Mayor Of Tower Hamlets

EDM number 484 in 2014-15, proposed by George Galloway on 05/11/2014.
Categorised under the topic of Local government.

That this House condemns the decision by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to call in commissioners to exercise wide-ranging controls over the London Borough of Tower Hamlets; points out that the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman has been elected twice by an absolute majority of Tower Hamlets voters; believes that the Secretary of State's unwarranted and unjustified decision fundamentally undermines democracy in this borough; notes that the decision was taken after opposition parties alleged fraud and criminality but that, after a two-year investigation and a 193-page report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, no such evidence was produced; further notes that since 2010, under the directly elected mayor, Tower Hamlets has built record numbers of new affordable homes, developed some of the world's best urban schools, introduced free school meals for all state primary school pupils, won a swathe of awards from the school meals services to dementia services, committed to paying the Living Wage, provided bursaries for university students, reinstated maintenance grants for further education students, and bailed out 2,500 families in the borough hit by bedroom tax; further notes that this has all been achieved despite severe cuts in the government grant and this borough having the highest levels of child poverty in the country; and calls on the Secretary of State to recognise the remarkable achievements of the administration in Tower Hamlets by calling off the witch hunt against the mayor and revoking the appointment of commissioners.

This motion has been signed by a total of 1 MPs.