The Council is asked to consider the following four Motions that have been submitted in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 10:

a)    It will be moved by Councillor Kelly and seconded by Councillor Bamford that:

This Council believes that the world is in the midst of a climate emergency and that action is required at all levels of Government – local, national and international – in order to protect our planet for future generations.

This Council notes that:

• on 8th October 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emissions;

• the report warned that the risk of catastrophic climate change including extreme heat, drought, flooding and climate-related poverty would significantly increase unless global warming could be kept to a maximum of 1.5°C;

• the report authors found that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate and say that urgent and unprecedented action is required to meet the target.

Council recognises that the scale of the challenge is unprecedented. Approximately 97.5% of emissions within the borough are beyond the Council’s direct control, so everyone within the borough has a role to play if we are to successfully reduce emissions. Tackling climate change can only be a common endeavour and will require residents, businesses and other organisations to play their part.

This Council resolves to:

•      declare a climate emergency;

•      work towards ensuring that the borough is carbon neutral by 2050, in line with the Mayor and the Government’s targets. Achieving this will require significant investment and policy initiatives from the Government, and Council hopes it would be achieved earlier than 2050;

•      work towards ensuring that the Council is carbon neutral by 2030, recognising the leadership role it has in the borough;

•      develop a working group to support the Council move from declaration to delivery drawing in cross sector expertise, capacity and capability. The working group should draw on existing expertise within the borough as well as including residents who are representative of the borough as a whole;

•      set in place a process of engagement and collaborative action that enables an action plan to be considered by Cabinet and Council in early 2020, based on achieving the aforementioned targets.

b)    It will be moved by Councillor Daalat Ali and seconded by Councillor Robinson that:

Due to high house prices and the lack of sufficient social housing, the proportion of people renting privately has doubled since 2004; half of 18-35s, 1 in 4 families with children, and growing numbers of older people now live in privately rented homes.

Most of England’s 11 million renters are on tenancies with fixed terms of six months or a year; after this period has ended, landlords can evict their tenants with just two months’ notice, without giving them a reason. These ‘no fault evictions’ were introduced under section 21 of the 1988 Housing Act; before this, renters had much greater security and it was difficult for landlords to evict tenants who paid the rent on time and looked after the property.

Evictions are the number one cause of homelessness. 80% of evictions are on no-fault grounds, and 63% of private renters who were forced to move in 2016 were evicted not due to any fault of their own but because the landlord wanted to sell or use the property.

Insecurity harms quality of life for tenants, with private renters less likely than either owners or people in council housing to say they know lots of people in their local area, but more worried that they will have to move within the next year. The threat of being evicted also gives landlords huge power over tenants, who may decide not to complain about disrepair, big rent increases or other problems in case they are kicked out.

In Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (among other countries), tenancies are indefinite, meaning blameless tenants cannot be evicted from their homes.

In 2017, the Scottish government made tenancies indefinite and banned no-fault evictions under the terms of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016.

This council believes:

Abolishing section 21 would help to make renting more secure, improve standards, increase tenant confidence and ultimately contribute towards making renting a viable long-term alternative to home ownership or social rent for the millions who currently cannot access either.

Since insecure tenancies make it difficult for renters to complain and organise for their rights, removing section 21 would make it easier for new renter unions like the London Renters Union and ACORN to organise to defend their members.

This council resolves to:

•              Work with the Unfair Evictions Campaign led by Generation Rent, the New Economics Foundation, ACORN and the London Renters Union.

•              Requests that the Chief Executive write to our Members of Parliament requesting them to publicly state their support for the abolition of section 21 and make it a manifesto commitment.

c)    It will be moved by Councillor Burke and seconded by Councillor O’Rourke that:

This Council believes buses are hugely important to accessing work, our communities, the services we need, and to a sustainable and environmentally healthy city. 

Background:

-        80% of public transport journeys in Greater Manchester are done by bus.[1]

-        Bus deregulation happened in most places in the UK in the 1980s. It means that bus companies run whatever routes they like, charging what they like, with various ticketing structures. 140 types of tickets are available in Greater Manchester.[2]

-        A regulated network is how buses are in London and Jersey. In these cities a local transport authority sets prices, routes and develops standard ticketing systems. In London, Transport for London puts all bus routes out to tender and buys the service from a company.

-        Regulation mean profits can be used to subsidise socially necessary services. It also allows a simple smart ticket system, with an automatic daily cap of spend, like the oyster card in London. Without regulation, a simple and single area-wide zonal ticket, with an automatic cap on spend (examples include London’s oyster card), is impossible.[3]

-        76% of people in Greater Manchester want buses to be regulated, according to new polling.[4]

-        Bus journeys has declined by 40% in Greater Manchester since deregulation, while in London bus use has doubled since then. In Jersey, bus ridership has gone up by 32% in the last five years alone.[5]

-        The alternative to bus regulation is ‘partnership’ which are voluntary agreements between bus companies and the local authorities.

This council believes that local government should have the ability to plan, join up and design the bus network in Greater Manchester, and compel bus companies to deliver certain standards. Our current bus network is far too vulnerable to instabilities as we have seen.

Therefore, this Council resolves to support the Better Buses for Greater Manchester campaign, which is calling for better, regulated buses.

This Council further requests the Chief Executive to write to Mayor Andy Burnham on the matter, expressing support for the campaign and welcome his and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s move towards creating a properly regulated system of busses in Greater Manchester.

a)         It was moved by Councillor Kelly and seconded by Councillor Bamford that:

This Council notes that:

·         on 8th October 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emissions;

·         the report warned that the risk of catastrophic climate change including extreme heat, drought, flooding and climate-related poverty would significantly increase unless global warming could be kept to a maximum of 1.5°C;

·         the report authors found that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate and say that urgent and unprecedented action is required to meet the target.

