily rushed vehicle purchase through all the more surprising and puzzling, because it's not so long since you, Councillor Gasser, were publicly describing this particular contractor as useless, and indeed you have to apologise to us. So I am sure I'm not the only one who's thinking Well, what changed your mind
well, I don't know understanding the situation because I am very new in this House, obviously, as I get.
learn more about the situation and then learn more about the current contract we have with Serco, which you guys brought in you extended for a further four years. You didn't buy new vehicles so they keep breaking down, so that's why we have so many problems. You or your you told your officers to negotiate the contract right right right down in price, so there are no key performance indicators. There are no sanctions. I have no way of making that contractor behave better, perform better, and I did not know that for a while. That's absolutely true, you can ask your officers, it's absolutely true, there are no capable key performance indicators. I've got no way where maybe you haven't seen the most recent version, that's what officers are telling me that I cannot, I cannot compel them to do what we need them to do and they can't do it anyway because these vehicles keep breaking down.
so that they're on their last legs. They should have been replaced four years ago, so that's why we had to replace vehicles in a rush, and it wasn't that much of at rush. We went at, we had officers looked into all that way and wanted to get clean vehicles. We've looked into all of that, so it wasn't that much of a rush. We started talking about that a while ago, so they are coming, I hope, to have the first few delivered, hopefully the end of this year, so that we'll should improve things a bit more. The next tranche probably will come in March April. May it takes a long time to build these vehicles, but the contract will be very much better because we will now have key performance indicators in there and you are very welcome to join me in discussing what those key performance indicators should be. There's gonna be fines for for non-performance, we have to find the right way and I hope we're going to find the right way, and I'll use any kind of expertise, anybody that has waste contract expertise. Please join me, let's find the best possible key performance indicators, so let's make sure that this contractor performs for us and performance for our residents for the next four years
question number 15 to Councillor Murray question number 15.
K M, question 15 to the Cabinet Lead pays.
Councillor Anderson,
thank you, Madam tá thank Councillor Forbes for this question and.
Councillor Eric Eve for actually ask you in her absence, this is an issue, it generated a very considerable amount of concern.
restaurants for people, particularly residents who may be watching this, the question is actually concerning paediatric cancer care, and the decision of NHS England to create a principal trained treatment centre which will be located either at the Evelina hospital in central London or St George is here.
and we as an administration are extremely concerned about the prospect of moving away from St George's, they have 25 years of experience, experts, expertise, etc which is only one to lose, but also it will have got a massive impact upon other children's services in St George is particularly in terms of surgery pathology
unfortunately, we are anxious because it is,
a market driven once you start, removing a particular service from one hospital can have a knock-on consequence, particularly in terms of skilled clinicians wanting to actually work in a particular location. So we are certainly extremely concerned about another area of great concerns in relation to transport and all those green commitments. Clearly, we want to reduce the use of cars, but there are exceptions Taylor, and when you're dealing with a child who is suffering from cancer, the practicalities of taking someone by public transport really are absolutely enormous. People up our knowledge and brought by car, and clearly St George is in a far better position to handle the Eveline in central London. Thank you
supplementary question, please describe, what action are you taking to impress on NHS England that paediatric cancer care should stay at St George's?
again, can I ask Councillor?
supplementary again, this is quite clearly very important. NHS England have launched this consultation, which ends on December, 18th with Eve, reactively encouraged members of the public, particularly in Unsworth, to respond to that, but we have also been talking to a very wide range of stakeholders, so Councillor Hogg, along with six other leaders of artists, not just in London but also in the south, and I have actually written to the secretary of State expressing concern, and indeed I think the pressure we have all to bear is certainly bearing fruit originally emerged as England would own to conduct the consultation in the middle of summer, which is just course Path worst time to conduct any consultation whatsoever and because of the pressure which we were able to bear along with other civic leaders in other adjoining local authorities.
be forced in NHS England to be considered, and they've actually come up with a far better consultation package, which I think have been moderated three times to ensure that it was actually balance going on, we are certainly working with our.
partners Oakley and we are certainly raising the issue at every opportunity to either reverse meetings such as the integrated care partnership, etc formerly
consultation will be taken through each item.
each ache.
health Scrutiny Committee for
in Surrey, Kate Forbes, Kate Forbes, is chairing a sub-committee which is actually leading on that they have already asked some extremely pertinent and far-reaching questions which I think was a post.
considerable food for thought too, and NHS England in terms of their plans, so we would very much encourage everyone to respond to a consultation and send a very clear message to NHS England of a service which is currently provided at St George's is highly valued and we want to keep it, thank you, thank you. The question to the Cabinet Members has now elapsed.
standing order, I moved to adjourn the Council for five minutes to note that every child in Wandsworth deserves the very best start to life.
do you have a seconder?
yes.
