Councillors who are dissatisfied with the status quo of how Middlesbrough Council is operating have submitted motions to be debated at today’s (Wednesday 16 October) full meeting of council.
One of the motions is a motion of no confidence in the chair of Middlesbrough Council – Labour Councillor Julia Rostron. It has been put forward by Conservative Councillor Luke Mason, whose motion states, “This Council expresses its deep concern and dissatisfaction with the manner in which full council meetings have been conducted under the current Chair’s leadership.”
Outlining the current procedure, Cllr Mason said, “We’ve got to put a question to the Executive beforehand if we want one, which is fair enough, but quite often it’s the supplementary questions where we get into the details and really put the Executive under pressure and get some decent answers on things.”
He took issue with an incident that occurred at a previous meeting, where no supplementary questions were allowed, saying: “The chair can do that, it’s entirely within her powers to do that, but then I simply stood up and said ‘Why?’”
Cllr Mason’s gave his view that “there was no real excuse to do that and the only reason I can think of why the chair would choose to do that is to defend the Executive essentially”.
On the upcoming vote, he said, “I’m very confident there won’t be a single Labour councillor that sides with us, so it really is in protest in essence, but again, it depends how many of them turn up on the day.”
There are currently 23 Labour councillors and 22 non-Labour councillors, with 1 unoccupied council seat.
Cllr Mason made the case that he wasn’t putting forward this motion on political grounds, saying: “The sad thing is that this isn’t really even a political vote to be honest with you. I don’t mention the fact that it’s Labour in the motion.”
He furthered this by saying: “Even if it was an independent or a Conservative doing this, it wouldn’t be quite right. It’s the fact that the council procedure is being used in a manner that undermines democracy, essentially.”
The motion that Cllr Mason is proposing concludes by calling on the council to “express its disapproval” of the manner in which recent Council meetings have been held and call on Cllr Julia Rostron to resign from the position of Chair of the Council “with immediate effect”.
Cllr Mason confirmed that the motion “is not binding, but from a political point of view, I think she’s almost got to resign if she loses this”.
Cllr Rostron did not wish to respond to the motion or Cllr Mason’s comments.
Meanwhile, Middlesbrough Independent Councillors Association (MICA) Councillor Jim Platt has put forward a motion that states: “The people of Middlesbrough voted for a mix of Labour, Independent, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Councillors. The Mayor promised the people of Middlesbrough that he would ensure fairness and scrutiny by ensuring opposition councillors were given chairs of scrutiny panels.
Following his election in 2023, Labour Mayor Chris Cooke told ITV news that he wanted to “make sure chair of scrutiny [panels] were completely divided across the political spectrum”. Nearly 18 months after his election as Mayor, scrutiny panels are chaired by Labour members.
Cllr Platt’s motion goes on to say: “This Council needs to move to a system of electing chairs on the basis of proportional representation; with the Mayor electing his Executive based on Proportional Representation and proportional representation being used to allocate the chairs of all committees / panels to relevant political denominations. This is to ensure that the people of Middlesbrough are fairly represented and their voices are heard.”
If a political party has a majority on a council, it is common practice for the Executive (cabinet members) to be formed exclusively of the majority political party.
Cllr Platt did not wish to comment on the motion prior to it being presented to full council on Wednesday 16 October.
