Tories turn down committee roles on city council

An extraordinary meeting was held on Friday to elect a new leader of Peterborough City Council

The leader of the Conservative group on Peterborough City Council says his party will not take up any committee roles following the administration's recent change of leadership.

The move follows the election on Friday of Labour's Shabina Qayyum as council leader after Dennis Jones was suspended for grooming gang comments.

Qayyum subsequently announced a coalition with the Peterborough First and Liberal Democrat groups – and the Conservatives said the support they had given Labour in a recent vote of no-confidence had been "long forgotten".

But Labour said the new distribution of positions was about "making representation across the board".

Wayne Fitzgerald said Labour were playing "party politics"

The Tories previously held three chair and five vice-chair committee positions on the council, but the new leadership has changed that allocation to one chair and five vice-chair positions, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Conservative leader Wayne Fitzgerald – who had put his own name forward to be leader, losing to Qayyum by 37 votes to 12 on Friday – said the proposal was "not an equitable balance".

He added that there were a number of other positions and committees that members of his group would no longer participate in, such as the financial sustainability working group, a cross-party group which reviews the council's finances.

"There was an opportunity today to be fully inclusive, but it was squandered," Fitzgerald said at the meeting.

Shabina Qayyum has given eight chair and vice-chair positions to women councillors

In June, Peterborough First and the Lib Dems joined forces with the Green Party in an effort to oust the Labour administration in a vote of no-confidence.

A spokesperson for the Tories said: "The support the Conservative group gave the Labour administration in the vote of no-confidence and in supporting the council budget has long been forgotten.

"We have been removed from our supportive roles as chairs [from] which, with our experience, we have always offered constructive support."

Conservative councillor John Howard said: "Those who tried to bring down the administration just [12] weeks ago have been rewarded nicely."

Qayyum said: "I tried as leader, with other leaders, as best as I could to distribute and make representation from all political parties and place a lot of my Conservative colleagues into those positions of vice-chair because I realise their potential.

"It was about making representation across the board, and we also have to look at gender balance and giving opportunity to women in our city to develop for the very first time."