This Wednesday 19th October sees a Full Council meeting of Crawley Borough Council take place. There are five of these meetings a year and under the current Labour Administration, they have increasingly become cynical and shambolic. At recent meetings, time has been deliberately wasted by Labour councillors telling each other how great they are with repeated mutual back-slapping, including taking credit for achievements that are down to the Conservatives, such as the redevelopment of Queens Square. However, more concerning has been the intentional avoidance by Labour of questions from the Conservative opposition.
These five meetings a year each have a 15-minute section called Cabinet Member Question Time. This is where the seven members of the Council’s ruling Labour Cabinet can be asked questions by the other 30 members of the Council. Incredibly, at the last two of these meetings (held in April and July), the Labour Mayor who chairs the meeting, has not allowed me as Leader of the Opposition, to ask a question of any Labour Cabinet Members. The July meeting saw only three Conservative questions allowed during the 15-minute Question Time. This was because of deliberate time-wasting by Labour councillors in both their responses to questions and in asking long-winded planted questions of themselves.
Amazingly, one Labour Cabinet Member actually recited an entire poem as part of his answer to a planted question from one of his colleagues, in order to waste a couple more minutes so as to reduce the possibility of Conservative questions within the 15-minute allocated slot. Being afraid of scrutiny and challenge is one thing, but deliberating avoiding it by cynical means is quite another.
I am hopeful that some public exposure might force an improvement in conduct at this week’s Full Council meeting. I have tabled a motion on a serious subject, namely the RMT’s rail strike that this week sees the second strike period out of a series of five. The Conservative opposition are calling upon the Council to formally condemn this series of strikes on behalf of Crawley rail passengers and for the RMT to call off their disruptive strike action.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
19th October 2016