The outgoing lord mayor of Bristol is calling for major changes to full council meetings after branding them “almost entirely pointless”. Cllr Steve Smith spoke out after his successor Cllr Paula O’Rourke, who took over the largely ceremonial role last week, criticised the quality of debate among councillors in response to an annual speech by elected mayor Marvin Rees.
Green Cllr O’Rourke, whose duties as the new lord mayor include chairing full council meetings of Bristol City Council, called out party group leaders in the chamber for delivering pre-scripted remarks that failed to directly address the comments by Labour’s Mr Rees. Now Conservative Cllr Smith, who is the new deputy lord mayor following 12 months in the hot seat, has echoed her sentiments and says reform is needed.
Writing on social media, he said full council rules prevented members from challenging other statements and that so-called debate was “really a pre-planned series of three-minute speeches” by councillors picked in advance. Cllr Smith said the format should be more like that in the House of Commons where anyone can speak, with the Speaker’s permission, and “intervene” on specific points.
Read more: New lord mayor tells off Bristol city councillors over Marvin Rees speech debate
He wrote on Twitter: “The new Lord Mayor questioned the quality of debate this week, and having just finished a year chairing these meetings I think she is right. There are some reasons for this IMHO. It isn't just that lazy Councillors can't be bothered to do our job properly (though let's be honest, most of us have made speeches at some point that are just a bit of a token effort).
“There are some fundamental problems that I hope a change of system might address. First, full council meetings are almost entirely pointless under the current system.
“Other than formally ‘signing off’ one or two policies (eg licensing) where the real work is done beforehand in committees, full council meetings have no power to affect anything. We can't make policy, we can't make or change decisions.
“The only thing we really affect is the budget once a year, and even then we're really only fiddling around the edges. With no real purpose, what you end up with is the political theatre that was rightly criticised.”
Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze ward Cllr Smith said the other main issue the format of the meetings. He tweeted: “What we call ‘debate’ is really a pre-planned series of 3-minute speeches by councillors chosen before the meeting, mostly written in advance.
“You can't ask questions, you can't challenge what anyone says or intervene. I would like to see the new system move us closer to what happens in Parliament, where any member can speak (with the chair's permission) and you can ‘intervene’ to challenge or question what someone else is saying.
“That would create better debates about actual ideas. Worth remembering though that speaking in the chamber is only a small part of a Councillor's job.
“There are lots of brilliant ward Councillors doing great work in their communities who aren't that comfortable in a public speaking / debating environment. It will be important to create a system which works for those Councillors as well as the people (like me) who enjoy debate and love the sound of our own voices too much.
“It will also require the Lord Mayor to have a much more active role chairing the meetings.” Cllr O’Rourke’s criticism at the annual meeting of full council on Tuesday, May 24, just minutes after she was sworn in, came during an agenda item called 'Mayor’s address to full council with party group leader responses'.
She told the meeting: “I’m not making a political point here but I am saying the quality of debate must be better. What is the topic here? In my year here in this chair I don’t have a huge amount of influence or power, but if the mayor is making a speech and you‘re supposed to be responding, I would really try to urge and encourage people to have debates that actually respond to what we’re talking about – not just on this issue but on everything.
“The quality of debate and the interest in everything is going to be so much better if we challenge ourselves to actually listen and respond.” Mr Rees said he struggled to understand some of the group leaders’ responses to his speech which focused on Bristol’s “major social challenges of our time”.
He said: “When the cameras are rolling, we use this chamber for theatre when actually there are very serious challenges facing the city. As the lord mayor suggested, the quality of debate and discussion in this chamber is poor, and then we get this lament that people don't take the chamber seriously.”
Tory group leader Cllr Mark Weston called for “some grown-up politics in this chamber”, telling members: “Gladiatorial politics is all very fun but the reality is that outside of about 80 people watching this on YouTube, the city doesn’t pay much attention to it.”
