Labour councillor joins budget row

Date published: 28/02/2006

Labour Cllr Colin Lambert has joined the row over the council budget; he says the Liberal Democrats avoid responsibility and refused to take a constructive part in setting the council budget.

Commenting on last week's meeting he went on to say:

"The wild and militant section of the Liberal Democrats in Rochdale obviously holds the balance of power in their party in Rochdale. At the council meeting to set a budget for our communities, they played no part in setting a legal budget - offering no alternatives they simply sat on their hands.

"They attempted to prevent a budget being set which had they been successful would have meant council services possibly grinding to a halt in two weeks.

"Without setting a budget - schools would have closed and over 20,000 children would have been sent home, bins would not have been emptied and vital services to our community and including elderly residents would have stopped.

Cllr Lambert accused the Liberal Democrats of "bad behaviour, irresponsible ignorance to childish catcalling".

He alleged that Cllr David Clayton the Liberal Democrat councillor for Kingsway attempted to destroy the budget process by suggesting that each Liberal Democrat could move their own amendment to the budget - this, he said, after they had spoken all night about not knowing what was needed to balance the budget.

Cllr Lambert commented: "They had no idea what was needed or what had to be done to set a balanced budget."

The council cabinet had presented a budget and councillors from two parties presented possible amendments. The majority of councillors in the meeting had agreed that there were elements of both amendments, which could both protect services and prevent a further increase in the council budget.

The Mayor asked if the council would like a short adjournment to see if all three parties could agree an amendment, which would have the support of all council members

The Conservative Group met to broker a deal to set a reasonable council tax rise and protect services. The Labour Group met and agreed that a deal could be done that would both protect vital services to our communities and set a council tax, which was reasonable, The Liberal Democrat group came back into council with no alternative budget measures.

Six of the Liberal Democrat councillors had left the meeting and Cllr Lambert said of their leaving: "from the expressions on their faces when they were leaving they clearly did not agree with what the majority of their group was doing."

He went on to say:

"The Liberal Democrats refused to back amendments which would save the closure of Touch Stones for two days per week and failed to back an amendment to restore the £9,000 cut to Petrus.

"Last night saw a group of councillors abdicate all responsibility.

"The people of this proud Borough and our communities deserve better, to ask people to vote for you and then to refuse to behave responsibly and take responsibility and walk away from taking the necessary decisions is not acceptable. We would all be facing a Liverpool situation of the 1980's where redundancy notices would have had to have been sent out in taxi's to all the workforce and services would have stopped being delivered.

"The elderly and those who need home help would have been left without their vital services and the council would have been facing bankruptcy.

"This is not what we need, councillors have to behave responsibly.

The budget was set at 4.62%; a rate at which Cllr Lambert believes will protect services and place the council on a sound financial base for the future.

He said: "The aim of Cabinet was to set a balanced budget this with agreement of the majority has now been done."