Transcript

Well, thank you, everyone. Please be seated. Well, good evening, everyone. Well, good evening, everyone, and assalamu alaikum. I am Councillor Saif Uddin Khalid of Bromley Northward, and I'm the Speaker of the Council. The purpose of this meeting is to agree the Council budget and to set the Council tax for the forthcoming year. Special rules apply to the Budget Council meeting as set out in the Procedure Rules. Procedure Guidance on the Agenda. The Council will also have received a Procedure Guide. The Proposed Budget Amendments have been published on the website in a separate pack. I would like to thank everyone for attending, including the members of the public, in the gallery. I trust that you will show courtesy, professional assistance, and you must not shout out or otherwise disrupt the meeting. This meeting is being broadcast live via the Council's website. The cameras will be mainly focusing on the Council meeting. In view of this, I would like to remind members that the residents are looking on the Council to act in a professional and respectful manner and to show the borough in its best possible light. I would like to remind members to keep all contributions brief and relevant to the debate and not to introduce unrelated matters. To not stand or start to speak until I have called you to speak through me and do not address comments to the other members or to the public gallery. To not interrupt each other or make comments whilst other members are speaking and to be respectful to each other at all times. And most importantly, if I stand, all members must sit down and be quiet. If you are participating online, please switch your microphones on when you are speaking and keep them switched off at all other times. I will continue to ensure that all sides of the Chamber has a fair opportunity to contribute. To ensure this, I have obtained a list of members to speak for the items. Should any other member wish to speak, please indicate your wish to do so. I cannot, however, guarantee to accept your request. As always, only the members physically present in the meeting room may vote on the items requiring a decision. This includes the roll call vote on the main budget item today. If the fire alarm rings, please follow the instructions of the facility staff who will direct you to the appropriate exits. At this point in the meeting, I usually provide an update on my activities as your speaker. Since the next Ordinary Council meeting is on Wednesday, 2nd of April, I intend to provide my next update on my activities as your speaker at the April Council meeting. So we are going to kickstart today's meeting with the agenda item number one is apologies for absence. Apologies have been received, as far as I am aware, is from Councillor Jahed Choudhury, the former Speaker of the Council. And I also have received apologies from Councillor Asma Begum, who I understand gave birth to a wonderful baby, baby girl earlier this week. And I am sure everyone will wish to join me in offering her many congratulations and all our best wishes to them both and their family. The best wishes to Councillor Asma Begum, her bundle of joy and the family, of course. Are there any other apologies, members? The Councillor Haran-Mir? You okay, Councillor Haran-Mir? Okay. Any other apologies? No. Right. Swiftly moving to... Agenda item number two is the declarations of Disclosurable Pecuniary Interest. I will now hand over to the Monitoring Officer, Linda Walker, to provide some advice in relation to declarations of interest. Over to you. This is the advice that's given to you every year at this time. So members should note that the Standards Advisory Committee have agreed a general dispensation to all councillors in respect of matters relating to the council tax and housing where the councillor or spouse or partner holds a tenancy or lease with the council and on the member's allowance scheme. Members do not, therefore, have to declare a DPI in respect of those matters. Also, in relation to the procedures for the budget meeting, because it's slightly different to ordinary meetings, everyone's been given a copy, or been circulated with a copy of that procedure, and there are some available... Oh, they're just over there. Yes, I thought they were going to be over there. So they're just over there if anybody wants to remind themselves about what the procedures are. Thank you. Right. Thank you for the information. So now, I would like to ask, would any member who has a disclosable pecuniary interest to declare in any item on the agenda, please indicate now. No, I think it's being cleared up by Linda. All right, OK. Thank you. Safety moving on to agenda item number three is to receive announcements. I would like to now hand over and invite Mr. Steve Holsey, the chief executive of the council, to make some announcements. Over to you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wouldn't normally make any announcement at the council's annual budget setting meeting, but I wanted to take the opportunity of having all members here to reflect on a significant achievement. Yesterday, the council learned that we have achieved the Local Government Association Member Learning and Development Chartermark. This award follows a significant effort on behalf of both members and officers. We are one of the robust framework for member learning and development, the significant improvement journey the council has enjoyed in recent times in relation to member training and development and the council's commitment to continue to invest in this important aspect of the council's improvement journey. I would like to thank all members and officers for the commitment they have shown to engaging in this important project and to congratulate all involved in this significant achievement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your announcement, chief executive. Agenda item number four is to receive petitions as far as we are concerned, and I'm aware that there are no petitions listed for the considerations at this meeting today. Agenda item number five is to consider the budget report for 2025-26 and medium-term financial strategy of 2025-28, which you would see from pages 11 to 450. Please note that this report includes the Treasury Management Strategy Statement Investment Strategy Report and Capital Strategy Report for 2025-28. Members are asked to ensure that they have read the Section 2 of the report, which is the chief financial officer's comments as required under Section 25 of the Local Government Act 2003. For reference, the budget motion is set out at pages 25 to 450 of the agenda, and the two amendments are set out in the supplementary agenda. The overview and the scrutiny committee's report on the budget is also presented as part of the papers. Before we debate this motion, I would like to remind members that this can be a very long debate, so please look to keep your contributions concise. Do not repeat the points that other members have already mentioned or have made, and please stick to the subject matter of the budget motion and do not bring in any other matters. I now call upon the Mayor Luther Rahman to move the executive's budget proposals. Together you have ten minutes. Mr Mayor. Thank you. Assalamualaikum. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Greetings of peace to each and every one of you. I am proud to propose this groundbreaking budget, which will invest more than any other local authority in the country to support our residents with their cost-of-living crisis. This new investment over the next three years will build on our previous budgets, representing a total of £184 million in frontline investment between 2022 to 2028. We have repeatedly made history as the first council in the country to introduce vital support for our residents, from universal free school mills in both primary and secondary schools, and restoring the educational maintenance allowance to university bursaries, to replacing the winter fill allowance for pensioners, which had been cut by central government. We will now become the first council in the country to provide universal school uniform grants to alleviate the burden on cash-strapped families with household incomes of up to £50,350, benefiting some 21,000 people who enter primary school and then subsequently secondary school. I am determined to ensure that every child, regardless of the background, has the best chance in life to thrive in education and realise their full potential. This budget will also make us the second local authority in the country to offer free home care. Nearly £15 million will be invested over the next three years to tackle the social care crisis and ensure our residents and the most vulnerable have access to support they very much need at home. This is a fully costed, fully balanced and financially sustainable budget, which ensures £471 million in our total reserves by 2028. We are also leading the way as a local authority in showing how councils can fill the void created by national cuts and invest in communities while ensuring balanced books and continued sustainable growth. Our council tax is the sixth lowest in London, with effectively frozen council tax for all households, for those who need it most, with an annual income of less than £50,350. Those on the lowest income pay no council tax at all and we have one of the most generous council tax support schemes in the country. I want to thank the Food Hub users and volunteers who came to see me and brought an issue about funding. I am extremely disappointed that my office had been misinformed by some in this council and told me that there had been no reduction in resources. When I was elected, ladies and gentlemen, I increased funding for Food Hubs and was told that this funding had not changed. Now I have been made aware of this issue. I have ensured that the funding is brought back to the level I increased it to when I was elected in 2022 and I have requested a review of the service to make sure this oversight never happens again. The measures in this budget will provide vital support to families and vulnerable residents, alleviate the impact of cost of living pressures and make our borough an even greater place to live in. I am proud to put this forward to this chamber and request everyone to vote for this unprecedented investment in our communities to improve the lives of all our residents. Thank you. This budget proves that we do not have to choose between financial integrity or healthy investment. We can have both. As an administration, we are delivering balanced budget that are sustainable over the medium term, which increase investment in essential services and effectively manage risk and protect the Council from unforeseen circumstances, as we may see. Since May 2022, we have changed the course set by Labour and have responded to huge demand and inflationary pressures without punishing ordinary people or removing lifelines for the most vulnerable. Our previous budget laid the foundations for sustainability and resilience. Arriving at this point required vast improvement to the Council's financial governance. To this day, I am still shocked, Mr Speaker, that before this Mayor was elected, accounts were left unsigned for six years, unpublished annual governance statements piled up, breaching the Council's statutory duty. VAT was left unpaid, VAT was left unpaid, and a permanent Section 151 officer was never employed to preside over the mess. This is not something that we could let continue, especially in the context of cost-of-living crisis, where many are struggling and depend on us to be dedicated and responsible. The poor governance of the past, during their time, was paired with devastating cuts to services. And even then, not a single savings target was delivered in seven consecutive years. It is a testament to our restored governance and financial resilience that the funding to our youth service has been restored and has gone up by 700% to somewhat £14 million a year. And this is only an example of how we have changed things over the last three years. Now, if we have to look at things in context of numbers, not just numbers but what people. So we have, this budget is showing that 38,000 young people who receive free school meals. Thousands of children will benefit from the education maintenance allowance and bursaries for university students. 5,000 households can receive the winter fuel payments. 16,000 people have joined our schemes to provide free swimming for women, girls and older people. 47,000 households who will pay zero council tax or will pay no increase as a result of our tax reduction and the discount schemes we have introduced to protect the poorest as promised in the Mayor's manifesto. Our transformative agenda prioritises people first. So what have we done? We have invested and we have resurrected our waste services after years of underfunding, low investment and fire and rehire. Our children's service was previously failing and now it is rated as outstanding by Ofsted. The number of voluntary and community sector organisations who receive funding has doubled. Their leisure and service is now expanding instead of closing, providing new opportunities for health and wellbeing. These challenges, these changes are just the beginning and the budget we present today introduces a further £65 million of new investment, new sustainable investment and that will not require ongoing resilience, reliance on reserves. This budget provides free home care for individuals who need it and it will also provide free school uniform to 21,000 young people, removing the cost from families. It will grant 15,000 households with cash support through the Mayor's Energy Fund. And this will be supplemented by the new Meals on Wheels scheme which will benefit hundreds of people who are vulnerable due to age, disability and poverty. And these are pioneering projects that ensure the health and security of our communities making up for the cuts forced by the previous administration and central government. And in terms of capital investment, we are making, we are continuing this trend. We are reopening St George's Leisure Centre closed by Labour and the investment and we are investing over £60 million into new sports and culture initiatives. We are continuing the rollout of Women's Resource Centre, replacing what was scrapped by the previous administration. And significant investment is going into infrastructure for regenerating our parks, footways, roads and as well as introducing a new set of fleets for our waste vehicle. Most importantly, we will be launching an extensive acquisition programme of new council homes to address the challenges of overcrowding homes as well as boosting investment into our stock by providing new bathrooms, kitchen, windows and roofs for our council properties. Now this is a people first budget. It looks at three things, resilience, community investment and looking at how we can improve our services. While more than half of other councils across the country are at the risk of bankruptcy, this council is increasing our general fund reserves to £25 million creating a £5 million contingency. Despite the significant challenges faced by all councils nationally, we have achieved a budget that delivers increased and sustainable investment, mitigating risks, protects those who are most in need and delivers on the priorities of our residents. Mayor Look for Rahman was elected on a mandate to deliver transformational changes and repair the damage done to our communities by labour cuts and closures. But this prudent budget is an expression of that mandate and will provide a sustainable basis for empowering our diverse communities for years to come, thanks to our robust and rigorous planning that we have put in place. Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, this is the third budget I have presented to the Chamber and every year we have grown from strength to strength and it is one of the strongest budget that this administration has presented. And it will be an envy to many local authorities across the country. It resolves the legacy issues that we have inherited and looks towards a sustainable future that prioritises on delivery for our residents. Mr Speaker, I formally move this budget and encourage all colleagues across the Chamber to support this report and join us in continuing this journey. Thank you. Mr Speaker, I formally second the proposal and I will reserve the right to speak later. Mr Speaker, I mean, thank you. Thank you. Right, amendments were received by the deadline from Councillor Marc Francis and the Labour Group and from Councillor Nathalie Bientret. These have been published as well. Before I take these amendments, can I just confirm there are no other amendments? I believe not. I now call upon Councillor Mark Francis to move the Labour Group's amendment. You have five minutes, Councillor Francis. Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is the first time I've been in a budget meeting where the mayor, any mayor, has conceded part of our amendment before I've even spoken to introduce that amendment. So we're really pleased on this side of the chamber to hear that the mayor has changed his mind about cutting the funding for the food hub for local food banks and we look forward to hearing more about that. Before I turn to the Labour Group's amendment, it's important to set this budget in its proper context. Following the formation of a Conservative and Lib Dem coalition in 2010, local government faced relentless cuts to its funding. Little extra money was made available had to be obtained through increases in council tax, the most regressive tax. That's the opposite of what should happen. All seven years that Labour ran Tower Hamlets until 2022 were under a Tory government. The cuts to our funding during that period were even worse than during the coalition. Labour's mayor and councillors set their budgets against that funding context. Nevertheless, some of us who were there at the time argued that the funding forecasts we were given were too pessimistic. The cuts were too severe, but they were not catastrophic. We also argued that the election of a Labour government would change the picture and result in extra funding. Sadly, we lost those debates and the consequences that cuts were made. But as I've said before, Labour councillors are learning from that experience. But it's also true to say that our prediction has turned out to be correct. In 2023, Mayor Rahman was able to reinstate some services because funding cuts from government had not proved to be as bad as feared. And we now have a Labour government which, despite the pressure on public finances, is already boosting funding to local councils. Mr Speaker, in the last six months, the Labour government has awarded Tower Hamlets Council the following additional sums. £6.3 million worth of extra social care grant. £2.2 million of extra new homes bonus. £6.4 million of adult social care improvement fund. £5.1 million in grant from the new recovery fund. £1.9 million from children's social care grant. £4.4 million for extended producer responsibility for packaging. £8 million for household support funding. And an extra £3.2 million for homelessness prevention. Mr Speaker, the total extra investment by the Labour government in Tower Hamlets Council in the last eight months alone is £37 million. That's 7% of our income requirement in the overall position to last year and a nearly 20% increase in direct central government grant. And even against the worrying backdrop internationally, we can be confident that there will be more investment to come for local councils when the Chancellor does our spending review in the summer. Why on earth, then, does the Mayor and his Aspire party councillors need to raise council tax by a further 5% on top of the 5% that they already increased it last year? I'll tell you why. Because the extra £6.5 million it raises is paying for numerous politically appointed advisors in the Mayor's office. Because it's being used to pay the legal costs. He is incurring, pursuing pointless legal challenges and defending unsavoury allegations against this authority. Oops. Did I say that out loud? Because it's wasting £700,000 on extra comms officers to send out pictures of himself and councillor Mayim at community events and PR campaigns telling residents how wonderful everything is here. And finally, because it's having to spend £2 million a year on the package of measures to try to convince Whitehall it has learned the lessons from last year's failed best value inspection. Mr Speaker, to coin a phrase, no, no, no. Labour councillors are opposed to this wasteful and self-indulgent expenditure. Our amendment scales back the Mayor's office, it scales back the growth in comms, it scraps the PR blitz, it removes the extra expenditure on legal services and it removes the extra post that the Mayor feels is needed to cover up this authority's many best value failings under his leadership, especially its culture of patronage. The four posts we've identified are not what is needed. What is needed is a fundamental and public change of attitude by the Mayor, his Cabinet and others at the top of this organisation. An admission that he's got things wrong previously would give people charged now with overseeing this borough real confidence and it wouldn't cost our residents a single penny. But Mr Speaker, our amendment goes further. It scraps the Mayor's fees for blue badges for disabled people and disabled parking bays. It halves the fee whopping residents pay to go through the bus gate. But most importantly, it guarantees putting that £400,000 back into the food hub every single year. And for families on the Isle of Dogs and in Blackwell and Cubitt Town, Labour's amendment provides the capital necessary to complete the rebuild of George Green's secondary school that he cut in 2023. Mr Speaker, a 2% increase in adult social care precepts on council tax is prudent. But an extra 3% is ripping off Tower Hamlets Council taxpayers. I formally move Labour's amendment and I urge all opposition councillors to support it this evening. Thank you, Councillor Francis. I would like to now call upon Councillor Shiraj Alislam to second the amendment, please. Please also indicate whether you wish to speak now or do you wish to reserve your right to speak until later in the debate. Councillor Shiraj Alislam. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will speak now. So thank you again, Mr Speaker. Good evening. As-salamu alaykum. Peace and blessings to all of you. Can I thank first of all Councillor Francis for doing an excellent work on the Labour budget amendment. Can I also thank Ms Lorraine and her team for the advice and support that she has provided to us in putting our budget together. Colleagues, in these challenging times when cost of living has soared and hard-working families are feeling the pitch, the last thing our residents need is a bigger council tax. And I mean a bigger council tax. Yet the mayor has promised not to raise council tax. In doing so, he is exactly pushing for a 5% increase. The Labour's amendment does the opposite. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it does the opposite. It freezes council tax. It freezes. It doesn't mean anything else. Freeze means freeze. It freezes council tax. So residents are not forced to shoulder additional financial stress. Why we do this? Because we have a Labour government committed to increasing funding to our local services, helping council like ours invest in vital infrastructure and protect essential services without making people pay more. We are also making sure we protect those who need it most. That means cancelling the proposed charge of disabled parking permits because the disability should never come with an added financial cost. We are also investing in our children's future by restoring funding to build a new George Green School, ensuring the next generation has the facilities that they deserve. We also propose restoring funding for a project that the mayor cut. I'm talking about the NCIL funding, which the residents themselves chose. So, for example, in my ward, Frank Dobson Square, Globetown Market Square, disabled access to park, which is vital for disabled residents. These projects were unfortunately cut by this administration, and we would like to see them funded again. Crucially, our saving proposals are smart and efficient. Cutting wasteful spending in areas are simply on priorities for local people. We have focused our budget on frontline services and community support, from food banks to anti-poverty funds, so what our residents depend on. Colleagues, this amendment is about standing up by our promises and standing up for tri-hambler families. Let's vote for a fair, responsible and compassionate budget. Let's freeze council attacks, scrap charges for disabled parking and invest in our children's future. I urge all of you to support Labour's amendment and ensure Tahamblis remain a borough that puts people first. And finally, colleagues, as Ramadan most likely to be on Friday, can I take this opportunity to wish everyone a blessed Ramadan, everyone in this chamber and residents, Tahamblis, for observing Ramadan current to you. Thank you, councillor Shiraj al-Islam, leader of the Labour Group. I would like to now call upon councillor Natalie Bien-Fit to move your amendment. You have three minutes. Mr. Speaker, do I have three minutes or five minutes? Three minutes? Just three minutes? Yeah. Because the Labour Group had five minutes to present theirs. I understand, but I was advised, I act on advice, I was advised that because you are not moving your amendment on behalf of a group, so you have three minutes. But I will probably... Mr. Speaker, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, see how it goes, and then I will use my discretion. Thank you for your lenience. So, I'm very pleased to present my budget amendment this year, and thank you to the finance team for supporting me in preparing it. I do hope the administration is interested in accepting some of my proposals. Firstly, I've... And I'm not expecting the administration to accept this proposal, to increase the car parking charges to be in line with a calculation made by the CPRE charity, which ties the cost of parking to the cost of land. I've done this in previous years, and in previous years, this year, it's shown that we're significantly undercharging for car parking in the borough, to the tune of nearly £10 million. However, I am interested to see that this amount is lower than previous years. It was £12 million in 2023, and £17 million last year. And what this means, I hope, is that the administration is starting to see that charging fairly for parking is actually a fair way of supporting our borough's residents who rely on their cars for income. And I really encourage them to continue down this path, and I hope my amendment proves that we can raise vital funds in this way for our public services. I've suggested ways to spend the money. So, also in previous years, I've wanted to support our most vulnerable residents and fill gaps which I feel aren't being given the right attention in this administration. My first proposal is that we amend our council tax reduction scheme to fully support households on tapered reduction. At the moment, we have a tapered reduction scheme, which I feel is rather patronising and disregards the fact that people who can't pay due to lack of funds, they can't pay because they don't have the money. They don't need educating. They just don't have money. So, if we can afford to waive their council tax, we absolutely should. Secondly, I've made a few proposals which address the lack of funding that I see for traffic schemes, other than parking in the borough. I know we urgently need a huge expansion of cycle parking, and we also need proper traffic calming infrastructure. These things are fairly cheap, and they have a huge impact on – they make it convenient for people to park their bicycles. They make it safer for us to get around. I've got two new proposals, which I'm very excited about this year. Firstly, I've suggested creating two community pots for people to make suggestions about improvements to their local area, and one of those is for women, and one of those is for disabled people. Those would be owned and administered by the council, and people with those characteristics would be able to write in and make suggestions about their local area. The reason I've done this is because I feel that these two groups' voices, particularly, but I'm sure there are other groups, are not as prominent in decision-making in this council as I feel they should be, and I hope that this will give people an opportunity to feel empowered about their local area and know that they can make changes. Also, those two groups have particular needs when moving around the borough, and I feel that those aren't addressed. They aren't always accommodated in our public realm. Secondly, I've proposed that the council look at purchasing aerobic food waste digesters as a rather innovative solution to help us deal with our food waste, which we will soon need to start collecting from all of the properties in the borough. With a small upfront investment, we can buy these machines, which process food waste in just 24 hours, into usable compost. What will we do with the compost? We will grow vegetables that are discounted for residents who live on the estates where the food waste comes from. This is really, really important. We need to start thinking about how climate change will impact our residents in the future. Food is going to get more expensive. I heard from a briefing from some of our officers only last week that rice prices may increase exponentially because of how climate change will impact where rice is grown. We know that this is coming down the track, and we know that we need to start thinking about it now. If we start thinking about producing our own food with our own nutrients in Tower Hamlets, then I think we will be serving future generations very well. I will make a few comments on the administration's budget. I will be abstaining tonight because I feel that there is a lot to be commended, but I still have a lot of reservations on certain points. I think the investment in waste services is positive. I think there is a whole tranche of investments in young people, including children in care and those with SEND needs. I think those are really important and very commendable. I see my time is up. Thank you, Speaker. I will carry on. I am, however, very concerned that there is a very high reliance on capital delivery, and I urge the administration to be obsessive about the detail, obsess about the programmes that you are delivering. They are very innovative. We need to make sure that they are actually delivered as they are promised. Finally, I am also concerned, as the Labour Group have highlighted, about the further increase in council tax. I accept the finance officer's advice that we need to keep in place with inflation, but this is happening at the same time as everything else is going up. I cannot support it. It is a very difficult place. Finally, I will mention also that I am sad to have to abstain on a Labour Group amendment as well. In previous years, I have been able to support my fellow opposition amendments, but I am afraid I could not this year. I understand it was a tight budget. Thank you. It was difficult to find wiggle room, but I am worried about some of the suggestions that they have made. Thank you. Councillor Peter Goulds. I formed a second. How are you? I formed a second to put the motion on the table, but we will be speaking later. Oh, you are going to speak later. Okay. Thank you. Right. So, having finished the proposals of the budget and the amendments put forward by Councillor Mark Francis and Councillor Natalie Bien-Faith, we are now at the point of the meeting that where we will commence the general debate on the Mayor's proposals and the amendments that have been moved. As a reminder to the members, I wish to confirm that members may speak only once during the debate for a maximum of three minutes each. At my discretion, those members who have already spoken, move motions or amendments for a political group at the start of the debate may speak again during the main debate. Councillor Sayeda, Councillor Mayim Thalukdar, I believe you have reserved your right to reply at the end. You will have the opportunity. I intend to follow the list of the speakers. If any other member wishes to speak, please indicate to me I will look to warn members when they are about to be called to speak. So, I am going to first go to Councillor Sabina Akhtar and then I will go to Councillor Abdi Mohamed. Councillor Sabina Akhtar, former Speaker of the Council. