November Full Council Report
This evening is the first Full Council for quite a while - as you will find out below, the October one was cancelled.
We're sharing with you the important Motions and Amendments from across the Political Parties to update you on what Trafford Liberal Democrats are doing in the Council Chamber.
🔶 LIB DEM MOTION: BUSINESS RATES RETENTION Cllr Ennis is moving a motion that calls on Trafford to renegotiate the current Business Rates retention. Under the devolution scheme, Great Manchester gets to keep 100% of the growth in Business Rates. Each borough currently gets 75% back from Andy Burnham's office. Rising costs - like the Living Wage paid to care-workers - but no meaningful uplift in the Central Grant from 11 Downing Street means Trafford is struggling to balance the books without making more cuts. Years of frozen Council Tax under the Tories means we have fallen well behind almost everyone else - with the lowest Council Tax (bar one) in the whole of the North of England. But here we are, handing 25% of our business rates to sit in the reserves of Andy Burnham's office! Cllr Frass will ask that during renegotiation, Councils with the lowest reserves contribute less to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. If the Government's 'levelling up' is nothing more than a slogan, then Local Councils in Greater Manchester should do if for themselves. |
RESIDENTS' PETITION: PARK ROAD PEDESTRAIN CROSSING Cllr Minnis has been working with a local resident who has gathered over 600 signatures for a petition for a safety crossing on Park Road in Timperley. We had to fight to get this on the Agenda as the Council tried to say her signatures were not valid. After much wrangling we persuaded the Council to let the resident be heard. |
🔶 LIB DEM MOTION: ALTERNATING THE WEED SPRAYING This issue comes up time and time again on the doorstep. As the very fabric of the nation is falling apart after years of Conservative wealth extraction for the rich, the knee-high weeds making Trafford look like Day of the Triffids is a perennial reminder that the country is quite literally going to seed. Cllr Newgrosh looked back over the records: every year they start in the North. By the time they reach South Trafford, the weeds have propagated seeds, blocked drains and cracked the roads to become next year's potholes. No wonder residents are asking us to do something:
Why does it matter - as long as it's sorted? British politics is mostly about the opportunity to be heard. Many of us despaired at 2019 Election results, even though Lib Dems had the best policies - everyone was focussed on the Boris and Corbyn show. If Lib Dems are not seen to be the ones who champion voters priorities - locally as well as nationally - we won't get their votes next time. If we don't get their votes we won't be elected to make anything else happen - regardless of who steals the ideas. We are keeping our idea on the Agenda until the final moment so the Lib Dems are on the record, after which we will acknowledge the updated plans, then allow the meeting to move forward without a vote since Labour's solution is equally workable. |
🔵 CONSERVATIVE MOTION: ALTRINCHAM MINOR INJURIES The Tories have bought a motion calling on Altrincham Minor Injuries Unit to re-open. This is fuelled by the fact Labour have said in Committees that they don't see it as a priority, so the Tories are hoping to make some ground up. However, Cllr Lepori has identified several major issues with this poorly drafted motion. Once again, the Tory motion was out of date, failing to take into account this Conservative government's own changes to healthcare, which is phasing out Minor Injury Units and replacing them with Urgent Care Centres, which work differently and use different staff. 🔶 LIB DEM AMENDMENT: URGENT CARE REVIEW REPORT Cllr Brophy will support Simon's amendment, drawing on the wealth of healthcare professional knowledge in our group to update the motion as follows:
🟢 GREEN PARTY AMENDMENT: NURSES PAY Separately, the Green Party are calling for the Council to lobby the government to fund nurses training and improve their pay levels to increase staff retention. |
🔶 ALL PARTY MOTION LED BY THE LIB DEMS: BABY BOXES The ‘baby box’ is a care package delivered to new parents and it contains a range of essentials including blankets, cloths, nappies, vouchers and books – the box itself doubles as a small bed. Cllr Ennis said: “One in three children in Greater Manchester are now living in poverty. We need evidence based solutions to combat these disgraceful rates of poverty in our city region. The idea behind the baby-box is that every child should be given the best possible start in life. In Finland they’ve been using the baby box for nearly a century and they now have some of the lowest rates of child poverty in the world.” |
🔴 LABOUR MOTION: UNDERAGE VAPING Labour have brought forward a motion about the problems of under-age vaping and use of e-cigarettes in Trafford. There is a particular focus on banning brightly coloured packaging and the need for funding to increase education around this issue. Liberal Democrat policy is similar, but goes further, as explained by the Guardian here: The Liberal Democrats are calling for a ban on single-use vapes, although Labour has thus far demanded only restrictions on marketing that makes them appealing to children. Lib Dem MP, Daisy Cooper said: "We need tougher regulation on vapes, such as age warnings on packets, an end to toy-like advertising targeted at children, and a ban on the sale of single-use vapes and free samples. The government should be doing all it can to reduce easy access to vaping for children now" 🔶 LIB DEM AMENDMENT: SINGLE-USE VAPING BAN Lib Dems will move an amendment to add that the vast majority of children who smoke vapes, are using single-use products. A product that is literally designed to be thrown away is always going to be more attractive to children who are not supposed to have them in the first place! So banning Single-Use vapes must be part of the plan to tackle underage vaping. |
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