Labour ends boycott of scrutiny bodies as Tories are 'frozen out'

Labour withdrew its members from the seven scrutiny commissions at Hull Council last year, claiming they had become "nodding dogs" for the Liberal Democrat administration.

The party said it would now resume its formal monitoring of the decision-making process, and has taken chairmanship of three of its seven overview and scrutiny commissions.

The committees oversee key service areas including children's services, crime and community safety, environment and transport, health, housing and regeneration, and value for money.

Before the council elections last month all were chaired by Liberal Democrats.

Labour's Tom McVie now chairs Value for Money, with party colleagues John Hewitt chairing the Health and Social Wellbeing commission, and Sean Chaytor chairing Housing, Neighbourhood Renewal and Urban Regeneration.

The rest are chaired by Lib Dems.

Labour group leader, Coun Steve Brady, said: "We have rejoined scrutiny. We've got a leader (Lib Dem Carl Minns) with all the power; he can engineer Cabinet if he wants now, he's very much like an elected mayor.

"We need strong opposition on scrutiny to scrutinise these decisions. Unfortunately, the way it's set up it still gives them a majority of people.

"We have got three chairs on what we think are three commissions that are fundamentally important to Hull, finance, housing and health.

"We will be playing a full part and we have been concerned about the lack of stuff coming out of these commissions.

"We believe this year is the time to get involved and hopefully the administration will listen to us."

But while Labour has come in from the cold, the minority Conservative group has now accused the Lib Dems of attempting to freeze out its two councillors John Fareham and John Abbott.

This follows Coun Fareham's removal from the chair of the planning committee, a role he held for eight years.

Coun Fareham said the Lib Dems had offered Coun Abbott a place on the committee, which was unacceptable to the Tories, although Coun Fareham said he planned to have a year off the committee anyway.

He questioned the independence of the planning committee, now that it has a Lib Dem chair in Coun Craig Woolmer.

He said: "Planning is now more politicised as it is in the control of the ruling group. They decided to dispense with my services as they are perfectly entitled to do.

"The message came out that 'we are going for strict proportionality and we don't want you on planning in case you cause trouble for the new chairman'.

"But I am not going to have them tell me what to do, it isn't for their group to say who we can have on planning.

"It's unnerving and gratuitous.

"When I was chairman I had Ken Branson (Labour) as a former chairman on the committee and I found his contributions invaluable. I also had Labour or Liberal Democrat deputy chairs and made sure other groups were represented."

He added: "They are trying to starve us out of the Guildhall and it's not going to work."

Coun Woolmer said: "It's a great honour to be the new chairman of the planning committee. I want to continue and build upon the work started by Coun Fareham on the committee.

"I'm looking forward to helping drive the city's regeneration agenda forward with all parties and have already taken steps to encourage continued cross-party working."