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today to support a budget that is more than just numbers. It's a roadmap to a brighter future for our residents. This budget turns aspirations into achievements and opportunities into outcomes. Mr Speaker, can we provide our pensioners with daily hot meals? Can we support families with school uniforms? Can we afford a winter fuel allowance when government cuts leave our residents cold? So all the answers above, yes, yes, yes. Many councils can only dream of such ambitious and fiscally responsible budget. We have spoken about delivery and we have clear plans that put our residents first. We are investing a record of $184 million in frontline services with no staff cuts. We are providing free school meals for primary and secondary school children, $5.4 million annually. We are setting benchmarks for others to follow, so not just the London Mayor, but the Government of Indonesia is also following our lead when it comes to free school meals. We are investing nearly $15 million in free home care. We are proud of our robust financial leadership. We are not using reserves. We are building on them, increasing the general fund reserve to $25 million. Under Aspire, Mayor Lutframan is not just fixing the roof while the sun shines, but also preparing responsibly for the rainy day. So enough talk from the opposition about the Mayor's office. The Mayor's office has significantly reduced its staff from 32 to 12. We are making significant investments in young people, youth centres, education maintenance allowance, and university investments for hundreds of students. We continue to provide key services for our five reopened centres, stop shops, one-stop shops across the borough, and we continue to fund the one-hour free parking for customers wishing to stop for our local markets. As a woman, I am proud of the work that this administration is doing for women and girls. We are offering free suing for all women and girls over 16. So, Mr Speaker, I joined Aspire as I can see the investments that are being invested into our communities most vulnerable that are evident in this budget, the investments that prioritise improving the lives of women and girls. This budget puts residents first ahead of party politics. The record of this administration incentives of implying women's voices speaks for itself. We are reversing the damage done by cancelling the Jaganawai Centre and opening a culturally sensitive women's centre. We have launched a women's commission to put a women's voice front and centre. And last but not least, we are investing robustly in delivering thousands of affordable homes to tackle the overcrowding crisis in Tower Hamlets. We are investing in new homes and existing stock. So, remember, together we build, together we rise, together we aspire. So, I present this budget. Thank you, Councillor Sabina, third Councillor Abdi Mohamed. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I start by agreeing with a statement made by my colleague, Councillor Mark Francis, when it comes to increases in council tax. This administration must think again. A broken promise is a broken promise. The residents of Tower Hamlets won't thank you for it. As councillors, our duty is to support all residents. Ensuring our community of Tower Hamlets remains fair, accessible and supports everyone. It's with this responsibility in mind that I stand in opposition of the proposals, introduction of the charges for blue badges and personal disabled base, and this is what I want to speak on briefly. This introduction, this additional charge for disabled people is out of the blue and it's wrong. This is a political choice and one that sits squarely with this mayor and this administration. Introducing charges for services will add an additional burden on disabled people who are already dealing with the higher living costs. For many disabled people, these parking services are not luxuries or conveniences, these are necessities. Adding financial costs to these already vital services will only restrict access for many. Mr Speaker, as if these charges and the timings weren't worrying enough, we then look at the numbers behind this decision. In this borough, we currently have 8,617 active blue badges of which nearly 3,000 will expire this year. What poor planning it must be that nearly 40% of disabled people in this borough who use this blue badge or this base are being here at extra costs this year. When it comes to personalised bays, 106 disabled people have used them, have been granted access. Again, poor planning that 30% of disabled people tell homeless residents who use this service are being hit with this additional cost. These aren't huge figures of savings or charges we are talking about. We are talking about political decisions. We had the mayor, the lead member and the opposition councillors talk about the cost of living. It hasn't gone away. After 14 years of the Tories, it's still here. Thankfully, we heard from Councillor Francis about the extra money being spent by this Labour government. £37 million. When I first raised this in ONS shortly after these charges were published, the response we received were around them being simple administrative charges. Let's be absolutely clear. Call it administrative charges or fees. You've got 25 seconds. Call it what you want. This is an actual charge on administration that is levelling it against disabled residents who access these services. As a Councillor, I believe it's our job to remove barriers, not add new ones. I urge the mayor to reconsider. I urge members across this chamber to call out and oppose this extra charge being levelled against disabled residents of Tau Hamlets. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Abdi Muhammad. I'm going to go now to Councillor Sabina Khan and then I will go to Councillor Asma Islam. Thank you. Mr Speaker, firstly, I want to take this opportunity to respond to the baffling Labour amendments to the cut to our best value investments. It's hypocritical to say the least. After months of calling for outside intervention into the Council, they choose to attack the Mayor's budget for taking into consideration the very improvement the envoys recommended. Do you, do the group opposite want to follow the envoys recommendation or not? How can you make improvement to leadership and culture and governance by making recommendation for us to follow that we cut, we don't have an improved, head of services improvement and cultural change manager. It just shows that this is an organisation. We need to make cultural changes. It just shows that people haven't looked into how to manage a big organisation with millions of parents and people. It just shows incompetencies. Our Mayor, Lutfa Roman, has made the right decision and I urge all members to support it. Mr Speaker, this budget is balanced and sustainable and compassionate. I want to concentrate on the compassion part of it. Mr Speaker, last two years we have delivered free school meals for secondary and primary school children. Mr Speaker, we have frozen the council tax for the most vulnerable residents in our borough. We have also now introduced free school uniforms grant which will benefit 21,000 children in the borough. Mr Speaker, we are a trailblazing council and a party. Mr Speaker, we have made proud investment. Mr Speaker, our residents, 3,000, 5,000 elderly residents were able to claim winter fuel allowance. So, there is so much to celebrate in this budget and so I ask everyone to support this budget. Mr Speaker, I'm really, really baffled still and I just don't understand on what common sense was used and judgment used to recommend that we cut the head of cultural change and services when the envoys have recommended that this is exactly what the council needs. So, what judgment and common sense was used to ask and recommend that we do that. Yes, Councillor Francis. Mr Speaker, point of order. Councillor Khan has said twice in her speech that all of these posts in the best value investment were recommended by the ministerial envoys. I asked that question specifically of council officers whether this was recommended by the ministerial envoys or anyone within the department for housing local government and I didn't get an answer on that. I believe I know that Councillor Khan is wrong and I wondered if the chief executive could clarify whether these posts that are in this package were specifically recommended by the ministerial invoice as Councillor Khan has twice. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Francis. To confirm, the posts that are detailed in the budget are the council's response to the directions were not explicitly referred to in those directions. I can only repeat what I've just said, Councillor. The posts are recommended as part of the budget as a response to the directions to ensure cultural changes are achieved but they were not explicitly referred to in the directions. Councillor. Thank you. You're gone. So that was a further elaboration of the fact that Councillor Khan's claim was entirely untrue. And I think that needs to be put on the record. And this meeting started with a claim by the mayor that he was misled about the cuts to the food hub budget. So twice in the space of the first half hour of this meeting, apparently members in the Aspire party are being misled. Who are they being misled by, Mr. Speaker? By officers or by themselves? What's going on here? Councillor Khan, I think you deserve a point to make here. So on what basis, where did you get this information that those were recommended by the government envoys? Or if you want to add to that. Hi. If you listen to my speech clearly, I said that the envoys recommended to make improvement to the culture and the leadership. These were not the explicit recommendations. No. This was the explicit on the budget amendment, Labour's amendment to remove those posts. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Francis, you made your points. Of course, she replied. And the chief executive has made it clear as well. So I think this would be duly noted. So we're going to go now to Councillor. Can we have some? I haven't used this one for a while. Right. Thank you. Thank you for your professional assistance. I'm going to now go to Councillor Asma Islam of Labour Group. Mr Speaker, as local governments across the country set their budgets this year, I think we can all agree that there's something distinctly different about this year. Would it be clear? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's my screenshot about this year. Wouldn't you agree, Mr Speaker? This year's budget comes at a pivotal moment with the Labour government at the helm of it all after 40 long years of austerity year on year cuts to local government budgets. And now at long last we are witnessing real investment back into our communities. That same pattern is evident in this budget, which outlines a significant investment in services for the people of Tower Hamlets. While this mayor has already committed to investment in previous budgets, I believe this year's approach is an even stronger one. That's due to the party in government. We are not naive enough to think that one year of investment can undo the damage of the last 14 years. That will take time. But the fact that the tide has now turned, that we're heading in the right direction, is worth acknowledging. So let's take a moment to acknowledge this progress. Homelessness prevention. Just today we've heard the welcome news of a £15 million funding boost for homelessness prevention across London. With £407,000 of that allocated specifically for Tower Hamlets. Would the mayor and the lead member for housing join me in welcoming this vital support? We all know how much it is needed in our borough. Investment boost. To quote my colleague, the total extra investment from the Labour government in Tower Hamlets Council in its first eight months alone stands at a remarkable £37.5 million. This is what happens when Labour is in power centrally. Public services get back on their feet. As chair of overview and scrutiny committee, I had the privilege of working with my colleagues across all parties on two separate occasions to review this year's budget. Yes, we had double the fun. We had the chance to dig deep into the budget and ensure that proposals truly meet the needs of our borough. The committee put forward several constructive amendments. One of which was a proposal to review the Administrational Charge for Blue Badge Holders. Although this recommendation has not yet been adopted by the Executive, and I say yet because I sincerely hope that it can be considered in the future. It's a small change, but one that could make a significant difference for those who rely on these services. Mr. Speaker, while some of my colleagues across the Chamber may promote this budget as a job well done solely by their own efforts, I stand here today to say that relationship between local and central government is one of collaboration, not competition. It's one of hands in gloves working together to rebuild and strengthen our communities. The extra investment this year alone is a testament to what happens when local and central government work in partnership. Together, we can make a meaningful impact on the lives of our residents. This should have been an opportunity not to raise our council tax. Unfortunately, that has not happened. On this side of the Chamber, we believe those extra pounds should have belonged back into the pockets of our residents. Thank you, Councillor Asma Islam. I'm going to now go to Councillor Kabir Ahmed and then Councillor Wahid Ahmed. Councillor Kabir Ahmed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's interesting to sit on this side of the roof during a budget. So let me ask you, Mr. Speaker, in all those years when Labour ran this council and a number of members opposite came to budget meetings in those seven years, did they stick their hand up for the Labour budgets? That was about cuts, cuts and more cuts. And now they shift the blame on the government. Yet now they want to make more cuts, cuts, cuts and want to take the credit for the government. There seems to be a certain paradox applying here. And as usual, this is the usual smokes and mirrors of opposition politics. I tell you what it is, what they've proposed is cuts to officers, as council officers, council staff. What they've proposed cuts to is comms officers, Bangladeshi comms officers. I don't know if Keir Starmer has a problem or not, but certainly, Mr. Speaker, I don't have a problem. But it's well needed and much needed. A third of the council's population is of that heritage. Now, if you go back to the 90s and early 2000s and you look at proportionality, in terms of proportion, there were more comms officers than what we're putting in now. Yet the population has increased. There's about 120,000 Bangladeshis living in Tower Hamlets. And if we want to treat everybody equally, then we need to give opportunities. There's also other secondary migration Bangladeshis who've come from other parts of Europe as well, whose first language isn't English. However, they can communicate in Bengali. Anyway, let's cut that short. Let's look at who they want to save money for. Now, we talk about cuts, cuts, cuts. But what we don't talk about is the mitigations that this mayor and this lead member have put in place to protect the most vulnerable. Around 68% of the people won't be affected by the increases in council tax charges. Do you know why, Mr Speaker? Because they earn below £50,350. That's the household income. Now, who is going to benefit from it? Well, I'll tell you what. Yesterday, there was a fundraiser for the Labour Party and a number of donors donated money. Now, if you can afford to donate money, you certainly can afford to pay a couple of pounds a week extra towards supporting the most vulnerable in society. And that's what council tax is used for, such as a refuge collection and so on and so forth. So, that 32%, I'll give you a prime example because it's written in writing. What, 15 seconds, councillor? Now, Wapping Bus Gate, one of the most affluent areas in Tower Hamlets. And that's where they want to apply discounts by saving money from the most richest and not taking account of the poorest that we are protecting. It's supposed to be the Labour Party, but I think they've kind of moved that base to the right quite a lot. But, anyway, Mr. Speaker, I will endorse our budget and not the Labour Amendment. And I will ask residents to weigh out themselves what benefits the poorest in society the most. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Councillor O'Huidhamid. Go to Councillor Abutalha Choudhury. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We just figured this is not an, this is not the Aspire budget, I must say. Our manifesto in 2018 was to face council tax. Aspire promise, Aspire promise to face council tax, but residents have been facing council tax increase every year, and huge rent increase. In the doorstep, this is not what we have said. People actually sitting over there, they will not know what the struggle we had in 2018. They come and go. After the next election, they probably will go out to Red Bridge, or Chiguala, or even Dubai. But the fact is, we have to fight for our residents in this chamber. And we did it in 2018 against John Beaks. I submitted an alternative budget. And this is what I intended to do this time. But I don't want to blame the officer, but it's a cultural change. We need to have a cultural change in this council, as the envoy says. I did not have the reply. I was hoping to get a reply at least a week before, so that I could submit an alternative budget. I had a reply just yesterday. So, obviously, you can see I couldn't go through the whole thing, and I was not able to submit an alternative budget. But what I want to say, after hearing Councillor Mark Francis, we have £37 million in the last eight months, we have healthy reserves, and we should not have any kind of excuse to increase council tax in this council. This is why I'm not going to be able to support administration budget. Mr. Speaker, I'm just quite shocked to hear that we want to spend £1.4 million to, and they're claiming they want to spend £1.4 million to recruit additional staff for their failures. They are accepting it, that they could not actually deliver what our residents want. And even if Envoy said, they should be shamed to say that, actually, Envoy is recommended, and we want to have this staff to support our mayor because he is failing on his duties, and the cabinet members. They should be shamed themselves. And this is one of the reasons I resigned from this administration, I must say. It is for the public record. Mr. Speaker, we are failing on simple, simple things, like fixing a streetlight in Blair Street for two months. We are actually failing to collect rubbish for two months in Tevye. 