I please speak to your motion.
so I joined the Labour party because of its three core principles, equality, social justice and compassion.
my ward St Mary's embodies those principles, it is home to the community centre Keys House, the Katherine, lower settlement caliphs and the Academy of Dance, all bustling hubs of community activity is a privilege to be a councillor for this ward and I would like to pay tribute to my fellow Councillors Jamie and Caroline,
madam Mayor, fellow Councillors and members of the public.
thank you for giving me the opportunity to and ADR to address an issue which I care about deeply,
child poverty as the winter months approach. The cost of living crisis in this country is only getting worse, food prices in the supermarket are through the roof, the cost of heating, your home continues to rise and it is children who will suffer the most when families have to choose between eating and heating.
madam Mayor.
it is an indictment of the Tory government that they have done so little to tackle this issue. We know that child poverty was getting worse before COVID and before the war in Ukraine we cannot use excuses,
time and time again this government neglects and leaves our children behind.
a recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 29% of children in the UK are living in poverty, it is shocking that in 2023 in one of the richest countries in the world, the basic needs of food and secure shelter are not being met and it is shameful that this is the reality of life for so many children.
working as a speech and language therapist for the NHS, I see first-hand the appalling impact that poverty has on so many children in our city.
it is not just about the conditions in which they currently live, it is also about their life chances, a bad star so often leads to a bad life.
to poor health outcomes, low attainment in school and far too often the criminal justice system, the wrong stop for a child crushes their dreams, it stunts their creativity, it denies them opportunities and it breeds anger, pain and sadness.
addressing child poverty is one of the reasons I stood to be a councillor.
it was a pledge, I made to constituents on the doorstep, and on May 5th 2021, the people of once were photo for change after 44 years my message today is that we can make a difference in my NHS work, I also see the extraordinary impact the early intervention can have in changing the trajectory of a child's life.
I feel proud of the progress made by ones where children's department, we have expanded free school lunches and introduced free breakfasts for the children who need them most.
as a result, many of our most vulnerable children are at least having two good meals a day.
I want to pay tribute to my fellow Councillors on the children's committee for the progress we have made, there is genuine cross-party collaboration on this issue, there is a real sense that we all want what is best for our children and that this comes above party politics.
I am proud of the work we are doing in Wandsworth, but having basic needs met should not be a postcode lottery for our kids, I believe that all of us across the Chamber, and especially in our roles as corporate parents, want what is best for children living in Wandsworth no child should have to worry about having a roof over their head.
no child should be shivering in cold, damp homes, no child should go to school hungry,
our children deserve better than this. They get one childhood one start to life, and we all get one chance to get it right. We have a responsibility to create a better Wandsworth for our children to grow up in. So I ask you today to join with me and pledged to keep children at the forefront of all of the Council's work, whether you sit on the Transport Committee and can help make our streets safer for children, making their way to school or the Housing Committee and can keep children living in temporary accommodation at the forefront of your decision making. I hope that we can stand together and commit to doing all that we can to give our children the very best start to life.
thank you,
thank you, Councillor Lee.
this is a very subject that is very close to my heart, so thank you for that.
would the Leader like to respond to this?
thank you murmur our responsibility. Congratulations to Councillor Lee on a fantastic maiden speech, St Mary's ward really is lucky to have such a committed public servant as its representative, and thank you for using your maiden speech to raise the important important issue of children having the very best start in life but, as you said, what is fundamentally important to our mission as a Labour run. Council hearing mums, with is that we are choosing to make sure that every child has the best start in life, not just the privileged few, and that starts with education is the most powerful tool to fight inequality. That is why I am delighted that over 96% of schools in Wandsworth have now been judged good or outstanding, compared to 91% in April 2022, and I pay tribute to the head teachers and teaching staff who are working tirelessly to ensure children have the best possible education, and I'm really pleased that we've got our growing partnership with Apple that is also bringing in tight exciting opportunities and new investment into our school communities and benefiting more local children by teaching them new digital skills, which will have a positive impact on their future access to jobs and training.
but, just as Councillor Lee said, the Conservative cost of living crisis is causing a surge in inequality amongst peoples, sadly more children are arriving in school, tired, hungry and unable to concentrate.
and that's why we've rolled out our Magic breakfast breakfast clubs initiatives in our most disadvantaged schools so that people's have healthy, nutritious meals to start the day, making sure they have hungry minds, not hungry bellies and I'm really pleased to have visited some of our clubs and I know the impact is tangible. One of our head, teachers at Penwith and Primary School has said breakfast at school means our children are less hungry happier more engaged, they arrive on time, parents feel better supported, meaning there's more flex in their lives or just a little bit more in their budgets. As a teacher, my job is better now I see the children prepared and ready to learn they feel supported and part of the wider school family.
from something quite simple comes so much and poverty poverty is multidimensional, it's not just about money, it's also about housing, access to public services, training and jobs, and this Council's vision to address child poverty is an all encompassing one and, as Councillor Lee rightly notes, early intervention is key to delivering our vision. That's why we've invested in a new early years advisory team to ensure that high quality early years settings are available, where more young children can thrive and gain the necessary skills to start their school journey. And I'm really delighted that last month we launched our Wandsworth family hubs initiative, at Battersea's Yvon Car Centre and in Black history month. I'd like to celebrate even car as a black woman who worked as a housing officer here in Wandsworth and worked tirelessly for her local community. A good with our family hubs is to provide one stop shops for families in the most disadvantaged local areas, bringing really high quality services right to the front door of neighborhoods, so that families can easily access the right support at the earliest opportunity.
