Liverpool budget passes despite Labour councillors' rebellion

The budget was passed by 47 votes to 27 votes following a debate between councillors

A controversial budget has been approved by Liverpool City Council, despite seven rebel Labour councillors voting against their party's plans.

George Knibb joined six other Labour councillors, who were suspended from the party on Monday, after saying they were going to oppose the "brutal cuts".

They could now be expelled from the party for defying the whip.

Protesters had gathered outside the building as the budget was passed by 47 votes to 27.

The budget was proposed after the authority said it needed to make savings of £34m in the coming year.

The cuts will see a £40 annual charge for green waste collections introduced, a council tax increase of 2.99% and cuts to the city's social care budget, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Warbreck Labour councillor Alan Gibbons, who opposed the budget, said he could not vote to support it as "measures in this budget are not savings, they're cuts".

He claimed alternative proposals were "rejected out of hand" as the city was "wedged into a fiscal straitjacket" and communities were at "breaking point".

After the full council meeting, he said he expected to be removed from the Labour group having already been suspended alongside his colleagues.

'Really difficult situation'

Norris Green Labour councillor George Knibb, who also opposed the plans, claimed the proposed budget would see the most vulnerable worst affected.

The Mayor of Liverpool, Labour's Joanne Anderson, said setting this budget was "one of the hardest processes" she had been involved in as the city recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Councillor Sarah Doyle warned the rebels that voting against the budget was "reckless" and would put council jobs and leisure and library services at risk.

Councillor Jane Corbett, current deputy mayor and cabinet member for finance, added that the city was in a "really, really difficult situation" but was planning for the future.

Amendments to the budget plans were proposed by Liberal Democrat leader Richard Kemp and leader of the Greens Tom Crone, but they subsequently fell.

Analysis

By Claire Hamilton, BBC Radio Merseyside political reporter

Full council meetings in Liverpool are rarely short of drama, passion and bad temper - and this one was no different.

The city's Labour group is divided. Actually, that's quite normal - but this time the split could be a severance.

Seven councillors risk being expelled Labour for voting against their colleagues' carefully prepared budget.

They might even join three other former labour councillors to form a new independent opposition group.

The nine are on the left of the party, some inspired to join Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.

They are not arguing to set an illegal budget as their predecessors in the 80s advocated, but they are not afraid to publicly challenge the mayor and cabinet.

Coming from the same political party, that's pretty brutal.

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