There’s now questions from Councillors. We won’t record these in detail: you can read them or even watch the film on:
http://moderngov.towerhamlets.gov.uk/uuCoverPage.aspx?bcr=1
The exchanges are brief, and you can see how most councillors present here tonight are grinding party political axes rather than dealing with Council services.
Questions having taken place, we were about to do a report from Overview & Scrutiny when Cllr Rachel Saunders found yet another emergency motion in her back pocket. This cites money which the Council has spent on a judicial review of the decision to send in inspectors and on responses to the Panorama programme: Cllr Saunders believes this would have funded four social workers. She gave Mayor Rahman a sound dressing down and told him he should fund any further legal action himself.
Cllr Khales Ahmed seconded the motion with a few chosen insults. This is a waste of time.
Cllr Shahed Ali spoke next and said precisely this. He pointed out that legal action could also save money, for example as currently being used to try to get the Rich Mix to pay back to the Council a £850,000 loan (not least because it had not been developed as an arts centre, as intended).
Cllr Peter Golds was up next. He quoted a judge who had dismissed one of the Council’s applications as well as other transgressions the Council’s legal services had apparently committed. He reminded Mayor Rahman that the Council’s budget was £1.2 billion – which actually seemed to put the small sums spent on legal action in context rather than make them look bigger.
Cllr Saunders decided she had had enough at this point and put a procedural motion to move to a vote – thus ensuring that no more Tower Hamlets First councillors could speak. She thought the Rich Mix did fulfil Cllr Jones’s vision of being a good arts centre in Bethnal Green (does the bit of Bethnal Green Road it’s on count as Bethnal Green?).
The motion was then passed, 26-16 – Labour and the Tories voting together, against Tower Hamlets First.
We then returned to the Overview & Scrutiny Report. Cllr Joshua Peck introduced the item – saying that the tabled report had not come from O&S and saying he had not seen it before it had been tabled. He admitted that O&S had felt that the JR turned out to be (just about) justified. He was concerned, though, at issues raised in some of the documents. He suggested that the decision to go for JR had been taken by an officer, not the Mayor – and he did not agree with that process.
It was all a bit odd: on the one hand earlier Cllr Saunders had told the Mayor off for taking decisions which O&S then decided he had not taken.
Cllr Golds said he thought the Mayor was mis-spending public money.
Cllr Saunders then moved next business again. The Council agreed to move on. Cllr Peck took his right of reply. He corrected others, and said that it was reasonable to have one of the Judicial Reviews on the basis of the information available, but this was not to say it was a sensible decision, nor one he agreed with politically. He insisted that he had not seen the report before it was tabled.
Cllr Saunders then moved a change to the order of business again – essentially to take another emergency motion on Circle Housing and then all the other Labour motions before any Tower Hamlets First motions.
Somehow we then ended up discussing the Docklands Sailing Centre, on the basis of a motion put down by Cllr Dave Chesterton. Strangely this motion called for no development to be allowed on Millwall Docks which had a bad effect on users of the Docklands Sailing Centre – the Council should use its powers “as a local planning authority” to stop this. This is strange because the Council has very little power as a planning authority and what power it does have is exercised by members of the relevant planning committees have to exercise their powers without prejudice, without being whipped and on a quasi judicial basis. So why is the Council taking a position on this matter? How will any councillor present and voting on this motion be able to vote on any planning application?
Cllr Denise Jones spoke up for the motion – also saying that councillors on the planning committee should consider this application carefully.
Cllr Rabina Khan said that the development of the Westferry Printers site was welcome – but because of concerns about the Sailing Centre, various studies had been asked for. She said that this was the business of the Strategic Development Committee (SDC), though.
Cllr Saunders asked to move to a vote. This was rather badly timed as there was no one else waiting to speak – so we wasted a bit of time on taking an unnecessary procedural vote.
Cllr Chesterton had his right of reply and agreed this was a matter for SDC, but he thought that the Council should lay down a marker showing it was serious about infrastructure. The motion was passed.
The Council then moved to discuss an emergency motion on Old Ford Housing Association (sadly there was no copy for the press table). Strangely this called for the Mayor to take action under “Section 17” against Old Ford, forcing it to adhere to promises made in the transfer document – something Labour had always said was impossible when it was asked to do similar things when it ran the Council. Secondly, it called on the Mayor to suspend Circle Housing Association from the list of preferred developers: again, this was something the Labour Administration had said was impossible as it would have left the Council open to challenge. At least Cllr Shahed Ali managed to point out that issues like what was happening at Old Ford is the result of Labour’s stock transfer policy. He also asked what the Council’s policies on emergency resolutions were: where was the emergency on this one (the umpteenth emergency tonight).
Cllr Gold supported the idea of referring Old Ford to the HCA.
Cllr Rachel Blake admitted that she had campaigned for stock transfer – and had believed Old Ford was the best way to get money into the estates and was therefore very disappointed now. She said that this motion was an emergency because Circle 33 had just been reported to the Regulator. She thought housing associations should give good services and adopt good governance.
The motion was carried. Whatever it is.
There are two minutes left of the original extension: it looks like people are giving up. Good night.