we are creating more integrated services with a wider range of partners, such as health, education and our voluntary and community sector, for example, or Yvonne car. Now we're now offering new quality services all in one place such as housing support, health services, lifelong learning and employment advice from GWP. We know it works, ask any parent who access Sure Start working with children and their families from the earliest stages helps us address long-term problems and just like Sure Start 20 years ago, outreach and community development will be at the heart of our work here at Wandsworth.
we are providing outreach to those most in need, addressing social exclusion by improving connectivity with residents and strengthening relationships with families.
we're also truly committed to co-producing with local parents what happens in those hubs hubs, we have to ensure that they truly respond to their needs, shaping our offer with the voice of families at the centre, so this Council believes the aspiration and ambition of everyone, not just those who can afford it through these progressive and compassionate policies, we are putting excellence and opportunity for every child at the heart of what we do across the Council to deliver our ambition for Wandsworth to be the best place to grow up.
thank you.
hence, Councillor Lee, are you satisfied with the explanation provided and would you like to withdraw your motion, or would you like your motion be put to a vote?
yes, I'm I'm happy with.
the explanation, but I would like a vote please okay,
all those in favour.
overlooking
required.
it's been carried.
thank you.
71, receiving all right anyone voted against.
any absence.
no alright okay, Scouts.
for five minutes now.
members, please sit down, let's continue your place.
hello.
as agreed item, 17 will be taken midst, item 17 is the motion on stopping unjustified VAB will pay out for special consoles.
conor, as Councillor Peter Graham to move and Councillor Lamb Gibson
Councillor Caddy, sorry to second, the motion formally moved.
agreed second.
Councillor Peter Graham, please.
thank you, my Lord Mayor, there are two significant ways in which our actions as councillors affect us personally we both set and pay council tax, and we both set and receive councillors' allowances that requires us to act responsibly and for 12 years a Conservative council froze those allowances and the Labour opposition supported that restraint many of you voted for it.
Councillor Hogg voted for it, a point he seemed to have lost in his earlier contributions, in fact it was his own Cabinet Member that put forward the scheme for this year and she said that it would be inappropriate, an increase would be inappropriate given the current financial climate and the cost of living crisis. Tonight you want to tear up that freeze media.
instead of showing restraint, you want to increase the cash to Labour councillors by 12%, not only over inflation but involving a total increase of over 100,000 pounds despite this, currently the last time I checked being October, you also want to backdate those pay rises six months to April so at the end of this meeting your Chief Whip who seems unaccountably to have departed the Chamber.
depart the Chamber again, OK, you are, I'm good, with a pay rise of 172% and a lump sum of 8,000 pounds for doing exactly the same job, that is in the current financial crisis that is jewellery, your cost of living programmes that is, while you are overspending, need reserves to fill the budget gap and want to borrow a staggering 376 million pounds. So the obvious question is why
what changed
to which your report answers, like your leader, everyone should be able to consider standing for their community well, I'm sorry
but you already, did you all stood supporting an ongoing freeze, you all knew what the allowances were all of this stuff about encouraging people to stand could only apply to the future, but you've just written yourselves at 28,000 pound cheque for the past.
and the public will look at this and see the truth.
Labour Councillors cashing in at their expense
since the election, you've created special allowances for eight so-called champions another for your Chief Whip, and now another three for additional committee chairs under your latest scheme, you could be left with just two backbenchers now that has nothing to do with standing to represent a community but three quarters of the cash is in any case going on this proliferation of roles.
such jobs for the boys, as jobs are the comrades. Let me read what HMRC has to say. This is HMRC, if the majority of members of a council receive a special responsibility allowance, the local electorate may rightly question whether this was justified. We agree, but at the end of tonight some 62% of the Council could be on a special allowance of some kind and it was left to poor Councillor Marshall to actually explain or justify this where the Leader failed. He was asked at the General purposes why he should be handed nearly 3,000 pounds for what the report implies involves actually reading his committee papers and he literally screamed at us. It's for the greater benefit
in my five years on this Council Councillor Marshall is the first Member I've had to confuse his wallet with the public good, sadly it seems that he isn't alone, our motion gives you a chance to mitigate your choice and act more responsibly, but your decisions add up my residents are what's your refusal to adopt Springfield Park on the pretext of normal maintenance costs in five years' time?
say what you cost them 120,000 pounds more this year than we did, and now they know it's your pockets before a park, they see your forecast deficit and they know that it's your pockets to be filled, even if that's from the reserves it's appropriate for Councillor victim is responding tonight, because now we can finally see what this administration is about L'Oreal socialism, you think you're worth it
its powerful advertising, Madam Mayor, it's powerful advertising, but the advertising tells us one thing, above all, you're putting your pockets before the public.
Councillor husband. Thank you, Madam Mayor, I'm not going to repeat the points eloquently made by the Leader of the Council on this subject in his answer to questions, except to reinforce his statement that what we are doing is fair and it is reasonable instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick, Madam Mayor, can I just say, by the way, if I'm Barrett constantly during my speech by members of the other party, let me give a warning. I have been blessed with a barrow boys, voice, I can overshot anybody in this Council meeting with or without a microphone okay and I will do so if that happens again so
the point, the point that I think I need to address is this point about the ongoing freeze of the allowances. Yes, we could leave things on the whim of an administration increases, decreases in the allowances, but an ongoing freeze is in effect saying that we are going to condemning some people in the future to being unable to stand for the council because they cannot afford it and instead of doing that what we have done fair and reasonable we have pegged increases to the standard local government officer increases.
at a very reasonable level being barrelled, you get blind.
