Labour Councillors vote against a motion to hold a consultation on future of the Mayoral system in Lewisham. Lewisham, 19th April 2007
Press Release Summary
A motion calling for a consultation on the future of the Mayoral system in Lewisham was voted down by Labour Councillors at an extraordinary meeting of the council last night.
LibDems, Greens and Socialists all spoke in favour of the motion which recommended that “the people of Lewisham should now have the opportunity to consider whether an elected Mayor is the best method of delivering local government within the borough” and called for the council to start the statutory consulation process needed before a new referendum can be held in late 2007 or early 2008.
Labour councillors voted down the motion by arguing that if the new Local Government and Public Involvement in Health bill becomes law, a consultation based on the current situation would be a waste of time and money. The BBD Campaign suspects that the real reason Labour councillors want to delay any consultation until after the new bill becomes law, is that the new bill introduces changes in the law which would prevent a further referendum being held in Lewisham until at least 2011.
Press Release Details
The motion introduced by Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Morris and seconded by Green Councillor Darren Johnson was as follows:
“This Council notes that in October 2001 there was a referendum in Lewisham to consider the model of local government to be adopted in the Borough. The result was that 16,822 residents voted in favour of an elected Mayor and 15,914 voted against. The turnout was 18 per cent.
Council believes that after five years of the current system the people of Lewisham should now have the opportunity to consider whether an Elected Mayor is the best method of delivering local government within the Borough.
Council requests the Chief Executive to start the statutory consultation and to report back to the Council at the earliest opportunity on the outcome, so that the Council can consider whether to move to a referendum if the outcome of the consultation supports change.”
Mark Morris said that “Executive Mayors have been an experiment. As with any experiment, they should be carefully monitored and evaluated.” He reminded councillors that Government Ministers were on the record in Hansard as having promised local people the opportunity to vote in a second referendum five years after the introduction of the experimental directly elected Mayoral system.
In particular, he quoted Labour Government Minister, Lord Whitty who on 2nd March 2000 said
“There is, of course, the possibility that local people could petition the council for such a referendum, but afterwards it should be for the authority to decide whether to act on such a petition. It will have to judge whether public opinion is such that it would be right to hold a referendum to change from mayoral executive arrangements to different systems, despite the relatively recent approval of existing arrangements on at least two occasions.
Provided that five years had passed since the previous referendum, it would be open to an authority, be it a rural, urban, district or county authority, voluntarily to draw up proposals and hold a referendum to change from executive arrangements involving a mayor to different executive arrangements.”
See Hansard
He also quoted Labour Government Minister Hilary Armstrong who on 23rd March 2000 said
“There is, of course, the possibility that local people could petition the council for a referendum to change the form of executive arrangements that the council is operating. Provided that five years have passed since the previous referendum, the authority will, of course, be able to act on such a petition.
In addition, as long as five years have passed from the previous referendum, it would also be open to the authority voluntarily to draw up proposals and hold a referendum to change from executive arrangements involving a mayor to different executive arrangements. They will, of course, have to judge whether public opinion is such that it would be right to hold such a referendum, despite the approval their existing arrangements have had from local people on at least two occasions.”
See Hansard
He reminded the council chamber that the result of the referendum held in Lewisham in Oct 2001 was extremely close. The Yes vote was 16,822 (51%) and the No vote was 15,914 (49%) with turnout of only 18% this means only 9.2% of electors actually voted in favour of introducing the new system.
He also argued that the original referendum was unsatisfactory and quoted the Electoral Commission report “Reinvigorating Local Democracy: Mayoral Elections in 2001”. On the issue of the large number of rejected ballot papers he quoted the Electoral Commission report which noted that
“A large number of postal votes had to be rejected because electors had either not completed the declaration of identity at all or failed to get it witnessed.This caused particular concern in Watford, Hartlepool and Lewisham, where the number of ballot papers rejected was greater than the difference between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes.”
He also referred to the fact that the count was not supervised by independent observers and again quoted the Electoral Commission report which states that
“In Lewisham, representatives were concerned that the counting officer had not invited them to observe the adjudication of the doubtful ballot papers.”
See Electoral Commission report
He also quoted incumbent Mayor Steve Bullock who expressed disappointment in the October 2001 referendum. In an article written for the Unlock Democracy website Steve Bullock wrote
“So in October 2001 we had a referendum and the result was 'yes' to an elected mayor. Despite this, the referendum itself was hugely disappointing. Turnout was barely twenty percent and the proposal was only passed by a narrow margin. There were a number of reasons for this. First, although there were yes and no campaigns, neither of them really took off. There were also some technical problems. The question was not phrased in the most helpful way and there were legal issues about how much information could be provided by the Council itself.
Green councillor Darren Johnson seconded the motion arguing that the current system concentrates too much power in the hands of one person and that the views of elected councillors can be ignored. He compared the current system in Lewisham to the system that would result if we were to abolish the House of Commons and replace the Prime Minister with an American style president.
Socialist councillor Chris Flood argued that the new bill should not prevent a consultation process on the future of the directly elected Mayoral system in Lewisham and said that “if you think the system is so great then why not let local people have their say”.
Liberal Democrat councillors Houghton, Feakes, Griesenbeck and Bennett also spoke in favour of the motion.
Mark Morris predicted that “Tonight I expect we will witness the depressing sight of Labour councillors who have been whipped, and in some cases flown back from abroad, voting against allowing the people of Lewisham having a chance to have their say as to whether they agree with the experiment of an Executive Mayor.”
He was proved right when the motion was rejected by 28 votes to 24.
Bring Back Democracy petition organiser Nick Ingham said that “The Government is deliberately moving the goal posts. Despite Government Ministers promising that it would be possible to hold a new referendum after five years under the new system, the Government is now attempting to change the law to force us to wait ten years before a new referendum can be held. Meanwhile, they are trying to force all councils to adopt new models of governance which concentrate power into the hands of fewer and fewer people.”
The BBD campaign is campaigning against several sections of the new bill especially Clause 33 (which allows an existing directly elected Mayor to veto a call for a referendum) and Clause 51 (which extends the time limit between referendums from five to ten years) and has already made a submission to the House of Commons.
See BBD Submission
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