Cost of living: Conservatives accuse Labour of playing party politics in aftermath of emergency meeting

Wirral's Tory leader has accused the Labour council leader Janette Williamson of playing party politics over the cost of living crisis.

The comments from Councillor Tom Anderson come after testy exchanges between the different parties at a committee meeting on August 31 about how to best support residents with the rising cost of living.

The Conservatives have accused the Labour group of coming up with "just platitudes." The Conservatives at the meeting proposed amendments they claim would free up more than £8.3 million in spending. Only one was passed, unanimously, that would see nearly £800,000 go towards residents.

Labour Council leader Janette Williamson said the proposals would put people out of jobs and said they were the "actions of a party on the ropes."

Councillor Tom Anderson, Conservative leader, said: "I am absolutely flabbergasted that the Leader of the Council and her Labour colleagues voted down all but one of our proposals. The majority of these proposals were available funds that could have been used to help the most vulnerable in our Borough with the cost of living crisis now! 

"Instead, Labour Councillors want to spend time reviewing options in order to spin this issue out for their own political futures. They should be ashamed. I came into politics to make a difference to people's lives, our proposals would have done just that."   

In the meeting, Cllr Anderson said Labour were too focused on criticising the government, but said he hoped more funding was on the way now once our new Prime Minister had been announced.

Now we know that the new PM will be Liz Truss.

Councillor Lesley Rennie, and Cllr Anderson, also criticised how the council is communicating with residents. They said the council was too focused on using online resources and this was excluding elderly residents from being informed about help.

In response, Cllr Williamson said: "The proposals brought by the Conservative Party called for job losses and raiding vital ring-fenced public health reserves.

"Sacking staff and therefore plunging more people into a cost of living crisis, is as short-sighted as it is cruel. The Conservatives' proposals were nothing more than a stunt and as such was voted against by all other parties on the night.

"Residents are suffering from a Conservative cost of living crisis, and I called the extraordinary P&R meeting with the ambition that all parties on Wirral would work together to help them. Instead, what we saw was opportunistic point scoring from a party who have prioritised headlines for their leaflets over asking their own government for help at a time where people are worried sick about keeping warm, healthy and fed."

Cllr Anderson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: " We as a local council have got this money and it is just sitting there in reserve. All they came up with was just platitudes. What was the point of calling the meeting?"

Cllr Williamson called the meeting after Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi failed to respond to a letter calling for funding to freeze all council tax. She announced before the meeting a warm hub policy using public buildings to protect people from the cold over the winter.

Four amendments were proposed at the meeting by the Conservatives. One, passed unanimously, saw the allocation of £673,155 of unspent COVID funding to support residents.

The amendments that failed included one that would see the Council's marketing budget cut by 30% and £5.1 million from Public Health Reserves. In total, the Conservatives say £8.3 million could be spent to support residents, approximately £26 per resident.

Cllr Williamson said: "Public health reserves are in place to ensure we are able to respond immediately to health emergencies such as new variants of COVID and other infectious diseases. To put the health and safety of the people on Wirral at risk in order to score cheap political points is downright irresponsible. They were the actions of a party on the ropes, out of ideas and compassion."