Newham Council forced to accept Green Party representation on committees

Newham Green Party has successfully secured representation on council committees. The news comes following a lengthy campaign from Green councillors Nate Higgins and Danny Keeling – the only opposition councillors elected to the Labour-dominated authority in May 2022.

At a meeting of Newham’s full council earlier this week, Green Party councillors were appointed to every committee on the council. The Greens claim that the previous approach, in which their representatives were excluded from committees was not in accordance with the law.

Responding to the news, Higgins said: “This report confirmed that the council was not acting in line with its legal obligations in shutting Green councillors off of vital committees like Audit and Chief Officer Appointments Committee as they have for the last seventeen months.”

He added: “We should have and we could have reached this point much sooner. When we were first elected, we made the case that opposition must be represented on our committees. We were told we were wrong. Today’s report confirms they should have listened to us then.”

Keeling, who leads the opposition at Newham Council, said: “Since our election, Greens have been working hard to scrutinise the council across the few committees Labour have allowed us to sit on. Now that legal advice have forced them to accept scrutiny, Greens will work that much harder to hold this administration to account including constitutional changes.”