Adam Mann
not Councillor Swannick, not this evening, so let me also deal with this point about guidance from the from what, in 2014 was Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs because, and trust, the cutting edge Conservative opposition to pick guidance, just vague guidance from something something almost 10 years ago they what that guy I'm being buried again, Councillor Peter Graham police.
what that guidance does is set out in vague terms, some advice for councils.
which, by now is largely outmoded, there are Conservative councils like Bromley and Harrow that simply ignore it on the percentage of special responsibility allowances that they give and go away over, for example 50% when, when they're handing out special responsibility allowances the other thing about that guidance by the way is it says you've got an option if you want to reduce the special responsibility allowances of the opposition down to one.
I think that would be not fair and not reasonable if we were to do that, but we have the option if we were to follow that advice. Instead, we're ignoring that advice from HMCSC in 2014 and we're looking at something else. An independent report commissioned on a cross-party basis by London Councils, which we are required to have regard for when we are deciding what the allowance levels should be, and that is what we are operating on. Yes, we have created eight new special responsibility allowances but, as the Leader pointed out, we have abolished eight special responsibility allowances. So we are moving forward on what it is that. Madam Mayor, what has the Councillor, Peter Graham, please? This is the third time, please. I will never take this for the full time. Thank you, and let me deal specifically with the question of the Chief Whip
conservative opposition are objecting to what we're doing on the Chief Whip and all we are doing is we are returning the level of allowance of the Chief Whip to the level that it was as set by the Conservative administration here in 2010 2014 and 2018. I'm sure they're not going to say it wasn't fair and it wasn't it wasn't reasonable then, so that's something a simple change in what we are doing. I think I'd end up by saying this, you might say, given what they did in the past as an administration
and what they have done as a party generally in this country, is a bit rich for them to start telling us what we should not and should be doing as an administration, and that's the right word really, isn't it quite so, a bit rich all they want is people who are well-off to be able to stand for the council and those people who are not well off, be forbidden and excluded from the Council. The thing they're objecting to is not the way we are changing the allowances, but the fact that a democratically elected Labour administration is doing what it was endorsed to do by an election in this Council.
Councillor Edwards point of order, Madam Mayor, a point of personal explanation, I was a Chief Whip, I was a Chief Whip in 2008 in place even in name, and your name is nightmare place, Councillor ages, police can only speak.
thank you, thank you, Madam Mayor.
well, it's been quite a term already for the Labour administration we've seen council rents go up for council tenants, council tax, gone up, more staff for the leader's office, costing 1 million pounds more money wasted on pie in the sky projects spending off the reserves like it's going out of fashion and more special responsibility roles created for the Labour side and if that wasn't enough, Madam Mayor, they are now giving themselves a massive, backdated pay rise. Madam Mayor, let me take you back to May last year when the Labour leader of the council promised residents that his new administration would be based on fairness, with supporting communities and residents at the very top of the agenda.
now I'm really struggling to understand how Labour's proposals here tonight are anything but fair, in fact, far from it, the staggering increase in Labour's Chief Whip's pay by 172% is simply shameful, then there is an increase in their overall allowances by 12% and awarding themselves nearly 30,000 pounds in backdated pay bonuses when our residents across the borough are struggling to make ends meet. Madam Mayor, can you honestly say hand on heart? This is the right time to increase special responsibility allowances.
many of our residents across Wandsworth are still recovering from the fallout of the pandemic and global inflation, some residents are still unemployed, some have lost their homes, some are even sleeping rough, whilst many are struggling to pay off credit card debt, worrying about soaring energy bills and trying to cope with the general cost of living. How can Labour, how can the Labour administration justify these shocking increases how is awarded themselves more money fair? Madam Mayor, I didn't become a councillor for the remuneration
in fact, I was personally surprised to discover councillors actually receive allowances.
I always thought being a councillor was voluntary and a way of giving back to the community to be fortunate enough to be elected by residents to serve and represent them, and I'm sure my conservative friends on this side will agree is an honour in itself.
has the Labour administration forgotten what a privilege it is to be a councillor?
have they forgotten those maiden speeches already when they said barefaced why they became Councillors and all the amazing causes they supported, when in reality it wasn't about making a difference or helping residents, it was all about the money?
Councillor Hamilton, and me, as your Balsam Conservative Councillors, will be voting against these outrageous pay increases.
I ask, will the Balsam Labour councillor be doing the same?
or or will she choose to take more money out of our constituents pockets to put in our own, shall I am said, as as I've said before, as I've said before, we should remember what the Conservative administration did and what the Conservatives stand for value for money. They put money back in residents' pockets rather than take it off them to pay themselves more and Labour claim they want a fairer Wandsworth, fairer for residents or fairer for themselves.
under tonight's Labour proposal, over 100,000 pounds will be added to the council's pay bill in this year alone, it will also cost taxpayers 120,000 pounds more than when the Conservatives run the council.
madam Mayor, what we are seeing from tonight at what we are seeing tonight from Labour is indeed not a fairer Wandsworth, in fact, all we are seeing is broken promises and hypocrisy at its finest, thank you.
