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19
Jan 2023
North Yorkshire Council leadership dismisses anti-democratic claims
Senior North Yorkshire councillors have dismissed suggestions they are “trying to curtail democracy” by limiting the number of questions elected councillors can publicly pose to the ruling group’s executive.
A meeting of Conservative-run North Yorkshire County Council’s executive saw proposals for the unitary North Yorkshire Council’s constitution pushed forward for consideration at a full council meeting next month.
But concerns were raised over democracy at the authority’s quarterly full council meetings, the only time where all 90 councillors can air issues together.
The meeting was told a clause of the constitution meant a restriction in the volume of questions the authority’s 10 executive members could face.
The authority’s opposition leader, Cllr Bryn Griffiths, questioned the rationale behind the proposal that “a maximum of five minutes will be permitted for questions to each executive member”.
The Liberal Democrat leader said the move was “effectively a guillotine from members of the council to executive members of the council”.
Corporate services executive member Cllr David Chance replied that the original constitution had stated members’ questions would be limited to those on the written reports of executive members to full council.
He added:
Cllr Chance said there had been “a suggestion from another quarter” that the Tory administration introduced a one-hour guillotine for members’ questions, but that the proposal had been dismissed as the council’s leading group did not believe that was sufficient.
He added:
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The council’s deputy leader, Cllr Gareth Dadd, said during discussions over the proposed change to full meetings of the council “on the face of it it seemed as though we were trying to curtail democracy and not hold executive members to account”.
He said the rule had been proposed to protect the integrity of the purpose of full council meetings and give members’ greater opportunities to raise issues with executive members.
Cllr Dadd said:
Cllr Dadd said during discussions with a cross-party group of councillors the five-minute limit had received a broad base of support, when considered alongside the move to publish any questions raised by members.
After the meeting, Independent group leader Cllr Stuart Parsons said even with the proposal to publish members’ questions, the move was set to stifle debate, perpetuating a situation where 10 executive members had “inordinate powers” and the remaining 80 elected councillors could “go swing”.
He said:
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