Four motions debated at the Full Council meeting today – all passed unanimously.
The first motion, from Lib Dem Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, drew attention to the particularly serious impact of COVID-19 and school shutdown for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, and the £28 million deficit in Cambridgeshire’s funding to meet their needs. The council agreed to write to the Secretary of State Gavin Williamson, and to the county’s MPs to seek their support in challenging the Government over this funding gap.
The second motion, from Labour councillor Joan Whitehead, also addressed issues of school funding, and the unevenness of the latest financial allocations from Government which will mean some small rural primary schools in Cambridgeshire losing out. The council called on the Government to look again at the funding formula, and to enable councils to make local adjustments to how the funding was distributed to meet specific local needs and protect vulnerable but vital schools.
The third motion, from Lib Dem Cllr Ian Manning, asked for council officers to investigate the extent to which expensive delays in council highways projects were the result of utility companies not knowing where their underground infrastructure was, so that the Highways & Transport Committee can decide whether to take this up with Government ministers. This has been an issue on a number of occasions, including the Ely Bypass and the Fendon Road roundabout on the A1307 near Addenbrooke’s.
The fourth motion, from Conservative councillor Joshua Schumann, also achieved unanimous support, but only after a long and somewhat fractious debate. The motion couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether it was about welcoming multiculturalism or merely tolerating it, and it was equally uncertain whether it was referring to prejudice in general or only to anti-Semitism. Two sensible amendments, one from the Liberal Democrat group and one from the Labour group, were defeated by the Conservatives. In the ensuing debate on the unamended motion, I expressed my concern about the rise in open prejudice nationally against people of colour, against Muslims, against EU citizens, against LGBTQI+ people, and others – and said that we need to be eternally vigilant on behalf of all communities and celebrate, not just tolerate, the differences of our richly varied county.
Thanks very much for promoting the cause of small rural primary schools. This is an under-recognised problem and, if uncorrected, could spell the end of some small schools. The vast majority of the budget is dependent on the number of children in each school, yet there are basic costs which every school must meet, and which fall harder on smaller schools. It’s a question of fairness: children who attend a small village school get less access to facilities and opportunities than those who attend a larger school, just because they happen to live in a small village.