East London News A Force for the community…
Now Cllr Danny Hassell is asking for motion 12.10 to be taken next. This is agreed. More: question 6.10, from a member of the public, is being taken too, as it informs the motion.
Ms Emma Price is asking her question: she points out that Cambridge Heath Sixth Form is no longer admitting students with disabilities to its “foundation unit”. She is applauded for her speech.
Cllr Hassell is now proposing his motion. He is calling on the Council to reconsider the decision to close this unit, which admits SEN pupils. There has been no consultation with parents.
Cllr Gulam Robbani is now putting an amendment. This supports the parents’ desire to have good provision and asks councillors and other bodies to work together to try to keep the unit open. He has pointed out that this is not a Council decision and the Council has no power to decide the future of the Unit.
Cllr Rabina Khan is explaining that the amendment was worked out with the parents and calls for a cross-party approach. Let’s see if Labour agree to this approach.
Cllr Oliur Rahman is speaking: referring to a relative he has who has special educational needs. He has also met campaigners and he believes the Cambridge Heath Unit is essential, not least because of the continuity of support it gives. He has stated that Ms Price and her fellow parents have the support of the Mayor and his entire team.
Labour’s Cllr Marc Francis, having formally seconded the motion, is now speaking. He welcomes the Mayor’s Administration’s cross party approach, but he believes it should not have been necessary to come to the Council. He, Cllr Francis, raised the problem with Council officers, who did not respond saying that the Council was putting pressure on to keep the Unit open. He says that is in contrast with the support that THF councillors have given tonight. He says that the support THF have given tonight is because of the campaign the parents have waged – and the Council would not have given the response he received when it was a Labour Administration, as education officers were always more proactive. He is implying that THF are letting officers get away with a lazy response. Cllr Francis has a very rosy view of what his education officers did under the last Labour Administration!
Cllr Rabina Khan asked that Mr Price be allowed to speak again, but the Speaker would not allow this.
Cllr Hassell is replying to the debate: they want action, not really a cross party group (what would that achieve?) but they will support the amendment anyway.
We now have the Mayor’s report. He hopes that everyone has had a good break over Easter, Passover and/or Bengali New Year. He hoped that the people will hold the Government to account in the coming General Election and we will not have any more cuts. He hopes the Tory Government will not be returned to continue its austerity measures. He refers to his manifesto, which included a pledge to own an accessible Town Hall: the Council is on track to deliver this project, in accordance with the manifesto pledge. Similarly, he was pleased that the Council has now acquired a multi-faith burial site, as it had promised to do for several years. He also congratulated the Commissioning Group for being successful in obtaining funding to improve primary care. He congratulated those councillors who had recently visited the new Government in Greece. He congratulated councillors for supporting Holland estate residents and parents using the Cambridge Heath Unit. He expressed condolences to the family of Mr Chowdhury, Chair of Brick Lane Mosque, who had died today.
Labour Leader Cllr Saunders is now making her report. She is picking up points made earlier this evening, defending budget amendments Labour put. It is impossible to record what she is saying – almost impossible to hear it. She has also said that she was on the East End Homes Board but found that the management ignored the Board, so she stood down – which is why she supports residents who are suffering from what EEH management is doing. Cllr Saunders expressed her support for Ms Naz Shah, the Labour candidate standing against George Galloway in Bradford – who is suffering a dreadful campaign of harassment in the campaign. She finished (after time) by asking for a motion on the NHS to be taken now (motion 12.5 on Barts Trust). The Council agreed to take the motion now.
Cllr Asma Begum is now reading a speech to move the motion, which deplores the fact that Barts Health NHS Trust has been put in special measures and which generally praises the Labour Party’s policies on the NHS. Interestingly, the motion calls for the Trust to “use assets” (reserves?) to build affordable housing for its workers.
Cllr Rachel Blake is seconding the motion for Labour (also reading out a speech). She says the proposals in it will change the Trust for the better and the NHS for the better too: this will, of course, only be the case if Labour is returned to office. The motion, she says, is about saving the NHS and housing local key workers.
