The Debate that Wasn’t

The October council meeting was remarkable for two reasons.

The first was that it was one of a new type of “themed meeting” in which cabinet members, back benchers and opposition councillors could all contribute in the hope that an open debate and the generation of new ideas might lead to policy improvements.

The second thing that was remarkable was that they chose not to do this and went home early.

Let us explain.

A report was provided by officers of the council.

Readers might consider the debate timely, in the light of the housing regulator’s findings.

A motion was submitted by Cllrs Gray and Mohammed. An amendment was proposed by the Green councillors. This, you might think, was a structure which would allow for a debate upon the hows and whys of temporary housing.

Unfortunately, it was not a major step forward in thinking and contained a number of proposals that might have the unintended consequence of reducing the number of properties on the market; insisting on 50% of all new housing as social housing might sound good, but might just make some developments uneconomical and the end of no-fault evictions might just mean that fewer property owners are willing to put their properties up for rent. But that notwithstanding, the motion offered a chance for a discussion.

The Greens proposed that Newham Council should have the power to end right to buy. This should have been music to the ears of Mayor Fiaz, as this too was amongst the campaign pledges she made back in 2018.

So the scene was set for the major debate. There were only three Green counillors, Labour could have lined up its big guns, (assuming there are some) and given new councillors a chance to debate in public. 

But they didn’t.

Instead they appeared to run scared of debating with the Greens and used a procedural motion to curtail debate.

And everybody got to go home early.