"What's all the fuss about" say Rochdale Lib Dems!

3.03.30pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 19th Jun 2006

Cllr. Alan Taylor

Rochdale Liberal Democrat Leader - Councillor Alan Taylor has responded to Cllr. Ashley Dearnley's comments by saying "What's all the fuss about?" Councillor Taylor has spoken out after the Conservatives and Labour joined forces again to criticise the Liberal Democrats for 'banning them' from informal Cabinet Meetings.

Councillor Taylor said, "The decision to allow party leaders came about to accommodate the all-party administration of 2004/05, the Liberal Democrats were excluded from Cabinet last year under the coalition. We were however allowed to attend meetings of the Informal Cabinet. It became increasingly apparent that attending these meetings was worthless as decisions had previously been already made - usually be the Labour Group with unswerving support from the Conservative Party. We see no reason to continue this arrangement, I must make it clear that the 'new' Conservative Leader and the Labour Leader receive copies of all the papers that relate to meetings of the Informal Cabinet and I am only a phone call, letter or email away... the door is always open to anyone who wants to make a sensible, proactive suggestions as to run this Borough better, whether that be a Member of Labour, the Tories or any resident of this Borough."

Councillor Taylor has also criticised the Leader of the Conservative Party, Councillor Ashley Dearnley. He says that the Liberal Democrat have a "spurious claim to be a party of open government, when clearly they wish to meet in secret behind closed doors". Councillor Taylor completely denied this saying, "Let me make this quite clear - our party is committed to open consultation with the people of Rochdale - the claim by the Tories is a bit rich when you consider that last year when the Conservatives had a 'sniff of power' - many volunteers or workers in this Borough found out about cuts to their services from the press. I can assure residents that this will no longer happen, the Liberal Democrats will consult people at every opportunity and keep our Manifesto Commitment"

Rochdale Lib Dem Agent Dave Hennigan said, "The point is that the Cabinet need an opportunity to discuss items together. The body is more effective meeting like this and as I explained there are plenty of opportunities to feed into the process for the other parties or individual Councillors, irrespective of party. Last year, the majority of the decisions had been made before the Informal Cabinet and the then Leader of the Council - Allen Brett used to say what was happening and the Red / Blue Cabinet nodded it through. It was obvious that there was allsorts of pre-meetings going on."