Frustrations for Labour at fractious first meeting of the new Slough council

The fractious tone of the first meeting of the new Slough council last night was underpinned by a number of disagreements over the first items of business.

It was a full council in session for the annual meeting this week (May 18) – split down the middle with a sea of blue on one side of the chamber and red on the other.

Multiple points of order were raised, disputed and quelled amid raised voices, cheers and jeers from both sides of the chamber in response to each other’s comments.

Labour, now in opposition, repeatedly called out Conservatives for breaching of chamber rules – who in return criticised this behaviour.

Returning Tory councillor Paul Kelly (Haymill) asked that Labour stop interrupting his fellow party members and ‘show a bit of patience and etiquette.’

It was pointed out that many of the Conservative and Lib Dem councillors – including the mayor himself – were new to the chamber and still finding their feet.

A multitude of suggestions by Labour were crushed in the meeting, the first since 2008 in which the party doesn’t have the majority voice.

The remaining Labour councillors tried to make some tweaks to the first set of council motions put forward.

The first was over voter ID. Labour’s suggestion of a letter to ‘raise concerns’ about the need for photo ID when casting ballots was ultimately quashed.

A second failed attempt was ‘to consider and include a provision for emergency motions within the constitution.’

Councillor Robert Anderson (Lab, Britwell) said he was sure this would be ‘very important’ for a hung council, where votes are likely to be split because of the mixed nature of the current council (21 Cons, 18 Lab and 3 Lib Dem).

This proposal, he said, was to be ‘a mechanism to bring important things to this chamber’.

But leader Dexter Smith (Con, Colnbrook & Poyle) said he did not think this was ‘at all necessary’ and the idea was shortly after voted down.

Labour also took issue with the leader’s attempts to appoint chairs of committees and allocate seats within them to political groups ‘in accordance to the rules of proportionality’.

This would mean the Conservatives had an extra seat entitlement in committees compared to Labour, in line with having marginally more councillors in its party (21 to their 18). It would also mean the Lib Dems could get one seat per committee.

As an example, the breakdown of the 2023 licencing committee would be five Tories, four Labours and one Lib Dem, making 10 in total.

Cllr Pavitar Mann, new Labour leader, said she ‘did not see a justification’ for this – and the party’s amendment was to keep committees and other bodies ‘as per previous years.’

In agreement, Cllr Anderson added that the Conservative proposal was ‘against the number one rule of committees, which are apolitical.’

He raised further concerns about having an equal number of members within a committee – which he said would increase the chances of a deadlock.

Cllr Anderson suggested that this was the Tory’s motive – as it would mean the tie-break would fall to the committee chair, most likely a Conservative in each case.

He added that this set-up could interfere with Slough’s ability to successfully turn down planning applications, as it will be ‘a licence for developers to take us to appeal every single time.’

But Cllr Smith said: “The arrangements are perfectly normal. We’re not changing the rules – we’re employing the rules. The council should not be led up a blind alley by this amendment.”

Labour further insisted that the council’s constitution ‘does not dictate [the leader] can choose the chairs and vice chairs [of committees].’

Instead, they argued, these should be appointed by the committees themselves at each of their first meetings, which is ‘only right and fair’.

Cllr Smith reiterated that the new administration is only following rules set out by the previous administration.

But the opposition argued the situation was different because Labour had an outright majority in the past, compared to the Conservatives' no-overall-majority.

“I refuse to believe that [Cllr Smith] is so dim he doesn’t understand the difference,” said Cllr Mann.

The leader stuck to his guns, saying: “We will not be distracted by people who want to play party politics and use guerrilla warfare to harry us into doing what they want us to do.”

Despite Labour’s efforts, both its amendments were rejected.