Rye and
once a personal explanation, so yeah, I think
well.
Councillor really pleased you and it was a mention, please, so I was asked if I was referring to plot 4 in again, please can you see that your name wasn't mentioned place, as I was saying I didn't mention the news about Balham, Councillor Shay, I think there is only one shade, it was shoes bacon yeah and so it was asked whether it was gonna vote for or against it.
I mean Jesus my mortgage has just gone up 700 quid, thanks to Liz Truss, so will I be taken it, I don't know, I mean, are you gonna be setting up a charity account to put your your allowing said?
good yeah and I will be accepting it so yeah, that's I've answered it all right, thank you.
Councillor Macleod,
thank you, madam.
so Supreme Councillor is a rare honour, isn't it?
and we'd do well to remember this forms of has over 320,000 residents, and those residents are represented here in these chambers by the 58 of us as Councillors. We set local agendas, provide services and support for residents and hold the Council to account to ensure it is doing the best job possible representation to be truly effective. Those of us representing should, as much as possible, be drawn from the breadth of the community we serve. There is an old mantra, nothing about us without us, which basically means communities should be involved in making the decisions that impact on their lives, while everyone says
they're doing what they can to make politics as open as possible. We're not doing a great job in this Council. Last year's survey of the LGA found 40% of councillors were retired, 90% 92% were white and the average average age of a London councillor is a sprightly 60 once if, as a young borough, the average age of a resident is 33 here, but one of the biggest barriers to political engagement is income here in Monza, for almost 20% of our kids are on free school meals and food bank usage goes up year on year, many of our residents are parents with young families. Many have other caring responsibilities were proud on this side of the Chamber that the work that we've done, that we value. Sorry, we are proud this sort of change that we have the most diverse group of councillors ever to run once of council, but we still don't fully reflect the people we serve. There's more to do, particularly from the party opposite. As a new administration, we value the work done by Councillors. We recognise that removing financial barriers to inclusion is not only ethical and democratic, it's a great investment in the future of our borough. I first joined a political party spoiler alert, it was Labour in 1,009 94.
I was considering standing as a councillor back then, but as a working-class young man with a young daughter to provide for it, it was a non starter, you might not think that's a bad thing and you might be right.
but but imagine all the talent and energy that gets turned away from civic duty because the role doesn't seem designed for people on normal incomes or with normal lives, and and luckily there was a talented young lawyer in the room called Siddiq who was able to step forward so we were OK, I'm sure that I'm sure that this is a serious concern of course for the party opposite and this isn't just performative.
frugality.
under regulation 13 of local authority, local authorities, Members' Allowances, guidelines and councillors can opt not to receive their full allowances, so if the party opposite are genuinely worried about councillor allowances, I invite them to forego their allowances and voluntary past voluntarily pass up the increase so that we can use that money for the good of the borough.
maybe maybe they can, let us know at fault for Council, how many of them choose to take this up, will you give way, I've got about four sentences less than you can jump in and say some nonsense?
while they're doing while they're doing this will carry on delivering for the people of Wandsworth, we believe no one should be priced out of politics, we believe, being a councillor shouldn't be reserved for the wealthy, the retired or the board, we believe people should be compensated for what they do, it's quite simple, really our ambition is that ones of councillors should reflect the communities we represent. Working conditions and remuneration are critical to make sure residents from all walks of life are able to consider becoming not just councillors but taken leadership roles within the council and this community.
thank you
Councillor P Wheeler.
madam Mayor, I'm quite confident that Members in this Chamber would agree that becoming a councillor in Wandsworth was about giving something back to the local community, whether it be ensuring our community gets the right service, helping to shape the local area by driving new ideas or supporting a resident with an issue serving a councillor in one's work serving as a councillor in Wandsworth is a responsibility, a privilege, and it's also highly fulfilling a bit of like to have to think that the majority of Members of this Chamber would not have been concerned about the freeze in councillors' allowances since 2010. We've had a lot in this Chamber and on the committees about the cost of living crisis and the impact that this has had on our residents is difficult to comprehend why? Once with no one's task lose seem residents to allocate an additional 102,000 pounds of local revenue to pay for increased councillors' allowances. I've been a member of this Council since 2014 and I can honestly see at the time of peanut cancer. I do not recall any of the Labour Members stating that there were not enough special responsibility allowances, or that any of them needed to be increased. Quite to the contrary, I distinctly recall that back in 2016 on the finance and general purposes committee, we decided to create one new co-chair for the Education and Children's Services Committee that post attracted a special responsibility allowance. The Labour lead member at the time denounced our additional salary, claiming that it was, and I quote, snouts in the trough,
having voiced your strong opposition to one new additional special responsibility allowance, I'm not sure most people would have difficulty. Most people would have difficulty in understanding the number of serves no proposed, which could mean 33 out of 35 councillors in the majority party being in receipt of a special responsibility allowance. Some of the reasons being proposed by the administration for the proposed increases in the new allowances are simply not credible in the paper proposing the increase in allowances. A number of Surrey submitted to the general purposes committee. It claimed, with the benefit of the benefit of a year in office, the administration of a clear picture of the levels of responsibility assured associated with the different rules performed by councillors, some of which involve significant levels of additional responsibilities, which, under the current ELO and scheme, do not attract any appropriate special responsibility allowances where this is clearly not true. A number of Labour Members have been members of this Council for years, having sat on committees and scrutinise the Executive for long periods. They were fully aware of the work of Cabinet members and the chairs of committees under to there couldn't be anything but fully aware of the volume of work that was involved in taking on these posts. However, it seems know that the majority group wanted us to believe that they have had some sort of epiphany. A revelation has led them to this surprising discovery that there's a need to ask Wandsworth taxpayers to pay for an increase and expansion in special responsibility allowances. In addition, the paper proposed by the Council emphasise that the freeze on allowances risks becoming a barrier to the principle that everyone should be able to consider representing their community. Where is the evidence for that?
