Chaotic Conservative Call-In

Liberal Democrats have attacked the Council's Conservative group for a chaotic challenge to the Labour decision to invest over £60m in a solar farm near Doncaster. The challenge was made at a specially convened Scrutiny Committee in the sweltering heat last Friday.

My party is passionately committed to combating climate change, and investing in solar farms is a well-established way of doing this. Council officers have been successfully investing in solar generation for many years and have considerable experience. They bought in expert advice on both the technology and the financial modelling from leading national experts.

This call-in was fundamentally an attack against officers who were providing the best advice they could on how the Council can fund its activities in very difficult circumstances. Of course, there is a risk involved, but the risk of being unable to meet the running costs of the Council is greater and would affect everyone in the town. The Conservative group does not appear to believe in funding public services, preferring cuts or privatisation instead.

Their attack followed familiar lines. We heard a fanciful set of objections based on the risk of technological change overtaking the tried and tested technology of current solar panels and batteries. Then the attack moved onto the familiar territory of describing the council's revenue earning investments as debt, even though at current valuations the investments are worth significantly more than was invested. They attempted to associate the solar farm project with the controversial Together Energy and Redwood Bank investments which was unfair given the Council's record on solar investments. The entire investment portfolio, mainly comprising loans to social housing providers secured against their housing stock, was described as "high risk", which it clearly is not.

The decision was also attacked on the basis that the investment was 'for revenue', because of government plans to restrict local government powers to borrow in this way. However, a justification given for the investment was that it was to meet the Council's climate change pledge to move towards zero carbon. This was made clear to the government as part of the successful bid for a grant towards the new fleet of electric buses. By generating the power needed by the buses from a solar farm it owns, the Council can ensure that the non-polluting buses are not powered by electricity generated by carbon emitting power stations.

The third line of attack was on 'corporate governance' with which we have some sympathy. Decisions should be made with 'a presumption in favour of openness' and 'giving reasons for the decision'. Both could have been achieved had opposition leaders been allowed to attend a confidential Risk Management Workshop to discuss the investment and ask questions. The planned workshop was cancelled and not rescheduled, so the Cabinet took this decision alone with no opposition input.