Concern was also noted about the powers of the ethics committee
Coventry Conservatives have resigned from a “toothless” council committee over concerns it is failing to uphold standards of respect expected of city councillors.
The opposition party has withdrawn Cllr Allan Andrews from the ethics committee after a complaint about comments made by a Labour councillor were quashed.
A complaint had been made that Labour Cllr Pervez Akhtar breached the Code of Conduct of Elected Members in October’s full council by failing to show respect, however it did not reach a Stage 2 investigation in front of the ethics committee.
In questions to the cabinet member for finance over funding in October, Cllr Akhtar said: ”Does he agree that we do not have any more Conservatives, all we have is 17th century evil Tories…Because [of] the lack of funding, we have thousands and thousands of deaths in our country. As far as I’m concerned, the Tories have blood on their hands.”
The comments at the time resulted in Lord Mayor Cllr Ann Lucas interjecting: “Your questions are in the form of really quite rude accusations, and I’m not taking them.”
Details of the complaint were aired at full council on Tuesday, March 16, where Conservative Tim Sawdon criticised the level of “visceral hatred” in the council chamber.
He said: “We as a group have decided to leave the ethics committee because frankly it is a toothless wonder and our members have resigned. The ethics committee needs a complete overhaul.”
Clarifying his comments in the meeting, Cllr Akhtar said: “My comments were not referring to my colleagues and friends in our chamber. I was referring to the central government of their negligence and dithering in tackling Covid-19. That is what I was referring to.”
However Cllr Sawdon said the local Conservative party – given their backing of the government – was “associated to the remarks whether he likes it or not”.
The debate was raised as the council approved a new Code of Conduct for councillors.
Speaking after the meeting, Conservative leader Cllr Gary Ridley said the ethics process was “fundamentally flawed” and “does not uphold the code”.