a number of isn't was worth take on civic rules that contribute to daily life roles such as magistrates, Independent custody visitors, school governors or with charities. Most of these rules are not remunerated and some PR on the expenses London Councils Independent Panel on Councillors' loans. His state's allowances are not shown by poems to be something that influences councillors to take on the role, though they are instrumental, making it possible for some people to do so alone, so should be set at a level that enables people to undertake the role of a councillor, while not acting as an incentive to do so. In any event, the emphasis in the proposals being put forward by the administration is focused on increasing the number of SRE is not the basic allowances. It creates the impression that Wandsworth wants to move away from having councillors, who appreciate the reward of representing our community towards rules that have a financial incentive. It is not necessary to implement these proposed increases in allowances, in particular broad proposals for special responsibility, allowances and local people. I would suggest, quite rightly question what benefit these proposals to residents in Wandsworth? I would urge Members to support the motion.
Councillor Gibson,
thank you my number.
I mean, I will be honest, I've supported the freeze for the last 10 or 12 12 13 years.
the nice thing about being an independent is you are allowed to change your mind without getting to another two or three dozen other people to allow you to do so, and I've actually come to a view of saying that it's it's the exact opposite of responsible to a frozen the allowances for this period of time the 10,005 and 10,057 pounds in 2010 allowance.
would be worth 15,642 pounds today on general inflation.
the even at the 11,025 pounds and 12 pence we will be grateful for the 12%
figure that that's in the report, that represents a 30% cut in spending power. In other words, the allowance would have to be 42% higher than it is there to get back to the levels that it was in 2010. I think there is a disparity here, with the focus on on the
special responsibility allowances. That were missing the point there that actually getting people into the council. It's that basic allowance and it is an allowance. We shouldn't lose sight that it's not a pay. It's to allow people to put the time into being a councillor when the original work was being done in the 2000 local government act. The approach that was taken was that you assume eight hours a month of white-collar work is unpaid and then the amount of extra pay that you get over that is based on a broad white-collar wage at the moment. So, in other words, it was built in that there was considerable public service involved, but it was recognised that in a senior position leader cabinet member of mayor or whatever, it worked directly, elected mayor or whatever, then it was not really possible to do that in eight hours a month and therefore to allow people to do that from whatever background, then they were
they would need this. This extra pay and the idea that the crisis of of of of cost of living doesn't affect councillors seems to me very strange, or doesn't affect potential councillors even more so. I would have liked to see more emphasis on the on the basic point here, but there is one point that I think is it's terribly important within this. I understand the urge to play party politics with this, the points being made that it was played the other way round when the the second Deputy Sheriff of housing was
all the co-chairman of Housing Committee was was introduced and we see it nationally. There are then the national opposition never stops pointing out the figures, even in excess of 100,000 pounds seemed to have gone missing from the public accounts in the course of the COVID crisis and elsewhere, but we should bear in mind as Councillors. We don't get the same, the same temptations, I'm not going to say, but we don't get paid for asking questions, we don't face any of that, and I would urge there that every time we attacked each other's integrity and this can go both ways across the Chamber, it's a non party political point about party politics, but every time we attacked the integrity of individuals, it bounces back on all of us because there is a real sense out there. They're all the same. There's a real sense out there that all politicians go into it for the same kind of reasons. I don't think we get affected as much in local government as nationally, and I think that's probably fair, but nonetheless there is that that sense, and we've seen as unafraid in two of the debates today, traps being set to attack people's integrity rather than focusing on the very deep and serious issues we have at the moment, and I just urge all colleagues to really reflect on that. Do we really want to bring the reputation of local government down? Do we really want to say that Councillors on both sides of the Chamber? The national statistics are very clear, Conservative councillors are wealthier than other parties and therefore in a better position to be able to exist with that. But that's the whole point of the debate we're having is to widen that at that point, but nonetheless that too
to bring the reputation of the whole sector down for some short term party politics, and I decided the Chamber, I think, is something that I would just urge colleagues to think about very carefully, but most of all I would say I really think we should be implementing in full the basic allowance in the independent report and I think we should have a serious debate and we won't be able to have it as the next election approaches. We probably have to have it fairly soon about what the allowances are for about who we're trying to attract in and then saw what those appropriate level should be separate from
I'm afraid the rather bad-tempered and an opportunistic approach which has been taken this evening
on Saturday, killing.
