At a full county council meeting held on Wednesday 16 July Reform UK members tabled a motion combining two unrelated issues - an unusual move with little if any precedence.
A look at the agenda papers circulated in advance of the meeting show that the motion tabled by Reform UK conflated two completely separate issues; abandoning the climate emergency declaration and at the same time diverting additional funding into both children’s social care services and for children with SEND requirements.
Opposition members tabled an amendment to strike out the reference to the climate emergency declaration which would have enabled Labour members to support the remaining elements relating to CSC and SEND funding, and would almost certainly have led to unanimous approval across the council.
However, every Reform UK member rejected the amendment and instead voted to maintain the motion as tabled. That meant members were left with the options of either voting to ditch the climate emergency declaration (which we were not prepared to do), or to vote against the unamended motion as tabled which would have had the effect of opposition members seen to be voting against additional funding for CSC and SEND (obviously this is precisely what Reform UK members hoped for when they tabled the motion). The third option, the only one we could take in all conscience, was to abstain.
To make matters worse, as you’ll see if you watch the recording of the meeting on You Tube, the entire Reform UK contingent voted against suspending standing orders which would have allowed members to debate the remaining motions on the agenda. This had the effect of closing down any further discussion.
It was a disappointing day for all concerned, especially as the guillotine imposed by Reform UK on the remaining motions denied several opposition members the opportunity to address the council. I’d indicated early in proceedings that I intended to speak on the motion but I was timed-out, along with several other opposition members. I should acknowledge that the tactics deployed by Reform UK members are in accordance with the council's constitution, but nonetheless it's a curious way to conduct business by a party claiming to support the freedom of speech and expression.
Hopefully any members of the public who watched the council proceedings on Wednesday will see through Reform UK’s performative claptrap, and will also recognise their unseemly eagerness to avoid further debate once their own motion was in the bag.
We'll now have to wait and see how much the council will save by abandoning the climate emergency declaration, and how much ring-fenced funding might now have to be returned to funders. In addition, we'll be pressing the Reform UK administration to publish details of all the cash benefits accrued by directly linking any savings from from ditching the climate change policy and a significant uplift in the council's own funding for children's social care and services for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Both issues feature prominently in the Children's & Young People's Overview and Scrutiny Committee's work programme for 2025/26 - and that'll prove the acid test in determining whether what we saw on Wednesday was a genuine attempt to transfer climate change funding directly into children's services or if it was simply another performative display designed to divert public attention away from Reform UK's struggle to hold its administration together.
