Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 13 June 2018.
Cabinet Secretary, I have actually responded to your consultation myself; I suggest you haven't read it yet. You continue to repeat the same old line that the Green Paper only sets out the debate on local government reform and the merging of councils, but that isn't really the case, is it? In April, I was made aware that the Labour Party itself was having internal discussions about how to force through your proposals and that one of the ideas discussed is to halve the number of councillors in merged areas, and, at the same time, increase their pay by 62 per cent, from £13,600 to around £22,000 per year, in order to sweeten the deal for mergers and the cutting of numbers of elected members. You may be surprised that I know this, or, there again, you may not know yourself, so far removed are you from the local government community in Wales. For those who have served their time and are wanting to stand down, another proposal of Welsh Labour is to pay those councillors who would lose their seats, based on years of service, around £500 per year, meaning, for someone who's served 20 years, they will get a £10,000 bung. Really, Cabinet Secretary—really, Cabinet Secretary—is this the way that you or a Welsh Labour Government or any Government should be carrying out local government reform, where it's more important to carry out backroom deals with your own Labour councillors than reach cross-party consensus with all across Wales? You'd make a start in this Chamber—during your last contribution, your own backbenchers were speaking up against these proposals. Surely, this does amount to nothing more than a shabby bung to Labour councillors. Personally, I believe the people of Wales deserve better—a pity you don't.