Councillor D Kinney.
I think I wasn't actually expecting that Malcolm. I think that's been a really really strong, technically in kind of morally elegant speech you have just made and some of my colleagues because when I was brought to speak on this I was just very frustrated because I think given so much that's happened in our Council at the moment, be at the cost of living crisis, our capital programme, pressure on schools, things actually affect ones of residents. The fact that we want to have a debate about the issue that we think our Whip should be paid the same as a Cabinet Member, or I mean I'm just gonna speak directly to anyone who God forbid, is watching this, and it must be totally confused as to why we are discussing this. I mean what we have done is instead of paying deputy chairs, which is fulfilling in when someone sick or sitting in on a a couple of Zoom calls, we've decided to give it to champions so they can actively do things in our communities. It's not more money. We're just shifting the money to a role we think is better.
on the Whip saying you came up with a kind of strange, I think it was a comes based reason why you were gonna, pay your Whip to do whatever it was and were just trying to do the same because we think it's a valuable role allied like you know, we think it's an important role is functioning for democracy and has a very important role in the business of the Council, because it's essential to how we get things done, and then the third thing is like. The LGA framework is an independent review is independent review on trying to make it so that local government is more accessible to people. It's cross-party and the idea that the Labour party is going to do this race to the bottom which has been a kind of stupid political debate. That Malcolm really clearly pointed out about what this in real terms means for access for councillors. I think, frankly, if you're watching from home that that is all that we're trying to do, we are a Labour Council, we behave in standing up for making sure people get a fair pay, and tagging ourselves to our own officers seems like a reasonable long-term thing, so we can actually remove the party politics from this, so it becomes a kind of technocratic officer led decision because then we don't have to have this stupid fight which just makes us Galloway. I'm not going to give way now
the the
at the end of it, the crux of your argument, what I can understand is the crux of your argument is that this administration's use of public funds is somehow wasteful. That was what Councillor Hedges put across strongly in the speech and it's not if you want to respond to that, but that was is that correct analysis that you think were were wasteful with public monies that yeah yeah, so I want to start with one of the most recent Twitter videos Matthew you're in it,
it's about the Nine Elms Pimlico Bridge right now, similar Cow Bridge was one of your big, big schemes, you're both you're both in the video you recently put on Twitter.
no, no, I'm talking, Matthew, Matthew corner yeah. There was 500,000 pounds has been spent on the PR, just the PR alone leafleting out for things that don't have a planning application for things that the Council, the Conservative Councillor on the other side of the river didn't have any support for that. Now there's a Labour councillor doesn't have support for that's 500,000 pounds of public money that was spent on leaflets for a project that doesn't exist doesn't seem to have much political support right that for me is a waste of public funds. I'm really annoyed that we didn't go into the cabinet member's questions on our Regulation 18 because I'm going to go into some bigger numbers. You've heard tonight are regulation 18 changes. You've had a committee, and that's about changing our planning policy framework so that we can squeeze more affordable housing. But you'll see how it you'll see how, over the last decade, Japan in policy was 35% affordable housing 60 40 social intermediate. What you actually got was 18%, affordable and less than 5%. Was that social so overwhelmingly failed to meet your planning policy. Now, what is the real terms numbers in terms of public money? Public wasted money that came from the failure to enact your own planning policies because we've gone into the numbers and we've worked out over the last decades. Listen just listened after over the last decades you in terms of opportunity, costs loss about 3,084 social homes. You could've got if you enacted your own local plan that public, if we take build cost value, which became 1.2 billion pounds of public good of public value. So while you're scraping in this Council, over 26,000 pounds stipend to try and do the same thing that you guys did previously we lost 1.2 billion in what could be almost exactly the amount. Of housing we could need for temporary accommodation. So let me tell Graham Zoey?
the reason why I raised are reasons why he wants to speak over me is because the crux of this debate is to try and signal to Wandsworth residents that we are bad with their money, when the absolute opposite is true. We are trying to create a council that is fair, accessible but also no longer spends half a million pounds on leaflets for a bridge that doesn't exist. No longer lets property developers rip off this borough for huge amounts of money. While we, we argue about small change, to distract people and make people dislike politicians, the entire Conservative agenda is to make people think politicians are all the same, to hide the very clear ideological and policy based differences between us. That's what this debate is about, and that's why this debate needs to be called out for what it is, which is speaking against the important things that, once with residents, actually careful
imagine Mayor, imagine they are considering.
madam Mayor, considering the lateness of that the lateness of the hour, I would like to propose to complete the remaining business as specified in Standing order 32, this is shameful because do you have a seconder, I am named as a speaker on the motion and people who weren't even named on the motion as speakers have already been allowed to speak so I should be allowed to speak, I think,
so it's only foul, I'll be quite quick in my robots.
as the Council has sat for more than two hours, two and a half hours, it has been moved and seconded that the remaining items of the business on tonight's agenda be disposed in accordance with the provision of standing order 32 number 32, which means that the necessary motion to deal with reports for decision shall be formally moved and seconded and immediately voted on without a debate.
as the motion to deal with the remaining business in this way agreed.
