At last night’ Oldham Council meeting, in the debate on the report about the local impact of the EU referendum, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition, urged Council to take action rather than simply noting the report presented to members.
Councillor Sykes had previously written to the Leader of the Council, Councillor Jean Stretton, requesting that a special report on the impact of Brexit be prepared by officers and brought to Council for debate.
Councillor Sykes said: “Although disappointed by the result, I am a democrat and accept that the UK and Oldham voted to leave. However we should not bury our heads in the sand; as elected members, it is incumbent and expected of us to inform ourselves what the ramifications of Brexit are in terms of the impact on our local economy, Council and people, and that we take action to mitigate them or maximise the opportunities.”
Rather than resorting to rhetoric and the report was just to note, Councillor Sykes proposed two common sense suggestions to take forward.
The first was that the Administration writes to the new Prime Minister Theresa May seeking a guarantee that the Government will make up any shortfall in European funding once Brexit takes effect.
Councillor Sykes stressed that many other Councils, Cornwall, Farmers and the Local Government Association were already ahead in the queue making this demand and Oldham should join them as soon as possible. Graciously, the Leader of the Council Councillor Jean Stretton assented and agreed to Councillor Sykes’s suggestion that both she and he should write this letter.
The second was that the Council Leader assign specific responsibility for EU exit issues to a cabinet member with the expectation that this cabinet member consult from time to time with Group Leaders and with other elected members, and that reports be brought back to Council periodically. The Council Leader agreed on the spot to assign this responsibility to the Cabinet Member for Finance, her Deputy Leader Councillor Abdul Jabbar.
All Oldham Councillors approved both suggestions.