A COUNCIL committee descended into chaos and was labelled a “disgrace” after amendments to a school transport cut were not allowed to be voted on.
A North Lanarkshire Council Finance and Resources Committee meeting was thrown into chaos as multiple Labour members intervened to stop the convener, Councillor Tom Fisher, from allowing a vote on an SNP motion to allocate surplus funding to school transport.
The administration, which is a Labour and Tory coalition, previously cut transport spending, meaning from August thousands of children will have to walk up to three miles to school.
Some of the routes pupils may have to take have been labelled dangerous by concerned parents.
The SNP had led a motion to ringfence a reported surplus of £8 million to be used to continue to provide transport to the students who will lose their school transport.
The committee convener had initially accepted the amendment and made several attempts to bring the matter to a vote of the committee members.
This, however, led to interventions from the leader of the council, the provost, and the convener of housing, instructing him to rule the amendment as not competent.
They argued that the decision to cut transport had been made by the full council.
Councillor Fisher then attempted to have his own proposal and the SNP amendment voted on, but was ignored, as the leader of the council’s instructions were followed instead.
The SNP has since vowed to bring the issue back to the next meeting of the Policy and Strategy Committee as they said the important issue of children’s safety was not allowed to be decided upon.
SNP finance and resources spokesperson, Councillor Denis Johnston, labelled the decision a disgrace and said it highlights the Labour-Tory administration's “lack of competence”.
He said: “On the same day we have Keir Starmer proclaiming his party to be ready to ‘stop the chaos’ in Downing Street, we see this shambolic display from his councillors in North Lanarkshire, as always propped up by the Tories.
“It is disgraceful that such an important issue was yet again ignored and today showed the complete lack of competence in the Labour-Tory administration, which the people of North Lanarkshire are paying the price for every day.”
SNP councillor Tracy Carragher added: “The scrambling of senior members of the Labour-Tory administration shows how worried they are to allow a vote on what is such an important issue to thousands of young people and parents across North Lanarkshire.
“Funds are available and we will not stop in our attempts to overturn this disgraceful decision to force our young people to walk unsafe routes for hours each day just to get to and from school.”