I want to vote those in favour.
and thus against.
24 21 abstentions abstentions.
is being carried by 24 21.
on Item 17, all those in favour of the motion
those against.
any abstentions.
25 20 is carried 25 21.
is it actually?
sorry, it's the last 25 21.
we now tend to report's number 1 items for decision ammo reception of that report and will ask the Council whether they approve the recommendation in paragraph 1.
paragraph 2
no, because it's not agreed we would like to.
vote against recommendation C and for B and D, we would like to abstain.
second, takes recommendation, B and D together, so we're taking commendation, B and D together all those in favour.
we taken BMD together.
so.
all those in favour, please, with your hands up.
all right, sub-paragraph 2, that is page 14 general purpose copies of programme update paper NOMA 2023 2, to be heard on 20.
so paragraph B and D.
is what we have voted on all those items.
or those against.
any abstentions.
so is carried 20 voted for 24 and 21 abstention.
against sorry, paragraph C.
to approve the prudential indicator in Appendix D.
all those in favour.
all those gains.
any abstentions.
it's Kylie 24 21
paragraph 3, amendments to the allowances paid to members under the Council Members' Allowance came and allowance paid to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor under the mayoralty guidance, paper number 23 to 327 other recommendations approved.
the recommendations are agreed, we can take them altogether, but we'd like a named vote on it.
yeah
we need to still do.
we need to confirm.
whilst we are Whiting, I don't think I'm the only one, but when we were directed to paper 26 37 5 B I personally am lost, can we have a page number on the agenda, please, I think we'd all find that a lot easier if we could say on page that say 47 which would be a bad example, there's no recommendations on that but some as specific page number please would be really helpful.
Page number 22, Councillor Burton.
to them to
28 and paid them a 28th as well.
so you can't.
Good evening, Councillors, if you could please, when I call your name, indicate whether you wish to vote for against or abstain with regard to the recommendations, and if you could use your microphone, it's important for those who might be watching online.
Councillor Akinola is absent, Councillor Anne Bash for Councillor apps,
4, thank you, Councillor S, for Councillor Bolton.
4 Councillor Birchall.
against Councillor Buswell, for Councillor Brooks, against Councillor Ketty.
against Councillor Coakley for Councillor Cook.
against Councillor Cooper's absence, Councillor Corner against Councillor Pritchard for Councillor Cobley, against Councillor Davies for Councillor delicious, you against Councillor ticket him, Councillor Dobbs is absent, as is Councillor French Forbes and Fraser, Councillor Gasser, for Councillor Carson against Councillor Gilbert.
Councillor Govindia is absent, Councillor Mrs. Graham against Councillor Peter Graham against Councillor Grimston abstain.
Councillor Hamilton.
Councillor hedges against Councillor Henderson for Councillor Hogg for Councillor Humphreys.
Councillor Island Councillor Jeffery,
Councillor Chapo, Councillor GeForce against Councillor Justin against Councillor Lee
for Councillor Locker, Councillor Marshall
4 Councillor Mayorkas has left the Chamber Councillor Macleod for Councillor Osborne.
or Councillor Owens, against Councillor Paul for Councillor Pridham, against Councillor Richard Jones, against Councillor Rigby, for Councillor stock.
councillors such as his absent Councillor Sweet against Councillor Tyler for Councillor Varatharajah, or Councillor White Warrell and Yeats, are all absent, thank you.
recommendations are approved.
24 4 and 20 against 1 abstention.
we now intend to executive reports number 20 number 2, and I will ask Councillor ticket in to move reception of paper 1 from the reports relating to sorry, on a point of explanation, I guess is what it is.
I think given the hour, I think we don't need to do some the usual sort of specific, laborious voting that we usually do on report 2, but I just have to, and I think with with the indulgence of the Whip just spend 10 seconds explaining why there's been a practice in this Council for some time now where we vote on report number 2 paragraph by paragraph.
we do that for report number 1 because report number 1 as a substantive decision making exercise, so it's important that councillors vote according to their views report number 2 isn't a decision making exercise at all, it records decisions that have already been taken by the Executive and he just reported up to Council there has been a long historic tradition of people symbolically voting for or against it depending on what they thought about the executive's view.
but we don't need to detain our colleagues at this hour with that practice, so with the strong caveat, or indeed the strong statement that our votes tonight don't represent any of our substantive views on any of these paragraphs, we can dispatch this business quickly and we can just agree to receive all the reports for information.
Councillor Alf D agreed agreed,
so can we receive?
reports number 2 for information.
for information.
item 12 is from the Planning application Committee reports number 3, Councillor Burton.
item number 13 is from the Health and Wellbeing Board reports number 4 Councillor.
Henderson thank thank you, Madam Érik, on two items for information.
item number 14 is from the general purpose committee, the reports from this meeting has been seeded and the report's number 1 item for decision.
agreed item number 15 is a report of the Chief Executive on revision to Committee membership paper number 23 to 335, and IT admin paper 23 2 3 Heron 35 8, are those recommendations agreed, thank you, Councillors, that concludes the business of the ordinary meeting for this evening, thank you.
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