Liberal Democrat County Councillors led by Cllr Mary Baldwin, the Liberal Democrat leader at Bucks CC, walked out of the Budget debate at the County Council last Thursday following a heated exchange on the right of the Liberal Democrats to speak in the annual Council Tax setting debate.  Cllr Baldwin said “we have objected to the way the Council meetings were run for a long time even making a formal complaint after the November meeting to the Monitoring Officer. That time it was after a series of Council meetings where the Liberal Democrat’s were not being given a chance to speak. I was reassured then that it would not happen again by the head of legal services. However yet again the Chairman was biased against the Liberal Democrats and stopped us from taking part fully at one of the most important meetings of the council – the annual budget meeting.” 

Cllr Baldwin continued “The Tories have one rule for themselves and one for the opposition. The Tories have been in power for 120 years, and just ride roughshod over our democratic right to hold them to account for how they are spending tax-payer’s money. The Tory action meant we could not represent out constituents properly. We had no alternative but to leave in an attempt to make them realise that democracy is vital and that we represent the voice of about 65000 residents of Buckinghamshire. It is our job to make sure that their voices are heard and we were prevented from doing this. The Liberal Democrats view is that we were telling them home truths and hitting them where it hurts and exposing the devastating affect on frontline services this budget would have and they didn’t like listening to the truth.”  

The Tories have since claimed that the Liberal Democrats were electioneering. “This is not the case and is an insult to democracy” said Liberal Democrat Councillor Julia Wassell who represents part of High Wycombe, “as an opposition it is our job to challenge the leadership and make sure decisions are based on fact. The budget meeting is one of the most important of the year and for the Chairman to clearly favour the Tories and not let the Liberal Democrats speak is outrageous.”   Cllr Raj Khan said “We had held several meetings on the 3.9% budget figure and knew the outcomes of this would be service cuts which we are against. For the leader to change that budget to 3.7% without notice in his speach, while excellent news, makes us very worried about what services that are going to be slashed to reach this figure.” -ends-