Labour's opposition to mutuals prompts them to lose control of Redcar and Cleveland Council

Cllr John Hannon and Cllr David Williams, of Redcar and Cleveland Council, have quit the Labour Party and now sit as independents. This means that Labour has lost overall control of the council.

The cause of the dispute is a u-turn from the Labour councillors over Cleveland Fire Brigade becoming a public service mutual. Labour, at a local level, used to support the idea but has now backed down - under pressure from the Fire Brigades Union and Labour MPs.

Cllr Hannon says:

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me to make because I always put the people before the party.

"There was a motion recently going against the public service mutual and I was against that.

“I always thought we were behind our fire brigade and the group was backing the chief fire officer but there was a U-turn after being put under pressure.

“I am now going to the Independent group and I am looking forward to continuing to put the people first.”

The Labour MP and Shadow Fire Minister, Chris Williamson, has attacked the proposal for a public service mutual and described it as "privatization." However, Cllr Robert Payne, a Labour councillor in Hartlepool and Chairman of the Cleveland Fire Authority, said this was "scaremongering."

Labour hypocrisy on mutuals in the fire brigade

The Labour Party claims to support public service mutuals. Yet in the case of the fire service they attack such proposals as "privatisation." The Fire Minister Brandon Lewis says their campaign is "misleading and false."

In a letter to Labour MP Chris Williamson he adds:

We are working with those fire and rescue authorities that wish to explore locally-led mutuals as a way of delivering services. Any move towards mutualisation will only be for those fire and rescue authorities, such as Cleveland, who wish to explore this route. Cleveland Fire Authority’s chairman, who is a Labour Party councillor, has described the claims of privatisation as “scaremongering”.

I am surprised that Her Majesty’s Opposition is trying to oppose mutuals in local government, given the Labour Party is in formal coalition with the Co-operative Party. As the latter’s website states:

“From foundation trust hospitals to co-operative trust schools, we are already seeing the benefits that new mutual organisations are bringing to public services. These can provide the efficiency gains of the private sector whilst providing real democratic accountability, giving users, employees and other stakeholders a real say in how their organisations are run. If we are serious about creating a new politics, then giving ordinary people real power over the services that they rely on is the best way to do it.”

The Leader of the Opposition has also endorsed mutuals and co-operatives in local government in a pamphlet on the very topic. And your Party’s own local elections launch document has praised councils for “pursuing new co-operative models of service delivery”.

A party that was true to its word would be seeking to support Cleveland in its mutual bid: the fact that you are actively opposing a Labour-led local authority speaks volumes on the Labour Party’s bandwagon opportunism and cynicism.