Parish Council Meeting 10th October 2024 Pre-Meeting Issues

CPC involvement in a national political issue

• On 6th September, the House of Lords gave a second reading of the Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill, which had been brought as a private member's Bill by a Liberal Democrat peer. In that debate he was asked by the Under-Secretary of State for the new Labour government to withdraw his Bill, in part because there is some overlap with a Bill the government had already laid before Parliament two days earlier. He rejected there and then the minister's request to withdraw the Bill. While much of the content of the Bill seems sensible to me, it was immediately clear that it had become a party political issue.
• Six days later, the Parish Council debated the issue at its public meeting of 12th September, and voted unanimously to tell the sponsors of the bill that Claygate—not just the Parish Council—supported the purposes of the Bill.

1. Why—given that part of the remit of the Parish Council is not to allow the involvement of national political parties, and also given that three of the Parish Councillors stood on a 'No Party Politics' platform,—did the Parish Council nail Claygate's colours to the Lib Dem Bill rather than to the Labour government's Bill?
2. Secondly, how widely did Parish Councillors consult with Claygate residents before deciding to tell the Bill's sponsors that Claygate supported it?
3. Finally, given that the Chair of the Parish Council is the director and part-owner of a local electrical firm whose business includes the sale and installation of lithium-ion batteries, why did she not declare an interest before voting?

What happened at the Strategy Day of 6th July?

• Last year the Parish Council held a Strategy Day on 16th September. We now know from financial statements attached to the minutes of Parish Council meetings of this year that £120 was spent on hiring the Youth Hub for the event, and £73 on refreshments from Costco.
• Contrary to the advice given in The Good Councillor Guide, the public was not invited to attend. But just two weeks later the Parish Council published the Strategy Meeting presentation. From this we could see the ideas that councillors were having, the likely directions the Parish Council was headed, and the agreed actions with deadlines allocated to each councillor. The presentation also detailed the Parish Council's communications objectives, audiences and key messages.
• This year the Parish Council held another Strategy Day, on 6th July. Despite requests, the Parish Council exercised the right it believed it had to exclude the public from the meeting.
• More than three months have elapsed since that Strategy Day, and still the public has no idea what was discussed or what was agreed. In answer to a question put by a member of the public at the Parish Council meeting of 20th June, we were told that any decisions needed to be taken as a result of the private deliberations would be discussed and voted on at the next public meeting, which was held on 18th July. Reading through the minutes of the July meeting, it is not clear to me which of the items of that meeting had anything to do with the Strategy Day.
• So I believe the public is very much in the dark about what happened on this year's Strategy Day, what direction the Parish Council is headed in, and even what the Day cost us taxpayers. Is the Paris Council prepared to publish a report from the Strategy Day?