Agenda item

For a period of up to thirty minutes, a Member of the Council who has given prior notice in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 15, may ask (a) the Mayor, (b) the Leader of the Council or (c) a Member of the Cabinet a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affects the Borough.

The questions received for this meeting are attached.  A Member asking a question may ask, without giving notice, one supplementary question of the Member to whom the first question was asked.  The supplementary question must arise directly out of the reply.

Question to the Executive Member for Environment

“In the recent budget statement, provision was given to allow free parking for carers. A question raised by myself at the budget scrutiny OSC was which carers would eligible for this - private companies or individual such as family members. At the time officers indicated that this was yet to be determined. Would the portfolio holder be able to now further elaborate on which groups would receive free carers parking?”

Answer

“I can confirm that the permits are granted to organisations registered with the Care Quality Commission.  They can apply for a permit for an individual vehicle on the basis that the person using that vehicle is conducting home medical visits within on-street resident permit schemes with a maximum parking duration of 2 hours.  The permits are renewed annually. I am very pleased to be able to remove the charge for this scheme and benefit some of the people in the borough who are supporting our most vulnerable residents.”

Supplementary Question

“With regards to companies that are CQC regulated, so that could be anywhere from a GP practice to a private company that provides their services, roughly how much do you think this will cost over the duration of say 1 year? I know that you have budgeted for it, but you may not use all of the budget so what's anticipated you'd use on the whole year?”

Answer:

“I don’t have that number in front of me right now but I’ll make sure I come back to you with that as soon as possible.”

Question to the Executive Member for Resources

“In last year’s election commitments were made by those now in the joint administration to enhance support for our high streets and local shops, including a comprehensive package aimed at increasing footfall and aiding local businesses. However, aside from one weekend of free parking and the introduction of free Sunday parking starting in April—more than offset by higher parking fees on Saturdays and especially weekdays—it's unclear what concrete actions the Council has taken to fulfil these promises. Additionally, there was an intention of developing an economic strategy. Could you provide an update on the status of both these linked initiatives?"

Answer

“It is disappointing that my fellow Councillor has not noticed or chosen to ignore the vast number of events and initiatives that the joint administration has overseen, bringing a renewed focus on economic development, which was sadly lacking under the previous administration.

In respect of the free parking days introduced by this administration, we have received excellent feedback from local traders and businesses, including some who have fed back directly to the Mayor. In Hatfield we've seen a bigger and better than ever Christmas lights switch on, supported a new Diwali event, held an Easter Fun Day, and two board games days with Arts and Crafts schools, carried out a children's cycling safety event and two farmers' market cooking demonstrations. In Welwyn Garden City, as well as supporting the BID, for example, working quickly with them to ensure that women's football was screened live, we've held children's storytime carried out Lego builders and retro arcade games events, developed a treasure map trail and celebrated purple Tuesday. All of this has resulted in three units in the Howard Centre having been filled with another on the way in the former Next unit. In addition, shops have opened up in Frithend Road and Howardsgate.

We do continue to develop the economic development strategy, but we have needed to review the scope of interventions given the financial challenges we have inherited and the continued underfunding from central government. Ramping up economic development is difficult in the uncertain times this national government has delivered. Officers are presently working on a draft strategy, I await the outcome of that work and we will do everything we can to deliver for our communities. I hope that comprehensively answers your question.”

Supplementary Question

“That was a very comprehensive answer and I was aware of some of that, but I wouldn't admit to knowing all of it. Some very fine window dressing to try and attract footfall in the town. What I was rather hoping to hear was something of a more concrete measure of actually working with businesses. Stevenage Town has a town centre manager who liaises directly with the actual retailers, I wonder if this was a model that your administration might investigate.”

Answer:

“We’ve looked at that. They would have to pay a salary and of course in these straitened times we've had to think very hard and carefully about that, but for the minute, as I said, we are looking at a draft of economic development rather than doing that, we might come back to it later, but this is going to take a little while as you can imagine, given all the other things we have to do in date.”

Question to the Leader of the Council

“During a recent CPPP meeting, the Leader of the Council put forward the idea of a borough-wide verge protection order. Irrespective if this is a good action to pursue or not, it was a suggestion not included in the papers for the meeting. This raises the question of whether there were prior consultations with the portfolio holder, other cabinet members or officers. Can he confirm if this was discussed in advance and does he agree that if it was, and as it was being proposed by the administration, and specifically the Leader of the Council, for transparency this proposal would have been better documented and shared in advance to facilitate thorough discussion among all members, rather than being introduced unexpectedly during the meeting?"

Answer

“For the benefit of all Members, I just wanted to be very clear that what I suggested at CPPP in February was simply to ask the panel whether or not we as a panel should ask the officers to scope a borough wide verge protection order, not implement one. I definitely did not ask the panel to commit to implementing one. CPPP is the only formal cross-party group that discusses parking issues. I thought it was a good opportunity to raise this in order to gauge members' initial views before asking officers to do the exploratory work. My Cabinet colleagues and I are also fully aware of how busy our parking officers are, as are the panel members We don't want to both overburden them by asking them to produce a document that would not progress further if the panel was unhappy with the fundamental concept.

I am happy to confirm that the portfolio holder and officers were fully aware that I would be raising it at CPPP. Whilst in theory I could simply ask officers to do the exploratory work without raising it at CPPP, I wanted to be transparent and seek engagement from all at and on CPPP. I'm very keen for panels and committees to be places for discussion, challenge and consensus, not rubber stamping, and I introduced this discussion item with that in mind. However, if the leader of the opposition doesn't think that openness, transparency, challenging consensus-building is for him and his party, perhaps he needs to contemplate advancement to his party’s national government because I'm sure that would fit right in.”

