Labour hits back at delayed debate jibe

Dudley’s Labour leader hit back hard at claims from Liberal Democrats his party is delaying vital council debates.

The council is considering how to clear a backlog of 27 Notices of Motion from elected members calling for debates on issues ranging from potholes to deep fakes.

Labour came under attack from the Lib Dems for submitting the majority of the outstanding motions to be debated, along with any proposed amendments, at full council meetings.

Dudley’s Lib Dem leader, Cllr Ryan Priest, said: “For many years motions were underused in Dudley. When it was just the two old parties in the chamber many meetings would pass with no motions at all.

“A sceptic might suggest an ulterior motive to Labour submitting nearly 20 of them now that the Lib Dem and Reform group are putting some in.

“With just shy of 30 motions in the queue, at the current rate every councillor in the chamber will face re-election before they are heard. 

“This is delaying a vital debate on matters such as developers’ community contributions and fair access to household waste recycling.”

Labour group leader, Cllr Shaukat Ali, dismissed the Lib Dem criticism as ‘absolute nonsense’.

Cllr Ali said: “There is no ulterior motive in this, the list of motions we’ve submitted cover a whole range of issues which affect local people, climate change, education, dropped kerbs, waste collection, Dudley Town Football Club, Send, regeneration.

“Which one of those issues does he and others think don’t affect or impact local people?

“They were submitted in accordance with the council’s constitution, the established procedure, so I don’t know why people are crying about it.”

The Labour group leader also dismissed the suggestion that some national issues currently the subject of Notices of Motions, like the NHS or retirement age, should be left to MPs to deal with in Westminster.

He said: “We need to use every avenue to be able to raise those concerns and our views and feelings.

“If a motion gets approved it’s shared with our MPs, they can say ‘this is the view of the council’.”