Labour rebel against leader over Council Tax

A pattern seems to be emerging in Rugby Borough Council of parties rebelling against their representatives on all-party working groups.

In September we had the conservative group rebelling against the recommendation of an all-party working group on cutting the cost of running the Council despite the presence of one of their own, Cllr Sally Bragg, on the group.

The Council meeting this evening (9 December 2014) saw the Labour group rebelling over the proposed Council Tax Reduction Scheme despite the presence of their own leader, Cllr Claire Edwards, on the relevant task group.

In August the all-conservative Cabinet had approved a new scheme for consultation. This involved taking some money from people with savings greater than £10,000 in order to provide greater support for people who were working but eligible to benefit under the scheme. As an example of what the conservatives were proposing they wanted to double the weekly allowance for single people in work from £5 to £10. Almost four thousand people who might have been affected by this change were consulted. (There were 77 responses to the consultation and a majority of those who responded supported the changes to the scheme).

These changes were considered by the Council's Universal Credit and Welfare Reform Task Group on two occasions this autumn. These were its meetings of 10 September and 27 October. Unlike the Cabinet these are all-party committees. The leader of the Labour group is a member of this task group. The minutes of the task group meetings record no dissent to the proposals made by Cabinet.

Today at the Council two Labour councillors put down an amendment to the proposals to raise the weekly allowance from £5 to £15. A quick costing by the Council's officers suggested this would cost the Council around £75,000. No one from the Labour benches spoke up to say how this money was to be found.

Cllr Jerry Roodhouse (Lib Dem, Paddox) said that the way to change Council policy was not to make policy up just before meetings of the full Council but to get stuck in to the Council's working groups.

Labour's motion was lost by nine votes to twenty-six.