Agenda item

Special Motion 1 - Mayor for London

Meeting of Full Council, Wednesday, 25th January, 2012 7.00 pm (Item 31.2)

Minutes:

7.48 pm – Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh moved, seconded by Councillor Mark Loveday, the special motion standing in their names:

“This Council notes the inappropriate and rambling personal attacks by Ken Livingstone on members of this Council at a public meeting at St Augustine's Church on 2 November 2011 that clearly demonstrate his unfitness to be the next Mayor for London or to represent the people of Hammersmith and Fulham.

This Council notes since 1 May 2008 Boris Johnson has delivered on his promises to:

• Beef up the police presence in the borough by increasing police numbers and cutting red tape at the Metropolitan Police Service

• Implement serious strategies on knife and gun crime and arm the police with handheld weapon scanners

• Crack down on the culture of casual disorder that leads to more serious crime, with live CCTV on buses and a community service scheme for young people who abuse free travel

• Make transport safer in Hammersmith and Fulham by putting more uniformed officers on buses and station platforms

• Protect our green, open spaces and encourage more recycling across the borough

• Scrap the Western Congestion Charge zone and make the existing system fairer and more flexible for residents in Hammersmith & Fulham

• Work in partnership with the borough Council to build the homes that people in the borough want and can afford

• Stretch the taxpayer pound to give Hammersmith & Fulham Council Tax payers more bang for their buck and axe the waste and overspending at City Hall.

• Freeze the Mayoral Council Tax precept in each year to reduce the burden on taxpayers in the borough.

This Council looks forward to the re-election of Boris Johnson as Mayor for London in May 2012.”

Speeches on the special motion were made by Councillors Stephen Greenhalgh, Mark Loveday, Tom Crofts, Nicholas Botterill and Andrew Johnson (for the Administration).

Under Standing Order 15 (e) (vi), Councillor Stephen Cowan moved, seconded by Councillor Lisa Homan, an amendment to the motion as follows:

“Delete all after “This Council” and replace with:

“is deeply concerned by the increasing hardship that tens of thousands of Hammersmith and Fulham households are experiencing.

The Council therefore regrets the following actions and failures by London Mayor Boris Johnson:

Fares Hikes - That transport fares have risen by vastly more than inflation since Mr. Johnson was elected in 2008 - with some fares rising by almost 60%. This stealth tax has added unnecessary additional costs to millions of Londoners’ budgets and the Conservative London Mayor did this during the worst economic slow down since 1929. The Council notes that Boris Johnson hopes to continue to vastly increase transport fares up until 2017 should he be re-elected on 1^st May 2012. This would cause additional hardship to Borough residents and will continue to have a dampening effect on the London economy.
Crime failures - That knife crime has risen and the London Mayor has failed to cut total crime. Furthermore, the Metropolitan Police Authority has confirmed that Boris Johnson is cutting London’s police numbers by 1,800 meaning a fall from 33,260 in 2010, to just 31,460 during a two year period. This is unnecessary and the wrong time to cut police numbers.
Housing crisis – That the Mayor has failed to ensure sufficient numbers of genuinely affordable homes to buy or rent have been built and that Boris Johnson even missed his own, already reduced, housing targets. There is a housing crisis which the mayor is failing to tackle and many of his policies are making much worse.

The Council notes that Labour’s Ken Livingstone is offering Borough residents positive change with, for example:

A 7% cut in transport fares saving the average household up to £1000 between 2012 to 2018.
To protect frontline policing in the capital
To increase the numbers of genuinely affordable homes to buy and to rent.”

Speeches on the amendment were made by Councillors Stephen Cowan, Lisa Homan and Michael Cartwright (for the Opposition) and Councillors Alex Karmel and Joe Carlebach (for the Administration) before it was put to the vote:

FOR 14

AGAINST 28

NON VOTING 0

The motion was declared LOST.

Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh (for the Administration) made a speech winding up the debate before the substantive motion was put to the vote:

FOR 28

AGAINST 14

NON VOTING 0

The motion was declared CARRIED.

8.45 pm – RESOLVED:

This Council notes the inappropriate and rambling personal attacks by Ken Livingstone on members of this Council at a public meeting at St Augustine's Church on 2 November 2011 that clearly demonstrate his unfitness to be the next Mayor for London or to represent the people of Hammersmith and Fulham.