Lib Dems Call for Cross Party Cooperation to Secure a Fairer Deal for Leicestershire

At Wednesday's Full Council meeting, the Liberal Democrats responded to a motion by Labour that attacks the Coalition Government and Tory-run administration for cuts to local services with an amendment calling for cross-party cooperation.

The amended motion would no longer have seeked to blame political opponents for the problems, but instead set out ways to address problems such as the under-funding of social care and poor working conditions of care workers on a cross party basis.

The amendment noted that all parties went into the election promising to cut the deficit, that all parties will be doing similar in 2015 and that a Labour government would not give councils more money as Hilary Benn, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has announced during speeches at LGA and CCN conferences.

Simon Galton said, "There were some good points in Labour's motion, but it seems to be more about bashing their political opponents rather than actually addressing the problems they highlight.

What we tried to do is re-write it in a more constructive way to allow all three major parties to get together, find our common ground and work towards securing a fairer deal for Leicestershire."

Unfortunately, the Labour and Tory Councillors voted together against the Lib Dem calls for cross party cooperation. The Tories instead putting forward their own amendment, which ironically accused the opposition parties of "political game playing".

David Bill said, "We never expected to win the vote in the Council Chamber, we just wanted an opportunity to set out our position and let the other two parties know that we wanted to work together on this.

If there's one thing I'd like to achieve out of this, it would be to start a dialogue with the other parties to determine what our Council needs to deliver good quality care and to lobby the government to ensure we get it!"