Cllr Asad is replying. He agrees that the Conservative Government has run down the NHS. He has an amendment with specific proposals about how the NHS could improve, which he wants to add to Labour’s motion (to note what the Council is doing to support health in the borough). The Speaker has asked Cllr Begum if she accepts the amendment and Cllr Saunders has said yes, she does.
Cllr Saunders is now speaking: she seems to be attacking Tory cuts, which are endangering local services. She is attacking the Tories quite thoroughly: she has not mentioned the various Labour policies which paved the way to what the Tories have done over the last five years.
Tory Cllr Chris Chapman is now trying to defend the Coalition’s policy on the NHS: to howls of laughter from across the Chamber. He is referring to Labour having spent all the money before the Coalition came into office and, therefore, generally saying that Labour is on thin ice in their criticisms. There are loud bursts of stage laughter from the Labour ranks.
Cllr Rabina Khan is now speaking. She refers to Barts having a “culture of bullying”, which is mentioned in the motion, and to this being directed at Bangladeshi mothers in particular. She is speaking about her own experiences in the maternity unit there.
Labour Cllr Harrisson is now speaking. She works for a health trade union, so she speaks to health workers regularly. They tell her they are often forgotten. She blames the Tory Government for its pay freeze and pension cuts and presiding over understaffing and creeping privatisation. She mentioned how hospitals are being forced to outsource catering (hasn’t been watching James Martin’s hospital food campaign, then!). Again, she seems to have no awareness of how the NHS was run under Labour!
Cllr Oliur Rahman has got to his feet: he says that Labour is treating this debate like a party political broadcast, and virtually everyone is shouting at him. The Tories previously referred to THF and Labour forming an anti-Tory Coalition: however, he pointed out that the Tories and Labour seemed to have a coalition on this council as they so often work together. He has made a stray comment to Cllr Joshua Peck tweeting during the meeting: checking up on this, one finds that yes, the Labour Group seem to be all tweeting each other about their motions and so on.
A further Tory Councillor, Andrew Wood, is speaking now, saying that he works with patients at Whipps Cross. He points out that the Barts Trust is the largest in the country and perhaps it should not have merged with Whipps Cross. He also felt the Trust made a mistake in not having managers for each site. He admits there may be other problems, but those two decisions led to problems. On the key worker housing issue, he points out that there is housing development as part of rebuilding around Whitechapel: perhaps the social housing element should be given to hospital workers. [This is rather beside the point – the social housing is needed for the general needs waiting list; it is the private housing which should be diverted to hospital workers.] He also pointed out that most of Barts’ problems come from the PFI deal it took out to finance the rebuilding.
Labour Cllr Amina Ali (not detained in Bradford now, so she has made it to the Council) agreed with Cllr Khan that there is discrimination against women whose first language is not English.
Cllr Joshua Peck is now speaking. He says he didn’t intend to speak (he wouldn’t need to, if he has been putting so many of his thoughts on Twitter) but he has given a long list of cuts which THF has made which he believes are heartless, as are the cuts the Tory Government has made. He is in full flow about how the Mayor is not progressive but is a “shower” who wants to spend £95 million building a palace in Whitechapel.
Cllr Shahed Ali is now speaking. He recalls when he campaigned against the Barts PFI deal, but Labour pushed it through. There is now a load of heckling, which appears to centre on the fact that Cllr Ali has been in different political parties – which has derailed whatever point he was making. Cllr Ali has pointed out that the main point is that he has been elected three times. He says that there have been many positive points made about the NHS, but he feels that Cllr Saunders’ motion is party political again, claiming credit for what Labour has done and implying that other parties are not doing enough.
We now have Cllr Danny Hassell. He thanked Cllrs Khan and Ali for sharing experiences of the maternity services. He feels that councillors on Health Scrutiny have worked for improvements. He equates the heartlessness of the Tory Government with the lack of care taken by THF, which is a bit much.
Cllr Begum is now replying to the debate. She appears to be reading her reply: this cannot be the case, surely? There is a diversion while Cllr Shahed Ali suggests that Cllr Begum stand up, but she does not seem to want to do this. Yes, she is reading: and rather inaudibly. Her “reply to the debate” consists of little more than saying that we need a Labour Government.
The amendment has been accepted. The motion as a whole is passed: 38 for and the five Tories against.
