Interesting Day at Full Council

Interesting day at Full Council yesterday, if a rather long and hot one, in the Council Chamber. I asked questions of the Leader, to seek assurances that Cornwall would get a fair deal out of Brexit talks and spoke on a motion to restore the Council paying the Living Wage to directly employed staff.

webcast of Full Council 19 July and if you do not want to watch the whole meeting you can scroll down to items of interest.

If you do watch the start of the meeting the Chair referred to a white rose she was wearing. Our very own, St Just knitter, Constance Moore, came up with the idea of making and selling these to raise money for the charities supported by Jo Cox, the Labour MP tragically murdered during the referendum campaign. I felt that I could support her fundraising efforts by encouraging Councillors to buy and wear them at our meeting. This added £160 to Constance fundraising efforts.

I supported a motion for Cornwall Council to call on the Government to make fair transitional state pension arrangements for all women who were born on or after April 1951. Press Release details I also supported the motion calling on Government to back the Royal British Legion’s request to add a question on the Census to give information on the number of serving and former armed service members. The reason this is important is because of resourcing issues that are impossible to plan for if information is not available. Sadly, mental health problems and homelessness affects a growing number of veterans and Councils and health services need help to plan future services. full press release details

I also contributed to the debate on Who Decides which was the Leader engaging with Full Council on the Governance review.

I did not get involved but there was a scene like I have never witnessed before of a spat between the ex Conservative group Leader, Fiona Ferguson and a LibDem Councillor, Chris Batters over what seemed an uncontroversial motion supporting the use of Cornish in a local business marketing campaign. Not sure whether I should be recommending viewing of such behaviour but some might find it more interesting than the more polite debate and voting.

I did get involved in discussion of where we go on the fact that Government legislation means that Business rates have to be levied on toilets and I am going to support Bert Biscoe and Ian Thomas in a motion to the next Full Council meeting where we will seek Council’s approval to lobby Government to exempt public toilets from both business rates and water rates as in these times of financial pressures on councils these are additional financial burdens that, in the end fall to tax payers. It does seem a nonsense.

So, I’ve given you information on where I contributed to debate and some of the more interesting motions and discussions. I would recommend, if you have never been to watch a full council meeting that you have a look at the webcast. I’m not suggesting people sit through and watch the whole meeting but do pick out a few bits to get the feel for how things work.