Supplementary Question

“We agreed it is good to debate that item but it was thrown in at the last minute and obviously we didn't have time to think about it. It would have been useful, even if not a paper, to have had that as a recommendation for consideration in the meeting, and the concern was what was budgeted and what was in the parking programme and whether it impacted on the parking programme, so the question: does the Leader still not think a very brief note in the report would have been useful for that meeting?”

Answer

“I think, with hindsight, putting a note in like that might have been useful and informative, and I will attempt to do that sort of thing in in future if that reassures the councillor.” 

Question to the Leader of the Council

“It has been over two months since Mr Bates vs the Post Office was first broadcast, shocking the nation as they learnt about the injustice that 100s of postmasters experienced.

Of course, it has been many more months, and years, that those postmasters, and their relatives, have spent fighting for justice. Politicians from across the political divide have found the decency to apologise for any way that they may have contributed to this tragic situation - but one has chosen not to do so.

Ed Davey was the business minister responsible for the Post Office between 2010 and 2012. He has been asked to apologise on many occasions. Previous ministers have done so. We know of postmasters in our district that were affected by the scandal.

Can the Leader of the Council confirm that he will write to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, to express this Council's disappointment in Mr Davey still refusing to genuinely apologise and to urge him to do the decent thing and say sorry?”

Answer

“Before I set out to answer your question, I feel it’s important that we stand united as councillors of this borough to express our deepest concerns about the hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses that were wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office due to the faults in the Horizon accounting system. I am sure I speak for all here when I say we would urge the government to fully compensate all the victims as quickly as possible.

As for the question I would make three points. First, I don't know whether Councillor Kasumu is aware, but Sir Ed Davey has already apologised on this matter. Sir Ed Davey wrote a piece in the Guardian back in February, which very clearly included an apology for believing the lies the Post Office told him while he was Minister back in 2010 to 2012. I appreciate the Guardian is perhaps not a paper that regularly read by Councillor Kasumu; maybe the Express is more to his taste.

Second, I'm informed that eight Conservative ministers have populated his position since 2012. I note that none of those are mentioned, except in passing; perhaps their party affiliation, is something to do with that. And thirdly, it's really apparent that the opposition have put a lot of effort in trying to castigate Sir Ed Davey on this, but I don't hear any calls for Boris Johnson to apologise for allowing Paula Vennells to be awarded a CBE in 2019, despite clear evidence of Post Office lies being peddled to ministers after the court cases in 2015, and subsequently. The party opposite appears to want to others to be held accountable to standards that they repeatedly failed to meet themselves. The Conservative government, I believe, should stop throwing a stream of dead cats on the table and instead consider some of their own record since 2012 which, of course, includes choosing a prime minister that lied to Parliament and the Queen, choosing a prime minister who crashed the economy and was outlived by a lettuce, overseeing a cost of living crisis that has seen millions dropping below the breadline and plunging the country into a recession. I could go on in that vein for a very long time, couldn't I? I would suggest that voters who are watching this should take the advice of your own Minister, the right honourable Greg Hands, and judge this government on their record. I certainly do.”

Supplementary question

“I am both disappointed and embarrassed for the leader of this Council that he would choose to make this situation at this point very political. The Leader mentioned that the apology or the fake apology, the apology that Mr Davey made around the so-called lies from the Post Office. There is an inquiry ongoing. We don't need to talk about that, but this question was about him. Will the leader of the Council once again choose to do the right thing and ask Mr. Davey to make an apology for any role that he may have played, and not just any lies from the Post Office; I'm asking for him to apologise for involvement he may have had; other ministers have done so, and that is a fact - people that I know personally have done so.”

Answer

“I will take instruction from the Mayor because I think that doing so is an appropriate thing to do in this Council Chamber, even if others appear not to. My response is that as far as I'm concerned, Sir Ed Davey has apologised, he's apologised or more than one occasion as you are fully aware, and I do not believe there is any further mileage in this particular issue. You may say that you recognise a fake apology; having been a special adviser to Boris, maybe it's because you've had a lot of practice at that.”

Question to the Leader of the Council

“I am delighted that the Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council has been run for almost a year by the Joint Administration. I think that we "survived and survived well"! How do the Leader and Deputy Leader view last 12 months? Was it a failure, as some predicted, or a success story and why?”

Answer

“Both Lynn and I are absolutely delighted with the excellent progress we've made since May 2023; there have been many success stories, and I would like to highlight a small selection. We worked hard to successfully avert a lengthy bin strike less than four weeks into our administration. We've adopted the Local Plan. We've introduced a new Council vision and underpinning priorities for the borough which reflected the views of our communities and was unanimously agreed by this Council within six months of the joint administration taking charge. Despite all the funding cuts from government, we produced and agreed a financially sound budget. We successfully delivered our first ever One Welwyn Hatfield Community Awards. We've worked on plans to improve the public realm and marketplace and received many good comments from a recent public engagement event. We received many comments back from residents who acknowledge the Council is already better at listening and responding, showing that the practical effects of our change vision and the culture it is fostering. We’ll be introducing two new cabinet panels in the new municipal year to engage yet more with the public and members regarding policy directions on climate change and community policies. On climate change, we've undertaken a comprehensive review of our climate change action plan and have introduced a new climate change hub with a long list of public engagement activities, including the biodiversity photography competition that was launched last week and I'd encourage everybody to take part.

Of course, all the successes could not be achieved without the hard work of all our cabinet members and all our fantastic officers, and I’d just like to use this opportunity to thank everyone involved in this exciting journey and may it continue after the elections in May.”