Easing emergency powers would ‘gamble with health’
and to gamble with the public health of Sunderland residents if we remove that set of powers too soon.”
The comments came during the first review of the powers at a June 10 extraordinary full council meeting, held digitally.
Leader of the Liberal Democrat group, Coun Niall Hodson, lodged an amendment calling for more councillors to be involved in the decision-making of “regular business” such as planning.
The bid also included limiting powers to “urgent matters directly related to COVID-19” and for councillors to be consulted on officer decisions normally taken by committees.
“I think councillors should be concerned that the recommendations, if unamended, say that a handful of chief officers and committee chairs will decide between themselves when meetings will be held, what meetings will be held, what business will be discussed, what the procedure of the meeting will be, who takes what decisions and whether the public will be allowed to participate,” Coun Hodson said. “I think this is a poor excuse for democracy when we actually have meetings running.”
Leader of the Conservative group, Coun Robert Oliver, added opposition councillors would be “completely excluded” under the reformed powers.
“We did have unanimous support for these emergency powers when they were brought in but we’re now three months on and it’s essential that emergency powers now are only restricted to dealing with time sensitive matters related to the pandemic,” he said.
UKIP group leader, Coun Pam Mann, praised council bosses for keeping opposition councillors updated on COVID-19 throughout the lockdown period but said it was time to “get the powers back to the people.”
A continuation of the current emergency powers was approved.