Council Procedure Rule 11.16 refers.

Motions received by the Head of Law and Governance by the deadline of 1.00pm on Wednesday 12^th June 2013:-.

1. Financial Transactions Tax – proposed by Councillor Price, seconded by Councillor Fry;

2. Tar Free Oxford – proposed by Councillor Hollick.

Full text of the motions is attached.

(1)                           Community Budgets

Councillor Fooks, seconded by Councillor Campbell proposed the following Motion:-

“Public sector cuts would have been made whichever party was in national government (as the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury put it, “There is no money left”) and all parties have to work together to find a solution to this problem.

This Council is facing increasing pressures on available budgets due to the cuts in Government funding and the extra burdens placed on it by the welfare cuts. Staff are working to help those affected by cuts in benefits with advice and support but are limited by the particular local situation of an acute shortage of affordable homes and the highest rents outside London.

Council recognises that the whole-place Community Budget pilots have shown the potential for delivering better services at less cost by the approach to transforming public services by integration and demand reduction. It believes that Oxford would benefit hugely from such an approach.

Council notes that the Local Government Association commissioned Ernst and Young to review the potential for the aggregation of whole place community budgets. The report notes that community budgets have the potential to deliver better outcomes and realise substantial financial benefits; with the potential of a net benefit of five years of between £9.4bn and £20.6bn.

Council also recognises that the current government has been working with councils across the country on the Troubled Families programme, with an additional £448 million to support this work. Council urges the government to build on this cross departmental working and extend Community Budgets

Council therefore asks the Leader to write to the Oxford MPs asking them to support the LGA’s call for Community Budgets to be extended nationally as the preferred local delivery mechanism for government departments, with appropriate support to local areas to ensure that the maximum benefits are felt from the change”.

Following a debate, the Motion was voted upon but this was not carried, 10 members voting in favour of the Motion and 30 members voting against.

(2)       Tar Free Oxford

Councillor Hollick seconded by Councillor Benjamin proposed the following Motion:-

“This council notes that: Canada’s tar sands are the biggest energy project in the world. Already, millions of barrels of tar sands oil have been extracted from the Canadian wilderness, decimating the landscape and producing 3.2 to 4.5 times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil extraction (as calculated for example by the US Government’s National Energy Technology Laboratory). Nearby First Nations communities are also being devastated by the loss of their traditional lands and access to food and medicine. In 2008, Alberta Health confirmed a 30 per cent rise of cancer rates between 1995 – 2006 in Fort Chipewyan, a nearby community.

Although tar sands oil hasn’t yet arrived in the UK in significant quantities, its large-scale import is highly likely as Canada attempts to find new markets for export. Opening up Europe and the UK to tar sands would be a green light for more reckless expansion of this huge industry.

This council also notes that the City Council’s Carbon Management Plan states that the council “places environmental sustainability and carbon reduction at the heart of everything that the Council does”, and believes that an important part of the city’s responsibility in “provid[ing] wider leadership…in reducing the overall carbon footprint of the City” is rejecting tar sands for the carbon-intensive fuel that they are.

This council therefore resolves to:

1. Rejects tar sands as an acceptable source of liquid fuel, and declare Oxford a ‘Tar Free City’;

2. Include measures in its future liquid fuels procurement policies which will ensure that tar sands will not be part of the fuel mix it purchases for its vehicle and plant fleet”.   

Following a debate the Motion was voted upon and was carried out by general assent.