A Liverpool councillor and former cabinet member lobbied for a planning application from his friend to be pushed through more quickly, an investigation has found.
Back in 2015, Cllr Abdul Qadir, sent an email to then Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson expressing “deep concern and disappointment” at a perceived lack of urgency and “irrational decision making” around a planning application being pursued by his friend and the owner of the business he worked for. That communication has been found to be in breach of the city council ’s code of conduct following an investigation into the Picton ward councillor.
In August this year, Cllr Qadir stepped down from his role as cabinet member for neighbourhoods after it was revealed he had links to a large stalled development scheme in Vauxhall through the Liverpool-based Vega Group, which owns MV Canal, the subsidiary company behind the scheme. Cllr Qadir has been a director of Vega Group company Vega Trading since September 2014.
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A complaint was raised into Cllr Qadir’s conduct by Cllr Richard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, with a standards and ethics committee hearing taking place earlier this week to determine if the Labour member had committed a breach of the council code. However, following consultation with Dan Fenwick, Liverpool Council’s top solicitor and monitoring officer, it was agreed to consider additional correspondence disclosed by Cllr Qadir from March 2015, when he wrote to the then former Mayor Joe Anderson.
Cllr Qadir wrote to Mr Anderson to “express his deep concern and disappointment with the lack of urgency, the length of time it has taken, the non- compromising stance and the irrational decision making that is taking place” on an application put forward by the owner of the business he worked for. Cllr Qadir also took aim at the role of council officers, saying it was an “embarrassing situation when we have mayoral objective written on paper but it is not being followed by our front line officers like our urban designers and case officers.”
Cllr Qadir’s email also said officers “don’t do their research properly, yet very stubborn even when evidence is presented to them from highly qualified professionals.” He called on the former mayor to “look into this as a matter of urgency, as now we are very quickly losing all faith in any future investment in Liverpool.”
The committee found Cllr Qadir was “seeking to lobby and influence the way the council dealt with an application being pursued by a company owned by the owner of his employer who was also a friend and using the title ‘Councillor Qadir’ and contacts to do so. The email was also considered to be unfairly critical of officers and was not an email that a councillor should be sending to the former Mayor of the Council.”
As a result, the committee concluded the Picton member should undergo bespoke training in relation to the requirements of the code of conduct, rather than a formal censure or removal from any relevant committees. The length of time since the email was sent was taken into consideration in the panel reaching its conclusion.
Regarding the original investigation, Cllr Kemp alleged Cllr Qadir failed to comply with the members’ code owing to his registered interest as a director of Vega Trading Ltd (VTL). In addition, it was alleged Cllr Qadir failed to properly declare his interests when he sat as a member of the Fractional Investment and Development Scrutiny Panel (FISP) which met on nine occasions between August 2018 and May 2019.
Having studied the contents of Cllr Kemp’s complaint, an independent investigation report and evidence at the committee hearing, it was concluded that no meetings were identified where an obligation to declare the registered or other interests arose and Cllr Kemp was not able to provide specific details of any such meeting.
The decision report said at the time, a councillor was only required to declare an interest when it was an item of business. The FISP was considering a “particular aspect of development at a high level and specifically was not looking at specific developments or developers.”
The report concluded that on that allegation: “Any interest Councillor Qadir had if at all would therefore be too remote and not prejudicial.” A further two allegations of failing to declare an interest during discussions of Section 106 money and obtaining confidential information because of his attendance at meetings of the FISP were also unproven."
A Labour Party spokesperson said: "Abdul is grateful the matter is now closed and thanks the committee for the opportunity make his case. He voluntarily stepped down the the cabinet back in August so that he could clear-up this matter and has co-operated fully throughout.
"On the substantive points, the committee has cleared Abdul of any wrongdoing in relation to declaring his occupation in the Register of Members' Interests. He entirely accepts this oversight was his fault and immediately rectified the matter when it was brought to light.
"On the issue of 'lobbying' then-mayor, Joe Anderson, back in relation to several developments connected to his employer, Abdul admitted that he sent an email enquiring about progress. This was, however, a one-off message and no follow-up meeting ever took place.
"Indeed, it was Abdul who voluntarily provided a copy of the email to the committee in a spirit of full disclosure. Again, he fully accepts the committee's advice that it was not wise to mix-up his public and private roles but the email had no material effect on any decisions."
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