Council recognises that the scale of the challenge is unprecedented. Approximately 97.5% of emissions within the borough are beyond the Council’s direct control, so everyone within the borough has a role to play if we are to successfully reduce emissions. Tackling climate change can only be a common endeavour and will require residents, businesses and other organisations to play their part.

This Council resolves to:

·         declare a climate emergency;

·         work towards ensuring that the borough is carbon neutral by 2050, in line with the Mayor and the Government’s targets. Achieving this will require significant investment and policy initiatives from the Government, and Council hopes it would be achieved earlier than 2050;

·         work towards ensuring that the Council is carbon neutral by 2030, recognising the leadership role it has in the borough;

·         develop a working group to support the Council move from declaration to delivery drawing in cross sector expertise, capacity and capability. The working group should draw on existing expertise within the borough as well as including residents who are representative of the borough as a whole;

·         set in place a process of engagement and collaborative action that enables an action plan to be considered by Cabinet and Council in early 2020, based on achieving the aforementioned targets.

An amendment to the motion was moved by Councillor Brett and seconded by Councillor Blundell proposing an amendment to the target date for being carbon neutral to 2038.

The amendment to the motion was accepted by Councillor Kelly and Councillor Bamford and on being put to the vote, the motion as amended was declared to be carried and it was RESOLVED accordingly.

b)         It was moved by Councillor Daalat Ali and seconded by Councillor Robinson that:

Due to high house prices and the lack of sufficient social housing, the proportion of people renting privately has doubled since 2004; half of 18-35s, 1 in 4 families with children, and growing numbers of older people now live in privately rented homes.

Most of England’s 11 million renters are on tenancies with fixed terms of six months or a year; after this period has ended, landlords can evict their tenants with just two months’ notice, without giving them a reason. These ‘no fault evictions’ were introduced under section 21 of the 1988 Housing Act; before this, renters had much greater security and it was difficult for landlords to evict tenants who paid the rent on time and looked after the property.

Evictions are the number one cause of homelessness. 80% of evictions are on no-fault grounds, and 63% of private renters who were forced to move in 2016 were evicted not due to any fault of their own but because the landlord wanted to sell or use the property.

Insecurity harms quality of life for tenants, with private renters less likely than either owners or people in council housing to say they know lots of people in their local area, but more worried that they will have to move within the next year. The threat of being evicted also gives landlords huge power over tenants, who may decide not to complain about disrepair, big rent increases or other problems in case they are kicked out.

In Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (among other countries), tenancies are indefinite, meaning blameless tenants cannot be evicted from their homes.

In 2017, the Scottish government made tenancies indefinite and banned no-fault evictions under the terms of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016.

This council believes:

Abolishing section 21 would help to make renting more secure, improve standards, increase tenant confidence and ultimately contribute towards making renting a viable long-term alternative to home ownership or social rent for the millions who currently cannot access either.

Since insecure tenancies make it difficult for renters to complain and organise for their rights, removing section 21 would make it easier for new renter unions like the London Renters Union and ACORN to organise to defend their members.

This council resolves to:

Work with the Unfair Evictions Campaign led by Generation Rent, the New Economics Foundation, ACORN and the London Renters Union.

Requests that the Chief Executive write to our Members of Parliament requesting them to publicly state their support for the abolition of section 21 and make it a manifesto commitment.

On being put to the vote, the motion was declared to be carried and it was RESOLVED accordingly.

c)         It was moved by Councillor Burke and seconded by Councillor O’Rourke that:

This Council believes buses are hugely important to accessing work, our communities, the services we need, and to a sustainable and environmentally healthy city.

Background:

·         80% of public transport journeys in Greater Manchester are done by bus;

·         Bus deregulation happened in most places in the UK in the 1980s. It means that bus companies run whatever routes they like, charging what they like, with various ticketing structures. 140 types of tickets are available in Greater Manchester;

·         A regulated network is how buses are in London and Jersey. In these cities a local transport authority sets prices, routes and develops standard ticketing systems. In London, Transport for London puts all bus routes out to tender and buys the service from a company;

·         Regulation mean profits can be used to subsidise socially necessary services. It also allows a simple smart ticket system, with an automatic daily cap of spend, like the oyster card in London. Without regulation, a simple and single area-wide zonal ticket, with an automatic cap on spend (examples include London’s oyster card), is impossible;

·         76% of people in Greater Manchester want buses to be regulated, according to new polling;

·         Bus journeys has declined by 40% in Greater Manchester since deregulation, while in London bus use has doubled since then. In Jersey, bus ridership has gone up by 32% in the last five years alone.

The alternative to bus regulation is ‘partnership’ which are voluntary agreements between bus companies and the local authorities.

This council believes that local government should have the ability to plan, join up and design the bus network in Greater Manchester, and compel bus companies to deliver certain standards. Our current bus network is far too vulnerable to instabilities as we have seen.

Therefore, this Council resolves to support the Better Buses for Greater Manchester campaign, which is calling for better, regulated buses.

This Council further requests the Chief Executive to write to Mayor Andy Burnham on the matter, expressing support for the campaign and welcome his and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s move towards creating a properly regulated system of busses in Greater Manchester.

On being put to the vote, the motion was declared to be carried and it was RESOLVED accordingly.