30 seconds. Mouse and rash going into people's car, inside the car. And we are failing on simple duties. Yet we want to do a lot of things, additional things, so that we can proudly stand here and say, we are the first council, we did it. And I'm fed up to hear this kind of thing. Not now. From the day I became a councillor. Every leader has said this. And we just need to change this again. We just need to be proud of what we are doing good at, and we should be ashamed of what we are doing poorly. And I must say, on the balance, I must say that Labour amendment is better, and I will be supporting Labour motion tonight. Thank you. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, go on. Councillor Oudamid just stated that the budget states... Councillor Oudamid just stated that the budget states that we are increasing the Mayor's office by £1.4 million to recruit more staff. Could you please identify that within the budget papers, please? Mr. Speaker, this is what I have said. I think he needs to improve his listening skills. What I have said, they should be ashamed, proposing to spend council resources to do their job. And they are saying they need to have an officer to change the cultural thing. Then they need additional staff to help and voice to do the council duties. And this is what I have said. Mr. Speaker, that is totally different from what was stated. There is recordings of that. If democratic services need to go back and check, I would ask for that to be checked, because it was clearly stated that £1.4 million was an increase in order to increase staff in the Mayor's office. Let's see if we can arrange that, in the meantime... Mr. Speaker, I am happy to repeat what I have said. As I said, he needs to improve his listening skills. Mr. Speaker, what I have said, I am repeating again, that they are proposing additional money in the budget to do their job, and this is their job to do it. Mr. Speaker, let him speak first, and then I gave you the opportunity, and if necessary, I will give you the opportunity again. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, the taxpayer must not take the burden of their failures. This is what I have said, and I am repeating again. Okay. Mr. Ahmed, you have suggested to review the recording, and then let's see if we can get the recording. Let's see if we can get that. Until then, let's proceed on, and then I will request, if possible... Mr. Speaker, we will... There is no VAR, Mr. Speaker, here. Mr. Speaker, no, no, there isn't. There isn't. But, of course, this is recorded. But what we... What I suggest is that what you had to say, you said it. Mr. Ahmed, do you want to speak? No, no, Mr. Ahmed. Mr. Ahmed, what is it you are trying to... Okay. All right, go on. So, what I was going to say that you... What you had to say in reply to Councillor Ahmed's statement, and then, of course, the officers and the members of the gallery, they have heard it as well. They will make their own judgement if this is what he said. But he is denying that what you were inferring, or what you were saying. He didn't say that. He said something else. But let's leave for this matter, because this is the budget meeting. Let's just carry on. And then, people, we don't have to do a knee-jerk reaction to every statement. But if it is substantial enough, so, of course, you do have the right to make a comment. But do you want to discuss with your colleagues? If they are confirming, you can... I will allow you to do that. Don't worry. But I need to press on. Proceed on. No, Mr. Speaker, I will be satisfied with that. Just recommend Councillor Ahmed read the budget papers before making statements. All right. Thank you. Yeah. He heard that. He heard that. No, no. Sorry, Speaker. He mentioned my name. Point of order. Councillor Ahmed, all he said to read the budget statements, that's all. Isn't that what you said? To read the budget statement. That's it. So, if... That could be a misunderstanding. Of course, that could be a misinterpretation. So, I mean, anybody can say that to read it again, but let's just proceed on. Thank you. You said enough. Right. I'm going to now go to Councillor James King, and then Councillor Abdalullah, and then I will go to Councillor Kamral Hussain. Councillor James King, please. Abdalullah, oh, you can decide. Whoever... Okay. Councillor Abdalullah, then. Come on. Okay. Go on. Okay. All right. I won't be reading off the script, as ever, but can I start by thanking my colleague, Councillor Francis, for providing a sensible alternative budget. I know the Councillor opposite who wanted praise for his three years of delivering a well-written speech, but can I just start saying, for those of us who enjoy a bit of American politics, the recent press conferences from White House have been quite entertaining, but can I say to the resident of Tower Hamlets, listening to the opposition councillors read out their speeches is becoming equally entertaining. Especially when they do not highlight, as very well documented by Councillor Francis, £37 million that has been invested in this borough by Labour government. A London Labour Mayor delivering for London citizens. Yes, there are things we can be proud about as councillors, as council we are delivering for our residents. Irrespective of which party we represent, we have been humbled and been honoured to be elected to represent the best interests. But we can't sit here and take praises. If we change something, add the word Mayor this, Mayor that, when actually the monies come from central government. We, as collectively, whether it be elected councillors or opposition campaigners, in the last 14 years were crying out about the Tory government, the austerity. But when we now start to see the deliverance of a new Labour government, we should praise that and accept that. I think Councillor Oed Ahmed speaks passionately because he is a man of intelligence and experience. He has been in these council chambers for years, delivering, irrespective of whichever party or whichever ticket he holds, but he has wisdom. I think we should take that into account. But let me just highlight on the fact that some of the councillors were referring to the Mayor's team being dismantled. They have not been dismantled. Headline news in the local community papers and the bloggers that have been recruited will tell you one thing, but they have been assimilated to other departments. So the Mayor's department, the first floor, has shrunk, but they have gone into other departments. But they are still working on his agenda and his aspiration. Let's just talk about the recent appointment of five Bengali-led, Bengali-speaking. Nothing against them. I'm a Bengali person. Very proud. But I read these still alive as a child. In fact, one councillor referred to the fact that I was on that paper 15 times in one week. For doing good work. Councillor Mr. Halls is looking at me. As lead member of a cleaner, greener, safer, the biggest department in the council, we did a lot of good work in those days. But I'm sure the envoy will be interested to hear the chitter chatters in the coffee shops of Whitechapel. Who have been recruited? Have they been recruited? Why have they been recruited? And we look forward to watching those stories unfold in this coffee shop. But let me finish by saying this. One councillor opposite referred to the fact that my councillor colleague, recently appointed elected, Abdi, spoke passionately about the most vulnerable in our society, the blue badge holders. They've been charged administration fee. But the mayor can afford to have a 50-inch TV in each of his little offices. That's unacceptable. When I say we, as residents of Wapping, not everybody shops in Waitrose in Wapping. I can assure you that. We've been charged £15, double the rate, £35, just to drive in our street. Unacceptable. Let's just make it clear. This is attacking working families in this borough by the impression of giving, giving, giving. Well, you're attacking the most poorest in our borough who are working hard to provide for a family, and you are taxing them over the odds, over the odds, over the odds. Thank you. APPLAUSE Councillor James King. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I'll just rise briefly to support the Labour amendment, and highlight a few things that have not been already highlighted. However, I will highlight one thing that has been highlighted, and was highlighted last year as well, and that is the raise in council tax. The fact is not about the rights and wrongs of raising council tax, it's the fact that it was the first pledge of the Aspire Manifesto in 2022, and that pledge has been broken for the second year in a row. Last year, Member Councillor Wahid Ali, and indeed the Mayor, were waving copies of the manifesto to say that wasn't the case. And I'm glad to see that now you are no longer trying to gaslight the community and say that you were not, you did not pledge, because indeed you did. And whatever you might say now will not change that fact. What this speaks to is the fact that the Mayor and the Aspire Administration cannot be trusted to deliver on promises, whatever they may be, however amazing, however supportive they may be. And that is really the fundamental problem at the heart of this budget, and the heart of the way this council operates. Now this year, with this budget, another thing we have not seen are some really high, eye-catching policies. I think it has been a boring budget, if you do not mind me saying, looking at fixing the problems behind the scenes, and indeed lots of the Labour group is trying to make sure that the funding is not spent on fixing the Mayor's and the Council's cultural problems with the way that the Council runs by spending money on the envoys. If you look under the bonnet of the Council's budget, you can see that the funding for local police teams is being cut by £2 million, that has not been mentioned so far. We are failing on environmental process, the Council's polluting vehicles will remain in operation, they won't be taken out of operation. Again, that is another £2 million cut that is not being spoken about. It undermines our efficiency to carbonise the borough and jeopardises our ability to tackle the climate emergency. The final thing I want to say in response to the Labour group's budget proposals is around the capital project and the capital budget. In 2023, the Council cuts quite significant capital plans and programmes which were put into place to affect our public realms. A lot of them were voted for by local communities as well. Additionally, another thing that was cut and is now coming forward again are plans to build Council homes again. There have been no Council homes built by this administration. It's only not started by this administration since 2022. Of course, we welcome the fact that that programme is being restarted now, but we want to ask why has it taken so long? Why could the programme not have been going on for the past two years? So, in conclusion, I think we just want to look under the bonnet and see what really are the priorities of the administration. And I think we can look again and see it's all smoke and mirrors and not the delivery that the real residents need. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor James King. I'm going to now go to Councillor Kamrul Hussain and then Mushtaq Ahmed and then Councillor Emili. Councillor Kamrul Hussain. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I start by saying my opposition councillor just mentioned about our commitment to that froze council tax. I can tell you that we did committed to froze the council tax. Mayor, if he can read the Mayor's manifesto, he clearly mentioned there, we will froze council tax for the poorest. So, who's earning £50,000 a year? I cannot call them a poorest. I think they should make out of their pockets some to help other residents in the borough. And this evening, Mr Speaker, I'm proud to stand in support of a balanced budget. One that reflects both our strong financial position and our unbearable commitment to serving the needs of our residents. The budget we are proposing is a budget for the people. We, as elected members, have a responsibility to deliver our residents services that will sustainably benefit their livelihoods. And through this budget, we are committed to this. This budget represents our willingness to invest in the people without cutting any frontline services that so many of our residents depend on. And instead, we are investing over £184 million of frontline services since 2022 to 2028. I'm pleased to report that our reserves remain healthy with a balance of £25 million for this MTFS period and that this budget leaves us with no deficit. This is a demonstration of our commitment to excellent financial governance, ensuring that this Council is prepared. Any challenges lies ahead. I want to take a moment to highlight some of the key investments and commitments that we are making, all designed to enhance the quality of life of our borough. We are investing £3 million over the next three years into Meals on Wheels, £1.8 million over the next two years to provide waterfall payments, up to 10,000 pensioners. We are also making sure that our young people have the support they needed to thrive. This is why we are investing £3 million for the free school uniform. We will be launching free home care for all residents this year, an investment of over £5 million per year that will help support our older and more vulnerable residents. I'm pleased to highlight some of the key achievements and future ambitions within my portfolio. We are maintaining our leisure services ensuring that all of our swimming pools remain open with investment of £55 million for huge regeneration and St George's Leisure Centre, as well as new investment of £3 million in existing leisure centres. This is a budget that reflects our commitment to building a better, more sustainable future for the people of Car Hamlets, while this is a budget that ensures we meet the needs of our residents today while laying the groundwork for a thriving, resilient community in the years to come. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Councillor Hussain. Councillor Mushtaq Ahmed. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Benjamin Disraeli once said, the secret of success is constancy, to purpose. Tonight, Mr Speaker, this administration reaffirms its purpose. To serve, to deliver and to transform Tower Hamlets for the better. While councils across the country struggle with financial mismanagement, issuing section 114 notices and slashing services and slashing services, Tower Hamlets stands tall. Why, Mr Speaker? Because of sound leadership, financial discipline and an unshakable commitment to our people. No, because the central government policy, as some members of the opposition may have suggested. Unlike previous administrations that allowed chaos to reign, I'm not going to name them, and leaving our borough services to crumble, we have restored order. We have, Mr Speaker, signed every account. We have closed every financial loophole, and we have put governance back where it belongs, at the heart of decision-making. Mr Speaker, the previous administration's thoughts were unclear. Their words were empty. Their actions led to mismanagement. Their habits, a culture of failure. Their character, weak leadership. And their destiny, rejection by the people of Tower Hamlets. By contrast, this administration's thoughts are focused. Words are backed by action. And habits are based on discipline and governance. Our character is one of service. And our destiny, God willing, a stronger, fairer, thriving Tower Hamlets. Mr Speaker, while others made excuses, we made progress. We protect while we invest, because we believe in real leadership. And real leadership, Mr Speaker, means bringing services to the doors of the people. Back to the people. Mr Speaker, the previous administration cut services to the bone. We reinvested and retreated. 25 seconds. They let schools' attainment levels plummet. And we have invested to give our young people the confidence and the future they deserve. They left our streets filthy and forced us to declare a waste emergency. We invested 14 million in waste collection and empowerment. And enforcement. And they have the audacity to question us. Mr Speaker, this is more than a budget. It is a blueprint for the future, for the people of Tower Hamlets. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ahmed. I'm going to now go to Councillor Emily, and then I will go to Councillor Waheed Ali. I have a big list of those who are indicating. Let me just read it out to you. I have one on the floor, thank you, Mr. Ahmed, and I would love to hear from Councillor Harun-Mir. Councillor Ahmed, I have touched on your committee. I have a question, thank you, Mr. Ahmed. I would love to hear from Councillor Harun-Mir. I would love to hear from Councillor Harun-Mir. Councillor Ahmed El-Kabir. Scotland Salouk Ahmed. Councillor Ahmed Khan. Councillor Bilaluddin. I have Councillor Amina Ali. Councillor Mufiid Abastain. Councillor Mohammed Chaudhry. Councillor Shubha Hussein. So rest assured, hopefully, Maisha Begum, Councillor Peter Gold, you reserved your right to reply. So, of course, he will speak. So, apart from those members, Councillor Harunmiah wishes to say something. Mr Speaker, but can you be mindful of the time, please, because they are public here, they don't want to spend the whole night. This is a budget meeting. This is a budget meeting. The last thing we want is to be challenged legally later on by cutting short the meeting. So, we want to make sure we want to give this meeting an adequate time to all members, and then we will finish it in time. All right. Thank you. Councillor Emily. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will dare to have the audacity to speak. The audacity? The audacity. Oh. It's a people first budget, but clearly the question of this evening is which people? Let's start with officers. We're going to talk about officers. This council is running a redundancy scheme and also operating a 7.5% vacancy rate, putting massive pressure on existing officers. So, the idea that officers come first does not wash with me, I'm afraid. What else? What else? What else is there? Vanity projects. Again. Yet again. Promotion. More media advisors. Still, I think we're three... Are we three years into this term? I believe? It's been a long... No. It's gone. It's flown by. Three years into this term, we're still having to spend over £100,000 to help some councillors manage their own diaries. No. Three years in, they still haven't learnt how to do it. That's atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. And let's talk about cultural change. You don't need to pay two people £130,000 a year of taxpayers' money to sort cultural change in this council. Absolutely not. That responsibility lies with the mayor and his administration. And all of this is going on while residents, especially the most vulnerable. I have to say, I think the most important speech that will be made here in this room tonight is the speech that Councillor Mohamed made about the impact on our disabled residents. I am really quite shocked to see this as part of the budget. I know that there are other councils who thought about doing this and backtracked. Tory councils who thought about doing this and backtracked. So I mean it genuinely, surprised to see that in this budget. And I really, really hope that you will take that away and you will think about that. Because I think our residents will be surprised too. Let's not make our residents, especially the most vulnerable people, pay the price. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Councillor Emily, Councillor Waheed Ali and then I will go to Councillor Amina Ali. Councillor Waheed Ali. Thank you Mr Speaker. I would like to thank my colleague Councillor James for actually mentioning my name. And this time I am going to go a bit further. Not only will I waive the manifesto, but actually I am going to go to page 8 and actually try and bed this council tax rise once and for all. It clearly states, number one, freeze council tax for four years to protect the most poorest. And this is exactly what this budget is doing. It's looking to protect the most poorest. Mr Speaker, this budget is a testimony to this administration's delivery for every resident in this borough. Equality is in the heart of this budget and this has been the focus since this mayor was elected in 2022. It is our belief that everyone should have access to opportunity, security and a healthy life, regardless of their background, regardless of who they are, regardless of their ability. This is a budget that is about living up to those principles and ensuring that everybody who lives in Tower Hamlets, nobody is left behind or punished as a result of national austerity in forced inequalities. I have been working as a teacher for six years and have worked with young people for over 20 years now. When the previous administration cut youth services to the bare bone, I saw firsthand the impact it had on the young people of this borough. Before Labour was elected, we had youth centres in every ward. The scrapping of this vital support for young people had a widespread impact on health and wellbeing in our community. Thankfully, this budget continues our reversal of the damage that the Labour Administration has done, meaning that young people will be supported to reach their potential and thrive. By increasing annual funding to our youth services from just 2 million under Labour to 14 million pounds, we are making up for those years of neglect that disadvantage so many vulnerable young people in our borough. Our investment in CEN support, free school meals and school upgrade would benefit the next generation and secure families across the borough. I am proud of the step that this administration is taking to support elderly and vulnerable people through the cost of living. New investment into meals on wheels and the winter fuel payment and the mayor's fund are critical and could make a difference between someone choosing to heat their home or feed themselves. And our proposal to make home care free for all residents. We are showing that this borough is a place where we respect and look tough our elderly and our vulnerable. This is equalities in action, not in words, and demonstrate that this budget is for everyone and all generations. Mr Speaker, I would like to end by saying I urge everyone in this chamber to support this budget and vote for this. Thank you. I am going to go to now Councillor Amina Ali. Of course, this is an opportunity for most of the members to speak, and this is a learning curve particularly for myself who has a humble English background. Some of the members are very articulative in their sentence structure, in their choice of words and the grammar. So this is an opportunity for other members and the members of the gallery and the young generations to learn from those particularly good speakers. I am not going to name them, but you know which ones I am talking about. Councillor Amina Ali. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Initially, I wasn't going to speak, but then I decided I had to speak on this budget. I am not going to repeat what has been said by the Labour Group. Most of what has been said is really important and really good. I won't repeat it, Mr Speaker. However, I want to talk about real people, because the budget talks about it being a people's budget, and it is an interesting budget. And on paper, it is quite a progressive budget if you look at that. However, it stops with the council tax increase. That is where the problem is. Because in this borough, council tax is a big issue. And I know the Mayor and the Cabinet have talked about the fact that it is for people who are vulnerable and aren't going to be affected. £50,000, if you get £50,000 and more, you will be affected. I don't know where they have been living, the Aspire councillors, but £50,000 doesn't get you far today. And that still is a big burden for people who are working and inspired to be earning that kind of money. So when residents come to see us and they talk about struggling with their bills, the council tax is a big bill. And we know that if you fall behind on your council tax, you can't pay your council tax, people come down hard on you, councils come down hard on you. So it surprises me that this budget is a confusing budget. On one hand, there are interesting things, like the whole thing about the school uniform, but then there's increase in the council tax. But what the Aspire councillors don't seem to understand as well is that the Labour group were working hard under a Tory government with austerity. Many of them weren't in this council chamber during those years when the Labour councillors had to make really hard decisions to cut when they didn't really need to cut, and that's important. And we can't go without talking about the Labour government. And I feel that the Aspire administration have been quite lucky. They first come into power with an amazing reserve left behind by the Labour government, Council of Labour administration, which they can use and play Father Christmas. And now they get a Labour government who has given them enough money because they're building up the services in local government. And I think the real winner tonight here in this budget is a Labour government really, because it's a Labour government that's allowed Aspire to sit there today with their chests out and say that they're going to help the people at Tower Hamlets. It's a pity that generosity doesn't extend to the council tax, which I promised they wouldn't increase. Thank you. Councillor Bhutalha Choudhury, do you want to speak now? Okay, let me go to another Choudhury then. Councillor Bhadrul Choudhury. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm endorsing this robust and fully costed budget by the Aspire party, a budget of almost half a billion pounds that secure our financial stability, both in the short term and the medium term. I commend my colleague Councillor Said Ahmed and our finance team, led by our Section 151 officer. Their tireless work has helped turn the Mayor's vision into real benefits for our residents. As the Vice-Chair of Overview and Scrutiny, I've worked constructively across the Chamber. Scrutiny's rigorous budget examination has provided a robust critical friend challenge. It's disappointing, Mr. Speaker, that Labour now chooses theatrics in their amendment instead of evidence-led budget scrutiny, recommendations for serious and timely consideration by our expert officers. Labour's last-minute political amendment doesn't add up, Mr. Speaker. Section 151 commentary details why the Labour amendment fails. Basic scrutiny. Our budget built on our record of sound financial management, unlike the chaos left by the Labour Party for seven years. We inherited unsigned accounts, unpaid VATs and no annual governance statements. Despite Labour claims, this administration is freezing Council tax for those earning $50,350 or less. Mr. Speaker, this entirely consists of our manifesto pledge, which has been mentioned by my colleague here. To protect the poorest from rising living costs, Labour hiked Council tax by 25%. While they gave themselves salary increases, very important to note, their mayor himself gave 12% pay rise and slashed for online services that residents rely on. It is reckless, Mr. Speaker. It is out of touch. Labour needs to aspire to do better. With the budget total investment for frontline services under the Mayor, Luthor Rahman, $180 million since May 2022. Let me end with a quote from the Labour Chair of Overview and Scrutiny, Mr. Speaker. We are pleased to see the budget proposal investment in community and include initiatives that make a tangible difference in residents' lives. The Council has shown a clear commitment to improving the wellbeing of all who live and work in Tower Hamlets. I commend this budget to the Chamber, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. I'm going to go to Councillor Mufida Bastin and then we'll go to Councillor Ghulam Kibriya Choudhury. Councillor Mufida Bastin. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think you're a fan of the TV show called The Midwife. Yes. I've never watched it before, but I tuned in last month when they showcased the day the Isle of Dogs declared independence in 1970. It's a famous day in island law when the road on and off the island was barricaded along with the Blue Bridge. That was 55 years ago, Mr. Speaker, and time has passed quickly. It feels like only yesterday we were stood in this council chamber debating last year's budget. And no doubt in a blink of an eye it will be the election next year. And if we're going to be honest, this budget feels like a pre-election budget. Direct cash payments, meals on wheels, free home care, all funded, of course, by the new Labour government. But where is the infrastructure? Where is the delivery on projects? Where is the hard stuff? Because let's be honest, Mr. Speaker, it's easy to commit to protecting residents earning under £50,000. But it's much harder to deliver that when only £3,000 has been saved by residents from that relief scheme. And it's easy to commit to free home care for one year. It's much harder to find a long-term fix to the adult social care crisis. And it's easy to stick a PlayStation in a rundown building and say you're spending millions on a youth service. It's much harder to deliver high-quality youth centres with state-of-the-art facilities. And it's the easy option to spend £90 million on buying back council homes. At £750,000 per home, that's just 120 homes for £90 million. It's actually much harder to build new energy-efficient homes that add to the housing supply and tackle the problem head-on. And it's easy to commit money to spend on more police patrols. It's much harder to develop dedicated VORG specialist training and effective VORG training for councillors. As you know by now, Mr. Speaker, I'm a proud resident of the Isle of Dogs and I'm proud to represent the island. The lead member calls this a people-first budget. But once again, for the third year in a row, this administration has failed the people of the island. I've totaled this up over the years and I estimate there's almost £100 million worth of investment that's been taken out of the island. Because it's easy to make school uniform grants, it's much harder to deliver a much-needed state-of-the-art rebuild for George Screams. To serve the children of the island and their children to come. And it's easy to commit to filling in potholes on Manchester Road. But much harder to deliver infrastructure for the growth in population. And of course, a new pedestrian bridge at South Dock. Maybe the mayor is worried that the island will have another bridge to block and once again declare independence. Because quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't blame them. Thank you. I'm going to now go to Councillor Goulam Kibriya Choudhury and then Councillor Mohamed Choudhury. At some point, I would like to hear from Councillor Lilloo Ahmed as well. In the last meeting, I couldn't afford to give him the opportunity, although he was ready. So please get ready, Lilloo Ahmed. Thank you. Councillor Goulam Kibriya Choudhury. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I would like to thank our lead members and officers for their hard work to present such a wonderful balance and robust sustainable budget. Mr. Speaker, when previous Labour administration was in power, they did not invest a single pound in adult social care. Instead, they made a combined $5.5 million in cuts to the services that provide care and support to our most vulnerable residents. Mr. Speaker, one of those cuts was $1.1 million that came from charging Tower Hamlet residents for their own home for the first time. Mr. Speaker, now nine years later, it's my absolute honour, as the lead member for health, wellbeing and social care, to announce that we are investing over $8 million to reverse the mistakes of the past, which Labour had done, and make Tower Hamlets a borough that provides highest quality of care without taking money away from our vulnerable residents. Mr. Speaker, on April 1st, Tower Hamlets will become the first local authority in the UK to reintroduce free home care. This represents an investment of over $5 million per year. In doing so, we will provide a new level of freedom and independence to residents with long-term disabilities and illness, who will now be able to get quality care while also having enough to pay for their things that make life worth living. Mr. Speaker, on top of all this, we will also be investing a total of $1.5 million towards improving the transition from childhood to adult support, expanding sunk provision for 18 to 30 years old to weekends, evenings, holidays and bringing new assessment staff to reduce our shortlist. Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous Labour Administration, we believe young adults with special education needs should be given all the support they need to reach their full potential rather than treated as a place to make cuts. Mr. Speaker, we have made it our mission in this Administration to invest in services that our residents count on the most. They are criticising Meals on the Wheel and our council tax, because the people of Tower Hamlets, they are matters to us, but they are not matters to them. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, their underlying philosophy is always to see positive things in a negative way. They constantly grow from the negatives. To recognising our success, they are refusing everything. So, I am urging everyone, especially our opposition colleagues, please please stay away from your negative politics and support our budget tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury. Councillor Mohamed Choudhury. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Administration budget before us today is not just flawed. It is a betrayal of the promises made to the people of Tower Hamlets. During the election, this mayor and his party assured residents that there would be no council tax increase. Yet here we are, facing a 5% hike. A blatant contradiction of that pledge. This is more than just a broken promise. It is a breach of trust. How can the people of Tower Hamlets believe in a leadership that says one thing to win votes, but then does the exact opposite once in power? The mayor and Aspire talk endlessly about investment. Yet they conveniently avoid discussing the steep rise in residence parking permits. The cost of a simple swimming session for me and for my two sons has increased from £7 to £17. And come April 2025, housing rents are set to rise, adding even more financial strain on families already struggling with the cost of living. However, Mr. Speaker, I agree with them on one thing. They are saying they made investment on the women of Tower Hamlets. That's true. When I see two of my ex-labor female colleagues sitting on the other side, I know they made a real investment on the women of Tower Hamlets. And what about transparency? We are promised open, honest governance. Yet this budget has been crafted behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny. Despite claims of consultation, residents have been left out of the decision-making process. Policy that will impact thousands have been pushed through without genuine engagement or accountability. This is not how a responsible administration operates. A budget built on broken promises, hidden cuts and secrecy does not serve the people. It betrays them. I urge my fellow councillors to reject this budget. The people of Tower Hamlets deserve leadership that keeps its words, protects its residents and upholds the principles of fairness and transparency. Say no to this budget. Say no to broken promises. Say no to a council tax rise that our residents simply cannot afford. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to go to now Councillor Shafi Ahmad, former Speaker of the Council, and then I will go to Councillor Shubha Hussain. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the key word here is balance. Yeah? I'm trying to keep on two feet. To be honest, the Labour amendment is unbalanced. Just as it has been unbalanced when it came in their administration for seven years, when they kept on rising the council tax. When it was unbalanced when they stopped the mills on wheel service. It was unbalanced when they stopped the secondary language as a movement. They stopped BAME communities engaging with one another. This was all unbalanced. This administration, Mr. Speaker, is a balanced budget that has been presented by a permanent 151 officer. And we are proud to advocate that we are safe custodians of the public finances that we have been allowed to spend for the people of this borough. Going forward, we can talk about the public realm, the investment that this administration and this council is making to shape the future of our borough. I want to focus on the investments in my portfolio to enhance public realm, improve waste services and ensure that we build a greener, cleaner and more sustainable borough. Public rail improvements remain a top priority in our agenda. We have agreed a 24.6 million investment to elevate our public spaces, to improve our carriages, footpaths to street lighting. These upgrades will not only improve the look of our streets, but also will ensure the safer and more accessible to all. We all are also investing in a 1 million new traffic scheme, which will focus on Manchester Road, on the Isle of Dogs, Brabathone Street, Blackwood Way and Wickway. These projects will help ease congestion, improve traffic flow, rather than closing the artilleries of the borough and making life miserable for the residents that live in this borough. Our commitment to greener, is not just a vision, but a reality. As part of our push for sustainability, we are delivering over 2,000 electric vehicle charging points across the borough. This is a vital step in supporting the shift to greener transport and reducing our carbon footprint. Mr. Speaker, we understand how crucial clean streets are, and the well-being of our residents, and we are committed to improving our waste services. The Mayor's Improvement Programme for 2024 has improved 5 million extra, and we are investing another 14 million over the next three years, to ensure that the services doesn't drop, just like it did in the last seven years under the previous administration. And I can go on and go on and go on, but I would like to just mention that these one-liners are not good enough to stop the residents to vote us again, whether it's Labour in power or whoever's in power, as long as the leader of the Mayor Lutwun Oman is here, and the aspired minister, we will continue to serve the residents of this borough. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Colleagues, I want to support the amendment this evening. I was elected to represent the people of Bromley South. And many, sorry, my mom's calling me. Many of my residents are really struggling at the moment. And I know Councillor Almond mentioned about our fundraiser yesterday. But I'd like to say, these are not only all of our members, we are a group of working-class members, who actually paid a small amount to actually attend the event. Because unlike my old colleague, Councillor Sabina Acto is eating in fancy restaurants now. But the main reason why I'm saying is the cost of living is pushing our residents to the edge. And they simply cannot afford another rise in council tax. I have spoken to countless residents in Bromley South who say to me, but Councillor, we paid more last year. I cannot in good conscience tell them that I supported another rise. This year we had a Labour government deliver increased funding to this council, and I do not believe another council tax rise is necessary. Mr. Speaker, the Mayor promised to freeze council tax. And Mr. Mayor should keep that promise. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Amin Rahman. Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me this opportunity. I just want to say that colleagues from the other side of the chamber are very invested in how they think we write our speeches and we read from speeches. They shouldn't be invested in that, they should be invested in what this budget is about. So Mr. Speaker, this budget from our side is not about cutting, it's about giving. So we are giving to this borough. Mr. Speaker, I have four kids in this borough and I see how much help with this budget is. I go to school two times a day, five days a week, and I speak to the residents and they tell us how happy they are with the school meals, how happy they are with the school uniform, and I could carry on. So this administration, Mr. Speaker, if this budget is agreed, we will continue investing in our youth service, EMA, university groceries, universal free school meals, free swimming, winter fuel payments, waste service, and adding 25 million to our reserve. So Mr. Speaker, this budget is balanced and sustainable budget. So I proudly vote for it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Councillor Kabir Hussain, and then I will go to Councillor Iqbal Hussain, and then Maisha Begum. Councillor Kabir Hussain. Councillor Kabir Hussain. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to understand where the cap is coming from. I'm hearing out 52,000 pounds, 53,000 pounds, even may I say 52,000 pounds, 300 for the cap, council free cap. When I heard from someone else, you know, when I was struggling to get something out, my senior said, you have to read between the lines. So my party opposition, they got one word, I think they read between the lines, the poorest will be protected. But there isn't any cap on that manifesto. There isn't any cap of some 53,000 pounds, 52,000 pounds or 50,000 pounds. What about self-employed people? What about the minicab drivers? Are we protecting them? No, there is no protection on them. So we are not intellectual people, like mayor, like party opposition. Our people, they are normal people. They read easy language, they understand easy language. So the mayor has made the promise to freeze the council tax, and he must keep his promise. He broke last year, this year again he has broken his promise. We need to put pressure on him. I request mayor again, there is a chance, recall your advisors, everybody, whatever you need. But I must say, you have to keep your promise. We people deserve better. We people need an administration who will honour our words, our dignity and our pride. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I am delighted to be on this side of the council chamber tonight. Mr. Speaker, once council around the country are struggling to balance their book, to provide services residents need. We are proud that this administration is presenting a budget which put the residents of this borough first. Mr. Speaker, this is a budget that buzzed with four words, loved by the people across the globe. Free, free, free. Free school meals for our kids, free swimming for the women and girls and over 50, free school uniform, free home care. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, this budget is a sound, ambitious and resilient budget that protected all frontline services without cut any single job. Mr. Speaker, the residents of this borough should be proud of this budget. Mr. Speaker, this is a model budget for others boroughs to learn and follow. Mr. Speaker, I have looked at the Liberals Amendment but with real disappointment, this is again the instinct on cut. Mr. Speaker, after presiding over seven years of cut, sitting on six years of unsigned account, I don't think the party opposition have the moral right to criticise our budget. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, the Green Amendment, that is positive amendment, a pity it has been introduced late but my preference would be to consider this for the next budget meeting for 2026-27 so we can work together to incorporate some of the positive amendments. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say, I would like to conclude by saying that this budget is people budget which put the resident of this borough first with services, the resident most need frontline services. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the colleague to support our budget, thank you. it thank you I call upon councillor Maisha Begum and then I will go to councillor Abdul Manan and followed by councillor Lilloo Ahmed thank you mr. speaker free but what cost having looked at the budget proposal and the opposition councillors continuously mentioning a budget committed to supporting our most vulnerable I tried searching up a few words myself within the proposed budget women zero words found young women girls women safety nothing correct me if I'm wrong and I welcome the other side to also check I recognized the investment in the growth proposal for the proposed expansion of CCTV cameras this safety grid which I brought forward during my first year as a councillor on overview and scrutiny I also acknowledge there is now a representation of women across the floor so congratulations to that however the gravely occurring concerns of women's voices remain unheard and this has been mentioned across the floor across the parties including I mentioned it previously as well there have been young women and girls that have come forward with bravery and resilience in this council chamber and spoken about their lived experiences and the impacts of a lack of see CCTV cameras and blind spots on their fear of their safety yet if you look at the section of budget outcomes and accountability not a single mention of woman's safety a growth proposal of community safety but not a single mention of one of the most vulnerable groups women and girls or any mention of safety measures and services that support the woman and girls safety furthermore the council tax relief scheme is not working effectively only 114 awards were made this year therefore single parents are worse off now adding the council tax increase this will further burden single moms a group much overlooked the the budget proposal is in fact taking from the vulnerable it's not giving so let's correct that first once again a complete disservice and a failure in the proposed budget on the duty to protect women and girls and combat violence against women and girls this is why I will be supporting labor's amendment tonight thank you councillor abdul mannan of Bromley north thank you speaker I welcome this budget first of all I'd like to thank you the lead member side and his team and officers who heartlessly work hard to get this budget is a beautiful budget so I'm going to say I'm pleased to know that that delivery in education in the past two years invested 5.7 million in university free school meal for all primary and secondary schools children has been welcomed by parents the university varsity has been lifeline to students the mayor's EMA has supported young people to stay in education tens of thousands of children are supported by early health children and family service my focus is on education as I chair the children education scrutiny subcommittee the successful rescue of council finance made it possible to invest 730 million in cent provision in year one and 3 million in cent transport in year two Mr. Speaker I'm concerned by the proposal in the labour amendment to delete secretarial support for those chairing scrutiny committee how will the chairing of scrutiny improve with the proposed labour cut the best value report and the ministerial direction identify improvement in scrutiny as a key area but why I am surprised by this from labour the records suggest they don't understand council finance and governance the unwillingness to learn from the past odd on to the toxic political culture there is a defined culture clashes there are two different world view and make pointless political point this spire budget recognize we need to revise the cut in legal services the challenges ahead mean we need a strong legal team and invest invest value to deliver changes and deliver for Tower Hamlets Mr. Speaker it is not surprising that our children's service was judged outstanding by Ofsted great investment and great leadership from mayors and every mayor 30 seconds I would encourage from my side this side of the councillors and opposite as well this is a fantastic budget and I support this budget thank you Right let's hear from councillor Lilou Ahmed Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker this is my third budget since being a councillor and I want to thank all our officers all their hard work this budget has lots of investment service which is beneficial for our residents waste service has been a big problem for so many residents and I am glad to see more investment in this area I have so many mainland residents raising their concern and miscollection in my work and I hope to see with this investment that there is an improvement this is labour government has pulled local government back on its feet again Mr. Speaker after 14 years of austerity this is the first time where this government has invested millions back into local government I am proud to be labour councillor as my party government show this country what labour can do in power my group have put forward an amendment which I fully support investing in food bank is extremely important and as a spare party neglect has not gone unnoticed how can we not invest in our food bank and food hub when you have to invest £6 million into improvement for this council for our own failure I want to see a spare party tackle the homelessness crisis labour government is very serious to tackle this but Mr. Speaker I want to see if a spare administration are equally serious Lastly I want to add this is another Mr. Mayor and a spare administration raise council tax in this bar another broken promise by this administration and they will have to answer to the voter 2026 in this bar I am going to go to Councillor Haroun Mia and then Councillor Farouk Ahmed and then I will go to Councillor Natalie Bienfey if you wish to speak later on and I will carry on Councillor do you mean Peter Golds not I don't need to speak again I don't need to speak again You Me I have already spoken If you have spoken no problem I wanted to give you another opportunity but anyway Let's go to Councillor Haroun Mia Thank you Mr. Speaker I will be very brief because of the time I want to give other colleagues No we have plenty of time for you No no no no Mr. Speaker you may not have noticed some