Agenda item

To appoint the Leader of the Council.

To appoint Councillor Nia Jeffreys as Leader of the Council for the term of this Council.

It was proposed and seconded to appoint Councillor Nia Jeffreys as Leader of the Council for the term of this Council.

A member noted that he had two questions on a point of order regarding the nomination.  In response, the Monitoring Officer indicated that he would advise that the Council first complete the process of inviting nominations for the Leadership appointment process.

The member proposed to appoint Councillor Beca Brown as Leader of the Council for the Council's term. The proposal was seconded.

No further nominations were received.

The member asked for clarity on the two matters of order, namely: -

·         Although it was not usual to have a discussion in Council on the issue of appointing a Leader, there was nothing in the Constitution which prevented the Council from discussing the matter.  Was it therefore possible for the Council to have a discussion on this?

·         How many nominations can one member make?

In response to these questions, the Monitoring Officer stated: -

·         That the motion before them was to appoint an individual as Leader of the Council, and not the process etc, and although there was nothing in the Constitution preventing the Council from having a discussion, that was not the norm, and the context of any discussion would have to be given deep consideration.

·         As far as the Council's arrangements are concerned, there were two appropriate proposals before us.  It was therefore not clear what the significance of the question was about nominations as the Council deals with proposals, regardless of the background to those proposals.

The member further noted that four members of the Cabinet, namely Councillors Beca Brown, Dafydd Meurig, Berwyn Parry Jones and Elin Walker Jones, had recently resigned on a matter of principle and the former Leader, Councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, had also done the honourable thing, and had resigned. However, it was unclear where the remaining members of the current Cabinet stood, including the Deputy Leader, on the divisive issue of apologising to Foden's victims and holding a public inquiry into the matter.  Accordingly, if Cllr Beca Brown was unwilling to put her name forward to become Leader of the Council, he would call on Councillor Dafydd Meurig to do so, and so on.

Councillor Beca Brown indicated she did not want her name to go forward.

With the consent of the seconder, the member withdrew his motion stating that he wanted to propose the appointment of Councillor Dafydd Meurig as Leader of the Council for the Council's term. 

The Chair noted that a member could not put forward more than one motion.

RESOLVED to appoint Councillor Nia Jeffreys as Leader of the Council for the term of this Council.⁠

The Leader gave a short address and stressed that she, and all members, stood together with Foden's victims. She indicated that she wished to send a message to those victims stating that she apologised from the bottom of her heart for what had happened to them, and pledged to leave no stone unturned to prevent such a situation from happening again.  She also noted that, on behalf of all members of the Plaid Cymru Group, she was calling again for a public inquiry into what had happened.