Transcript

Significant amount to our borough and place and have elevated the wonderful borough of Newham that is our home. I don't wish to talk too much because I would very much welcome members contributing to the debate but you'll note that for the purposes of 2024 there will be no honorary order person that is being proffered for that assignment but there are two individuals that have been nominated by the Newham Civic Awards panel for the conferring of honorary freedom of the London Borough of Newham. Those two individuals are set out on pages 10 and 11 of the extraordinary meeting of council agenda PAC and are as follows. The first is Lynn Brown, formerly member of parliament for the now no longer West Ham constituency from 2005 to 2024. She's been a significant figure in driving and advocating for the people of West Ham constituency as was then known and during her time both as a councillor here in London Borough of London Borough of Newham but as she progressed in her parliamentary career through shadow roles and ministerial roles she has been an absolute stalwart for the people of this borough. She has continuously made the strongest case for Newham and West Ham to be receiving fair funding because of the levels of poverty poverty and inequality that exists. She has been a total advocate in the context of the housing crisis that we have been subjected to as a borough and she has a lifelong resident of Newham who grew up in the south of the borough in the Silvertown area of the borough. She has indelibly Newham in her heart and she is passionate for its people. particularly those in West Ham. I think it is very fitting that the civic awards panel members wanted to cement her conferring of freedom of the borough and as I will be echoing as it relates to the second recipient, I commend her nomination to you all. Paulette Watson MBE has exemplified as stated in the agenda paper 22 years of dedicated service to the Newham community and very much ensuring that she is providing the opportunity for residents from all backgrounds including young people to reach their potential and thrive. So I commend both Lynn Brown and Paulette Watson MBE for the honour of our freedom of the borough. And before I conclude, I wanted to thank all members of the civic awards panel that met to determine the nominations that had been received and to finalise these two nominations. I wanted to make particular thanks to the chair of council and Councillor Rohit Dasgupta and Councillor Danny Keeling in regards to their involvement and their passion and their dedicated thoughtfulness to the applications received. And I very much welcome their incisive consideration of the nominees as I do all of the members of the civic awards panel. And a particular commendation to the young people through the youth empowerment service that have been fully engaged in a way that is quite novel but exemplary around us ensuring that young people are involved at every level of decision making in our borough. And finally just wanted to convey a particular thanks to the officer Tim Aldcroft over at the youth empowerment service who is our youth participation manager for ensuring that there has been meaningful input and engagement stroke involvement of our young people in this process. So I commend this report to members and through the chair open up to debate as she wishes. Thank you. Do I have a second to please? Thank you Councillor Jenny Keeling. We now move to the debate. Does any members wish to speak? Councillor John Gray, Councillor Sarah Ruiz. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councillor John Gray, West Ham Ward, speaking in support of the nomination of Lynn Brown to this award. I will declare an interest. I was Lynn's parliamentary agent from 2010 until 2019. And it was always a matter of a debate between us who is responsible because she increased her majority each election that she stood after 2010. And, of course, she claimed it was down to her hard work and perseverance and that with, you know, support of the local party. I, of course, said it was all down to her agent and never were able to agree on that. But seriously, I won't repeat the many fine points being said by the mayor. I would point out that Lynn was born and bred in Newham. Her parents were working class factory workers. She worked in local government. She was a councillor. She was an executive of the council for many years. Then she became an MP. She worked in a library in Redbridge next door to us. She was a hard working MP. It is little known that the former constituency of West Ham was the most densely populated consistency in the UK. The most densely populated. When you think of the problems and the pressures and the challenges in Newham, she only got the same amount of money to run her office to support residents as MPs in leafy shires. So what she did with her team, with her colleagues when we worked here is absolutely marvellous. And my final thing, of course, is you couldn't think about Lynn charging around, going canvassing, going to community events, meeting people without also thinking of Cara, her labour attack dog, who was her guardian and friend. I consider myself a friend of Lynn and do commend this nomination and I hope it is supported. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor John Gray. Councillor Sarah Ruiz. Thank you, Chair. Like others in the room, Lynn has actually been a friend for, I hate to think it, but probably nearly 40 years. She is responsible for me standing here today because she was the one who encouraged me with, if you think you can do any better, why don't you join? Which was actually very typical of Lynn. She has been a real servant to this borough and I saw her on Friday. And she won't mind me saying, but she actually shed a tear to think that she had actually been going to be awarded the freedom of the borough. I did remind her that actually we hadn't made that decision yet. But, you know, I'm sure that her colleagues will be voting to say yes. So, I know that she will be absolutely delighted and I'm not a great supporter of these normal processes like freedom of the borough and stuff like that. But, on this occasion, I would say that I am absolutely delighted that the Council is honouring Lynn in this way. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Sarah Ruiz. Does any other member wish to speak? Councillor Ellen, please. Oh, yes, there's one here. Council Alan Griffiths, County Townsend. There's a few more things to say about Lynn. I first remember meeting her when she wasn't being a candidate, but she was being an agent in Newham South, constitutionally. Some of you are too young to remember. And I was her agent for the first election, which was a difficult election. So, I was happy to hand over to John Gray for that. Lynn, of course, has very strong roots in the area. She grew up in a fifth floor council flat in Drew Road in Silvertown, where her parents were still living when she was first elected. She went to local school. And I remember seeing a picture when the new building was open for that school and there were two little girls in the brownies and one of them was Lynn Brown. What hasn't been mentioned, I think, so far is all her contributions to local government outside this area. She was the chair of a committee on the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and then the local government association. Actually, which time she was chair, I'm not quite sure. But she was definitely the chair of leisure, which she took a leading role. That was in the days when Graham Lane was chair of education in the same organization. And of course, she had a great sense of humor. When she'd been elected, I started referring to her as my favorite member of parliament, which she rather liked. But nobody else heard that until I let it slip during a meeting, after which Councillor McLean decided everybody in West Ham Labour Party was going to be called favorite something or other, which spread around the place. So I'm very pleased to commend Lynn Brown for this. The other bit of her local roots I should mention is that a close relative of hers suffered a very serious injury in the Silver Town explosion. And I remember Lynn mentioning her mum telling her lots of details about the Match Girls strike and how other predominantly male areas of work copied their union organizing techniques from the Match Girls strike. And that is how the gas workers of Becton became organized. So she's someone who's knew them through and through. And I'm very pleased to commend her to you. Thank you, Councillor Allen Griffith. Now I ask, may Roxana Fiers, you have right to reply. Should you wish to say anything further? Thank you very much, Chair. I just wanted to convey my appreciation to colleagues that have contributed to the debate as it relates to the nominees for the Freedom of the Borough. And I just commend this report to members to vote in line with the recommendation as set out on big page number eight. Thank you. Thank you. As the Mayor said, now we can move to the recommendation which are outlined from the page eight of the agenda. So all those in favour, please raise your hand. Thank you. All those against, please raise your hand. Any abstentions? No. Thank you very much. The report has been approved. Thank you. I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you everyone for attending and watching. I hope that for the next meeting you will stay at seven. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.