of our colleagues instead of saying you Mr. Speaker they are saying you Mr. Budget I know So we respect the time I know another title now Mr. Speaker I would like to publicly thank our dear Mayor Ruth Rahman and our young Councillor Saeed Ahmed the officers and the cabinet for bringing a great budget to the council I don't know why we are taking so long to understand this budget We haven't here This is not the first time We have been here before You know what aspires are I want to say to my friends, my colleagues, the opposite Please do vote, do support us Thank you Councillor Farouk Ahmed Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker It is always nice to hear so many good things on pen and paper and on projection The reality is totally different when you want to deliver these services and the things that you said on pen and paper Now there are many things that have been covered was what I was going to say by my fellow councillors But one particular thing I will repeat again what Councillor Liu just said about waste collection I wish I could share this video with you all But I will in some point sometimes I do get these sort of messages very regularly and I'm sure there are many other councillors they do receive as well About waste collection It is totally disgusting and embarrassing that when I receive these messages Now there are a lot to be done on this and every time when we hear glamorous things We have delivered this, we have done that, we have done this But the current administration has gone bad to worsen these services And claiming so many things on social media and showing off Now it does not help us and the rest of the residents in the borough Now due to these failures there are a lot of uninvited guests who come and invade the borough And we don't want these invaders in our borough and nobody else want these ones And there are lots of vermin which what they are doing is damaging people's cars, other properties and things like that Now instead of these what we are doing in this chamber or in this building Increasing so many glamorous things within the rooms Like my fellow councillor Abdul says Fifteen is television Why do we need a television within these offices? We have so many other things to do So by cutting these things I think there are many other things that can be delivered and improve the services There are so many other things as I said I was going to say it But for God's sake please look into these things and save yourself, save us and not to be embarrassed There's always someone says it's a great bar to live in but I find when I see these things it is really embarrassing So thank you for giving the opportunity Mr. Speaker, thank you Thank you Councillor Ahmed I'm going to call upon Councillor Ahmed Al-Kabir and then we'll go to Councillor Salouk Ahmed Councillor Ahmed Al-Kabir Thank you very much Mr. Speaker I really thank you again because after three times I nod my head then you will recognize me I am here at the back I am here at the back Thank you You've given me the opportunity to speak I initially, you know Councillor Ahmed I initially, come to me I initially announced that you would give up Okay, I initially already have spoken that you were on the list And then I have a list, I'm following a list And we have enough time for you Thank you So do not worry I was not ignoring you I was just following a list provided by your party Thank you Councillor Ahmed Al-Kabir Thank you Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker, I support this balanced sustainable three years budget What a change From unsigned account to the robust governance agreement I am proud to this administration good work on their confronting the cost of living crisis Mr. Speaker, council tax rate in this borough are sixth lowest in the London I'm repeating again, sixth lowest in the London The Mayor Manifesto promised supporting to the poorest I don't think my opposition, they don't understand what the poorest mean I don't think they understand Because we, Mr. Mayor Manifesto said we support poorest and it's going to be free The council tax rate for only for 30% people of this borough 70% people will get the benefit from the, you know, race Mr. Speaker, 50,000 pounds, I think whoever gets 50,000 pounds, I believe they are rich They can pay a few pounds on every week, no problem, every month Mr. Speaker, working families will not pay their cost of living crisis They are in our watch Mr. Speaker, since 2022 this council has served 100 million without cutting our frontline service And the same record investing being made I want to give some examples 3 million invested in mills on wheels 1.8 million on fuel payment 500,000 dedicated drugs and TOs Education maintenance allowance in bursaries 14 million for the youth And much more Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer my opposition councillor They made points Firstly, I would like to say One of the councillors said Mr. Mayor promised his break He did not promise He did not make promise he was broken Because whatever he said He said he freed for the poorest And still it's been frozen For the poorest They are not paying extra money for that Another thing Opposition councillor, they mentioned Mr. Mayor's office It's a famous question, Mr. Speaker Mr. Mayor's office has, you know, paid a lot of money I would like to ask my opposition Mr. Mayor's been here the last three years He made a member inquiry Over 10,000 member inquiry That means he shows he is working Not sleeping like them seven years I can ask them in seven years time Last seven years time How many member inquiries there have been made? How many people there have been made? The mayor saw on the member, you know Mr. Mayor, Mr. Speaker Mayor, every single week he saw 200 people Around 200 people That shows we have connectivity with the people Mr. Speaker They need to understand One of the councillors, he mentioned Mr. Mayor Lutfur Rahman raised council text They need to understand They need to understand Not Mr. Lutfur Rahman The mayor of London He raised 2.99% Not Mr. Mayor They need to understand that They need to read that They need to read the strategy, Mr. Speaker Thank you Thank you for giving me a chance to speak Right, councillor Suluq Ahmed Thank you Mr. Speaker Thank you Mr. Speaker For giving me a chance to speak Mr. Speaker I suppose this budget It is the result of two years delivery It is a proud record of achievement It sets the scene for even more ambitious delivery Even though we are We have a cost of living crisis Mr. Lutfur Rahman's administration Is delivering free swimming for all Women and girls over 16 And men over 55 This targeted provision supports Our commitments to the health of our community Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker As my colleague touched on some of the staff You need to be You need to put your foot on the ground Put your boots on the ground To feel the heat, Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I think Mayor Lutfur Rahman His engagement with the public Is so great And as my colleague mentioned About the people he sees over every week Is tremendous, Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker The reason why Mr. Mayor is on his chair today Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I want to say thank you to Mayor Lutfur Rahman And Councillor Said Ahmed And officers They have delivered savings and balanced budget A big thank you for moving us away from unsigned accounts Unpaid veity And other poor ways of managing the council money Mr. Speaker Which is surely belongs to the people of Tower Hamlets Mr. Speaker I am pleased I am pleased that the budget delivers manifesto promises and more Council tax was frozen for all residents in year one Council tax relief is available in year two The poorest will not pay a council tax increase, Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker This administration This administration Introduced A Mayor's Winter Emergency Fund It cushions It cushions residents From labour's cut From the pensioners Winter's fuel allowance, Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker 30 seconds Mr. Speaker The labour's amendments are about cuts Cuts in coms team instead of targeted invested Cuts in legal services Legal services team instead of much needed invested, Mr. Speaker I strongly support this budget, Mr. Speaker And I ask all the council members to support the budget Thank you, Mr. Speaker Thank you, thank you for Bu N energizingiel. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Thank you Mr. Speaker The Monica Thank you, Mr. Speaker something different, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to say what people of other boroughs think about Tower Hamlets and leadership of Tower Hamlets. Mr. Speaker, as we all go, other boroughs, we have relatives and we go and visit them. And one thing is coming, common coming from them is that we wish we have a leader like Lutrahman. Also they say that we wish in this course of living time we're living in Tower Hamlets. Mr. Speaker, I ask them why. He say Lutrahman, he love his people. He loves the residents of Tower Hamlets. This is why he investing all his life in Tower Hamlets to look after the residents of Tower Hamlets. This is why he bring all the good initiative to look after the residents of Tower Hamlets. Mr. Speaker, I say what he's doing? Can you explain to me? They say yes. Mr. Speaker, EMA, anniversary, free school meal. He said, they said new in from coming. He said that women are low crafters, women 16 and over who will have free swimming. He said men 55 and over will have free swimming. He said that pensioner was denied by the government of the UK. He was, the pensioner was supported by the Lutrahman. He was supporting with the pensioner, 175 pounds. I asked them what else do you think he's doing? He said that his and his administration are looking after these Tower Hamlets as their families. This is why they bring all, try to support all the people in cost of living times. I want to say something, Mr. Speaker, about the waste management. Our chair of the YNS is here and she was, she was like, complimenting Lutrahman in other meeting. He said that he invested 5 million pounds for waste management and he's also committing 14 million for another three years. Yes, she has said that. And she has said that, make sure that he's keep committing on this waste management service. That's what she was praised, Mr. Lutrahman, as I believe. Also, all the YNS members were there and all of them, all of them was happy to see the improvement of waste management, Mr. Speaker. Twenty-five seconds. Yes, Mr. Speaker. Also, also colleagues have said that previous government always cut from council budget. This is why they have to cut. No, Mr. Speaker, it wasn't right. When we came in, we saw that this council lent money to the other council, other authorities, other authorities, depriving people of Tower Hamlets, vulnerable residents of Tower Hamlets. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity tonight to speak, and I, colleague, across the council to support the aspire motions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, once again, for supporting you. Thank you, Councillor Khan. I'm going to go to Councillor Belal Hussein, but before that, of course, yes. I have a point of order. My name was mentioned. You were mentioned, yes. I'm going to come to you. So, Mr. Speaker, for Councillor Khan, sometimes I do understand he loses track and he doesn't pay attention to every single part of the committee, but I just want to kindly remind him that before each meeting, I do tell the committee and the public that every single meeting is for public viewing. It's recorded. My job as ONS chair is not to compliment the mayor or to compliment any council or compliment the last administration. I sit there with integrity and I be fair to the conversation and the agenda that's come forward. The conversations we had in Overview and Scrutiny was testing that investment and we've asked the department to give us a breakdown of what that £5 million was going to be spent on, how it was going to meet best value and how we were going to meet the improvements. There are other members in this chamber right now that are part of that committee. I'd like this clarified. At what point did I sit there in the committee and compliment the mayor? That's not my job. That was an extremely inappropriate comment to make and I would like him to retract it because that's not true. Thank you. You made your point. Thank you. I'm going to go to Councillor Nathalie Bien-Faib. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Wholeheartedly and completely back my colleague on Scrutiny. I want to really reiterate what Councillor Islam has just said. As chair of Scrutiny, she presided over a debate in which we made robust recommendations on this budget report, which actually the mayor has accepted. So he's accepted the fact that our role is not to compliment but to challenge and act as an important check and balance in this council. I think what Councillor Khan said is completely misrepresents what our role is and also what we actually did. Thank you. Of course, that could be a misunderstanding but you made it clear and then Councillor Nathalie Bien-Faib also reaffirmed it so I'm not going to allow any further to talk on this issue. Let me go to Councillor Belaluddin before I would like to confirm that then I will go to Councillor Mayim Talogda and Peter Golds and then of course Councillor Mark Francis. So Councillor Belaluddin. Councillor Belaluddin. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am extremely grateful to the Mayor, Cabinet Member and Officer to get the budget. Mr. Speaker, this Council has done well in just two years. We have delivered a lot of our residents. Mr. Speaker, this budget gave residents help where they are needed. Mr. Speaker, I have seen labour amendments. It is a story of Scott, where is the support for the residents, where is the support for the staff, where is the support for the councillor. Mr. Speaker, I support this budget. It delivers value for the money. The investment in public service is what our residents need. Mr. Speaker, free home care for the vulnerable adults is needed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Councillor Peter Golds. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have listened with great interest on a number of issues this evening and to the debates. I am very pleased that the Isle of Dogs has featured regularly. I would say both to the opposition and to the majority party, had everybody got their act together and got the lease signed on the Westbury Printworks School, we may not have had to have the problems with George Greens. That could have been signed years ago if pressure had been put on from within the council. And equally, the George Greens rebuild on the 51.4 million from capital funding, we have been talking about that for years on the island. Certainly someone's put it forward. But of course, the Labour Party mentioned this evening very much of the new government. But when I first joined this council, there was a Labour government. And the first four years I was here, I listened to four budgets produced by the Labour Party while there was a Labour government. The first two of which was in the aftermath of the Iraq war. And the next two was in the aftermath of the banking crisis. And I don't recollect that any of those budgets had the sunny uplands we've been promised this evening. But then, of course, they didn't have Rachel Reeves involved in them. So perhaps there may have been a dose of reality somewhere. But as always, in a budget of any kind, Mr Speaker, the devil is in the detail. I'd love everybody to have a look at page 50 and 51 of this enormous package. Because we come to the employee national insurance contribution, which of course was never mentioned in the Labour Party budget or otherwise. And it's mentioned that the government will be assisting the local authorities and the public sector in delivering on this hike. But then, on page 51, it says there's going to be a difference. The £1.5 million difference will be funded from the contingency budget if it's unable to be contained. In short, they can't do it. The government knew they couldn't do it. It ain't going to be done. And then we go to page 53 and we get it back again. The government has committed to funding these costs in the public sector. There is a risk this funding will be. Well, let's have a look at what we're doing today. The Prime Minister is going to the United States to say he's slashed the overseas budget by 50%. The overseas aid budget by 50%. When he gets on that private jet to come back, I suspect he will be slashing a great deal more. And one of the things will be a great deal which goes into local government, as we saw for the first four budgets I ever served on this council under a Labour government. And I suspect there will be enormous cuts. And one of them will be the fact that he will go to Rachel Reeves and say, there won't be the money for what Trump has demanded of me. There won't be the money to subsidise the national insurance rise. So I would say to everybody, have a look at it. And I'm running out of time, but that's before I wanted to do the projective movement in reserves. But as I say, Mr Speaker, the devil is in the detail. And for the public, have a good look. Thank you. Call upon Councillor Mayim Talugda. You reserved your right to speak later, yes. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am proud to second this budget that puts residents first and secours our borough's future and delivers real leadership in challenging times. Financial responsibility and stability. While councils across the country face financial crisis, Tower Hamlets remains strong. We are balancing the books, protecting front-line services and investing in our communities. Something Labour failed to do during their administration. The budget delivers $184 million in vital services from 2022 to 2028. An un-March commitment in London. Delivering for residents. We are investing in universal free school meals, education, youth service, with $40 million for youth space and support. Free school uniform benefiting 21,000 children. Free home care giving our elderly dignity and security. Safer streets with more CCTV and enforcement officers. Affordable homes. Fixing Labour's failures. And we are doing this while freezing cows and tax for the working families. Because people deserve support, not hire bill. Mr Speaker, Labour's legacy of failure. Labour talks big, but the record speaks for themselves. Cut services, shut down community hubs and raise council tax by 25% while increasing their own salaries. Left six years of unsigned accounts costing taxpayers £4 million. Loaned £87 million to other councils while time residents struggle. Failing off-state inspection. Instead of admitting their failures, Labour is proposing a reckless amendment. Draining reserves, slashing staff and undermining our financial stability. Mr Speaker, this amendment is a disaster in waiting. Efficiency and accountability. We have cut waste and restructured the Mayor's office. They are making a lot of noise about the Mayor's office. We are reducing staff from 33 to 12, which is reducing over 1 million, while we are delivering better services. A budget that puts people first. Yes, people first. Supporting families, youth service thriving and safer streets. Elderly cared for with dignity. Ledger parks and local business given real support. Labour failed our hamlets and we are cleaning up their mess and rebuilding our borough. Again, I am proud to second this budget today. Let's choose investment over cuts, responsibility over recklessness and progress over Labour's failure. Thank you. Councillor Mark Francis, you reserve your right to reply. It's your opportunity. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the debate. I think it's been in a good spirit and we go about our business in a robust way as ever. But I think it's really important that nobody leaves this meeting tonight, or votes in this meeting tonight, or watches this meeting tonight, is under any illusion about the extent to which the party opposite, the administration, has been misleading, systematically misleading people here in Tower Hamlets, misleading people in the public gallery and attempting to mislead us like we're fools. We're not fools. We see right through it. And we see through it in exactly the same way as the best value inspection team saw through it when they came to look at the way that you do your business, the way the mayor does his business. Let's be honest. That's where responsibility lies. Because the way that you do your business is completely inappropriate. That's why you failed the best value inspection, systematically failing across a range of the best value objectives. And we've seen examples of you doing that again this evening. Councillor Khan telling us that the ministerial envoys have said that we need to have all of these extra officers for culture change. Oh no they haven't. It's been disproven and yet still she tries to stand by her opinion. The mayor opening the meeting by telling everybody that he was misled, that he had cut 400,000 out of the food hub that supports local food banks. Misled by who? By officers? By us on these benches? By his own councillors? By someone out in the community? No. The mayor was sitting on that report for two months. The only reason that he's decided to put that extra money in is because residents have finally got a petition online and because this labour group has bought an amendment to the council that says put that money back. I'm glad he has but he should apologise for taking it away for the whole of the last 12 months. He has not said one single word about the extra money that's coming to Tower Hamlets. Over £30 million. It's the mayor's free school meals, the mayor's education maintenance allowance, the mayor's school uniform, the mayor's swimming. 77 men went to the mayor's swimming in December. How is that value for money for anything? It's a complete show, it's a farce, it's a charade and that is what the best value inspection has uncovered and that is what is going to be systematically exposed over the course of the next 15 months while they're in this building up until the next election. The biggest misleading statement of all is around protecting the poorest residents from council tax increase. He said last year 19,000 households would be protected up to £50,000. As Councillor Begum and Councillor Maffida Bustin have said, it was £114,000. A grand total of £3,000. He set aside a million pounds for that. How on earth do these two things correlate? They don't. He's going out there telling people they're protected and in reality they are not. That is why we will be pushing our amendment to a vote this evening and that is why we will say enough with this kind of nonsense, blowing smoke in people's faces. We are against this council tax increase and we are against this budget. We have now reached the end of the general debate. Does Councillor Sayeed Ahmed wish to exercise his right to reply? Thank you, Mr Speaker. Many, many things have been said, but wow, where do we start? First of all, thanks to all my fellow colleagues for talking in favour of our budget. But their amendment, Mr Speaker, is an unbalanced budget. The year two and three doesn't balance, clearly doesn't balance. We cannot adopt that. And secondly, the first year has got numbers missing. We'll go into that in details. The long list of amendments that we've got includes redundancies. We don't want to make redundancies. We have no front line service cuts here. Then there's existing cuts in salaries. So there's people in employment, they want to cut their salaries. And then we'll talk about mayor's office. Let's get this right. The mayor's office, let me share some facts. It's reduced significantly. The mayor's office has reduced by over a million pounds. And Councillor Ullah, he's campaigned for the bus gates. He's campaigned for the bus gates. And now he's complaining that there's costs around it. Of course there will be costs. If you've got something to implement, we need to recover the costs. That's exactly what the Council is doing. And then we've got other stuff. Councillor King says that this is boring. This budget is boring. Free home care is boring. Job cards are boring. Theos are boring. Free school uniforms. One million pounds to send. But those families will call this budget boring. And I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it. Councillor Amina talks about the funding from the local, from the central government. Of course, it's the statutory duty. They need to fund local governments. Of course. But what have they done in return? They cut winter fuel payments, which we have to now cover. What did they do? Thanks to my colleagues who reminded me about the cut they did on police services. Of 450 million pounds. 450 million pounds. They talk about 37 million pounds in return. What a shame. What a shame. This money is collected by the GLA. And to pay for this, but in return we now need to cover it. Not the GLA. Now we talk about the food hub. This has already been approved. We've got it in our balance. We've got money for resilience for specific items like that. It doesn't have to come from the Labour group. It's for us to decide how we'll do it. They're more than welcome to give us recommendations. But so much has been said, Mr. Speaker, about council tax. Let's get this right. My colleague before showed us the exact words. It is frozen for who? For the poorest. So what we've done with the council tax reduction scheme, that is clearly protecting the poorest within the borough. And then let me make it clear. We have to read the section 151 officer's report. The section 25 report says that it is a risk associated should we not choose to increase it, but we can protect the poorest. So what happens in this case, if we go to increase council tax and not listen to the 145 officer's recommendation, that is a risk. Newham has increased it by 9%. During their time, they have increased it by 25%, Mr. Speaker. And there's no point reading the report by doing control S and looking for women and girls. Thank you. Read the report. We have a lot of investment in this and we are continuing to deliver. This is a fantastic budget. I thank all the officers for supporting us, the cabinet and of course the mayor and the mayor's office. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to go for the votes, but Councillor Ulla, you raised your hand. What is the reason? Just to point out to the inexperienced budget reader that I did campaign for the bus gate. We all did. And we set a fee of £20 for administrative. But for that to be increased to £35 is unbelievable. This is the problem, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. They are taxing the very people that we need to defend. The working people in this borough are suffering. That's the thing. The working people. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Did he say anything different what you said? He didn't say anything different. I don't think... Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Thank you. So full council will now... okay thank you silence please uh formally full council will now move to the vote on the prop proposals to approve the budget report 2025 2026 and medium-term financial strategy 2025 2028 regulate regulations require that we conduct full name votes so i will now ask matthew mannion the head of the democratic services to conduct the votes matthew over to you thank you mr speaker and if it's okay i'll stay seated as there's lots of um ticking boxes and things to do okay um good evening everyone we are going to go through these in the following order we are going to vote on the labor amendment first then on the uh amendment from councillor bienfei and then on the original motion amended or not depending what happens to the first two and i will start with the group leaders and then i'll go down the members in alphabetical by surname until we get to the speaker at the end so on the labor amendment if i can start with uh may look for ramen and then councillor sirajul islam uh councillor farooq ahmed councillor kabir ahmed councillor lilu ahmed councillor mushtaq ahmed councillor owid ahmed councillor saeed ahmed against councillor shafi ahmed councillor suluk ahmed uh councillor sabina akhtar sorry again councillor amina ali councillor maisha begum councillor natalie bienfei abstain councillor mafida bastin councillor bodral chowdhury against councillor gullam kibria chowdhury councillor abu chowdhury councillor muhammad chowdhury councillor mont francis uh councillor peter golds against uh councillor iqbal hussein yes councillor kabir hussein uh councillor cameron hussein against councillor shubha hussein councillor asma islam councillor amador kabir councillor amador khan councillor sabina sabina khan councillor james king four councillor amy lee councillor abdul manan councillor anna mir councillor harran mir councillor abdi muhammad councillor amin rahman councillor rebecca sultana councillor mayam talukta councillor belal uddin councillor abdul ullah councillor abdul wahid and the speaker four okay thank you very much okay thank you um so that amendment falls um uh 18 votes in favour 23 against and one abstention okay moving on to the green amendment or councillor bienfey um this amendment um and we'll start with the man look for ramen um sirujil islam farouq ahmed kabir ahmed lilu ahmed mushtaq ahmed against against uh oed ahmed abstain was that okay thank you uh saeed ahmed uh shafi ahmed shafi ahmed against suluk ahmed savina akhtar against amina ali maisha begum nath uh nathalie bienfey ahmed mafiz de bastin okay uh bodral chowdhury okay gullam kibria chowdhury against abhi chowdhury uh muhammad chowdhury against uh mark francis yes pete golds abstain uh iqbal hussein please kabir hussein um cameral hussein against uh shubha hussein against uh asma islam amador kabir amador khan sabina khan james king against amy lee uh abdul manan anamia haran mir abdi muhammad amin raman rebecca sultana uh mayam tulukta belal uddin abdal ullah abdul waheed and the speaker four okay well two in favor one abstention and several again so that one falls um and then i can give the final number of people onto later and then the final um vote then is on the the main motion unamended so as it is set out in the paperwork um and we'll start with uh mayor lupfer ahmed uh Councillor Maisha Begum Councillor Natalie Bienve Abstain Abstain Thank you Councillor Mafida Bustin Again Councillor Bodrell Chowdhury All Councillor Gullam Kibriya Chowdhury All Councillor Abu Chowdhury All Councillor Mohamed Chowdhury Again Councillor Mark Francis Again Councillor Peter Golds Again Councillor Iqbal Hussain All Councillor Kabir Hussain Against Councillor Kameral Hussain All Councillor Shubhu Hussain Against Councillor Asma Islam Again Councillor Amadur Kabir All Councillor Amadur Khan All Councillor Sabina Khan All Councillor James King Against Councillor Amy Lee Against Councillor Abdul-Manan All Councillor Anamir Iqbal Councillor Haran Mir All Councillor Abdi Mohammed Iqbal Councillor Amin Rahman All Councillor Rebecca Sultana Iqbal Councillor Mayim Tuluqta All Councillor Belal Udin All Councillor Abdel Abdel Ullah Yes Councillor Abdel Wahid All And the Speaker Abstain Thank you very much 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 13 16 17 18 19 20 22 22 22 23 4 5 6 7 8 19 12 13 14 16 16 17 18 18 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 15 19 22 19 So that is carried. Thank you, Members, With theytyy conclusion of the votes administration's budget proposals and the constant resolutions have. Therefore, have been formally accepted by the council? We have one more agenda to complete, finish, swiftly moving to agenda item number six is the Member Allowance Scheme 2025-2026. I would like to call upon Councillor Mayim Talogda to introduce the report. Thank you Mr Speaker for the intro to Member's Allowance Scheme. This is an annual report on Member's Allowance Scheme. The Council is required to agree its scheme for a new financial year before the 31st March which is why it is being presented to the Council meeting. Council last year expressed its wish there would be no increase in the Allowance Scheme for the Mayor, Councillors or Co-op team members. And I propose that we confirm that decision. Dependent Carers Allowance will continue to be part of the level of London Living Wage. So I propose this report which is seconded. Councillor Kabir Ahmed to second the report. You have three minutes. Second. Thank you. Does any other Member wish to speak on this? Thank you. So with that, does the full Council agree to review and confirm the Member Allowance Scheme for 2025-2026 as attached to the Appendix 1 to the report subject to any amendments agreed by the Council and to confirm or otherwise the decision last year that there would be no increase in the Allowance Scheme for 2025-2026. Second. To note the decision of the Council on 20th March 2024 that there should be no uplift to the Scheme applied for 2024-2025, the current Scheme here. Third. Fourth. Okay. Thank you. And to agree that the General Purposes Committee lead on any requested engagement with the London Independent Remuneration Panel, reporting back to the Council as required. So with that, I believe – so does the Council agree? Yes. The Council agree? Yes. The Council agree? Yes. The Council agree? Yes. The Council agree? Agreed? Yes. So the report is – any abstention? Any abstention? No, I agree. Okay. No one is against it, is it? No. All right. So with that, the report is carried. Thank you. All right. We have now come to an end. Uh, Councillor Haroun Mia. You okay? Yeah? We are. We are nearly finished. All right. So there is no other business, so I thank you. Thank you. All members and, of course, the members of the gallery for your attendance today and members for your contributions. I formally close the meeting. Thank you. Please wait for the mace to be removed. Thank you. Bye.