Ian Middleton responds to 'Rising fears for Centres' article in the Banbury Cake

I read with interest reports in the local press that members of the Banbury and Bicester Labour group have criticised the final County Council budget that agreed to massive and damaging cuts in local spending, many of which will directly impact the vulnerable in the county, particularly children, the old and the vulnerable.

I was at the very long meeting where these cuts were agreed and I have to say that in my opinion the spirit of opposition was very much absent from the Labour members in the chamber. Their leader Liz Brighouse gave a long and somewhat nebulous speech prior to the vote where she expressed concern with keeping council tax at current levels for people on low incomes, whilst simultaneously ignoring the fact that many of the cuts her group had agreed to would directly impact them.

The Green Party were alone in presenting budget amendments which would have removed the need for virtually all the cuts to services by, amongst other measures, reducing councillor allowances, reversing the 23% pay rise for senior officers and increasing council tax by a relatively small amount. We believe that, given the choice in a local referendum, people would have supported such an increase if it saved vital services. Our amendments were voted down by all the other parties.

The final amendments were nothing more than a fudge which removed £4m of cuts from the headline figures and transferred them to a black hole called 'unspecified cuts'. Only £2m of those reversed cuts will go to the children's centres which falls far short of the £7m needed to keep them all open.

There is also the implication that these cuts could still be re-instated from the 'unspecified' region of the budget later in the year along with a warning from Conservative County Council Leader Ian Hudspeth that a further £10m will need to be slashed from services next year.

I hope then that local Labour councillors in North Oxford will join with me in condemning the actions of their own party in siding with Conservative and LibDem councillors, resulting in an almost unanimous vote in favour of these draconian cuts. The only votes against came from the Green Party.

I note also that Banbury Town Council Leader Kieron Mallon has proudly claimed responsibility for the negotiations resulting in the vote to accept these cuts. I trust he will be quite as willing to accept responsibility for any backlash against his party in the forthcoming elections when reductions in bus services start to bite and the closures of children's centres inevitably takes place.

Ian Middleton

Prospective Parliamentary Candidate

North Oxfordshire Green Party