Thank you very much for appointing me as Leader of the Council. As someone who has lived their entire life in Stockport, I will work very, very hard, to serve the interests of Stockport as best I can, as will the rest of my Executive. It’s a real honour to be in this position and we will endeavour not to let you down and to take Stockport to new levels.

I would also like to welcome the new Members of the Council who were elected this year. You actually join a fairly unique Council within the region, in that we are under minority control and I’m acutely aware of that and the implications it has for the running of this Council. I’m a Labour man, but I’m first and foremost a democrat and it’s important that members from all groups, not only feel, but actually do play a full role in the running of this Council over the next few years in terms of being involved in decision making, being properly consulted, properly informed and having a real role to play.

Labour forms the Executive of this Council and we will never shirk our responsibilities for decision-making in this regard, but likewise I will never forget that it is important that we go forward with broad consensus on big issues across this Council and I will do my best to ensure that you are involved in that and if you think I’m failing in that regard at any time, please let me know so that I can address that.

I think we’ve got an exciting period ahead of us. I’m happy to say that my group have not had any ideas recently and are not thinking of a ‘no confidence’ in me, although I don’t know whether there are plans afoot, so I feel fairly secure in that respect.

But also more generally it’s important to know that we have excellent Councillors who represent their wards across the political divide and I know many of you very, very well from my time on the Council so far. So, I’m in no doubt that we will work very well together over the coming years to achieve what we are here to do, and that is the best for people in Stockport across the borough, regardless of political affiliation.

In terms of responses we have had from members across the Council, since the murder of Jo Cox MP, I just want to say a big thank you on behalf of the Labour Party for all those messages of condolence and support that you have provided, it has been appreciated, so thank you for that.

Secondly, I want to pay tribute to my predecessor and Leader of the Council, Sue Derbyshire. Sue is someone that I very much respect and I feel that I had worked very well with her since becoming Leader of the Labour Group. Sue, in my view, did a very good job of leading this Council under some very difficult circumstances, especially the financial picture of the past few years, and I want to thank Sue for the contribution that she has made to Stockport not only as Leader, but throughout her time as Councillor. I’m sure it’s been very much appreciated by all Councillors across this Council and I wish her well for whatever she decides to do next.

Moving on to my own portfolio, there are two broad areas that I cover – Finance and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Although I was only elected last month, that seems like a world away. I don’t feel like my feet have touched the ground, I’ve been so busy getting involved, in so many areas across the Council.

In terms of my specific areas of responsibility I just want to point you to my Leader’s Report, which went to the last Executive meeting and which is also going to next week’s Corporate Resource Management and Governance Scrutiny Committee.

Just on finance, there are a few things I want to do some reviews of. The first is the use of the Council reserves. I’ve asked the Borough Treasurer to conduct an independent assessment of the level of reserves, how we use them and whether they are right for the level of risk. I have no view on the current level of reserves – I’ve not provided a steer on this – but I think it’s right that we have an independent review that’s carried out and then shared by all Councillors. Not to seek agreement from you, as I don’t think we will ever have that, but so that we can have an independent assessment on the level of reserves, whether they strike the right balance between risk and the need to spend money to keep services going and to future proof us over the next few years, because the next few years is going to be very challenging.

Projections show that we are going to have to make cuts of around £15m per year, between now and 2020 and that’s going to be very difficult, so it’s right that we kick off that work as soon as possible and the review of reserves is one of those areas. It may be that the outcome of this is that we need to increase the use of reserves, I’m just flagging that. My intention is not to reduce the level of reserves, but to actually get some independent assessment of it.

There’s also a £3.9m carry over from last year which we need to look at. My Leader’s Report talks about some principles I want to establish, about how we use that. I would rather not spend any of that money this year. Instead, I want to look at future years and how we can use that £3.9m to invest in services that have long term benefits, not just one off benefits. So, that’s something we are going to be working on for the rest of this financial year and that will be fed into the budget for next year. £3.9m really is very little compared to the scale of cuts that we are going to have to make between now and 2020, but I wanted to flag that up with you.

One of the other big areas I want to focus on immediately in terms of finance, is how the Council generates income. This is going to become increasingly important to offset the reductions in Government grants so things like the increased importance of business rates as a result of business rate retention and also, the Council’s ability to generate commercial revenue that can go into providing services, is going to be crucial and I really want to focus on that.

There are many other things in my portfolio that I want to focus on which I will talk about during the course of the year, but one other thing, is that we’ve asked the Monitoring Officer, in conjunction with Democratic Services, to conduct a cross party Constitutional review on areas around the Council. I want members across the Council to form a committee to look into issues such as how best to align scrutiny committees to Executive portfolios, as we do have an issue there I think.

Looking at the remit and the way in which Area Committees perform, whether you should have extra powers or whether we should realign them. The transparency role of the Integrating Commissioning Board which is going to be very important over the next few years, given the amount of money being put into it, the composition of the role of the Health and Well Being Board, a wholesale review of appointments to Outside Bodies – what’s important, what don’t we need anymore, and also any other Constitutional question that any groups want to throw into the mix. I don’t have any strong views or any steer on any of these points, but I do think that these are things that I hear members questioning time and time again and the need to do something about. So, what I want is a cross party review to be carried out across all these areas and then recommendations made by this group to the Executive, that we will endeavour to implement for the beginning of the next civic year.

My other area is the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and this is something that I very much want to open up to you as members, in terms of the transparency of and your involvement in decision making. Not just because this Council is in minority control so I can’t go ahead and do whatever I want at the Combined Authority, but because it is the right thing to do.

The most significant thing coming through the Combined Authority in the next few months is the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework and the members briefing that was carried out on it yesterday means that those members who attended now know as much about it as I do. I’m also committed for members to get frequent updates on this when they become available because I want you to be involved.

I don’t want Councillors to be put on the back-foot by being notified about [GMSF updates] at the same time as members of the public, but also importantly because this authority is in minority control, and the Spatial Framework has to be adopted by all the Leaders in Greater Manchester, I won’t agree to it unless I feel that I have the broad support of this Council.

Now by that, I don’t mean the agreement of every single group, I just mean that I have the broad support of this Council, so that is something I want to do moving forward. But also, if there are other significant things coming through the Combined Authority which I think you need to be involved in, over and above the normal Scrutiny Committees…if you think there are things fallen between the gap, if you think there are things that you want to be involved in or know about, that you are not involved in, please, please do let me know.

Just finally on the Combined Authority, you may recall earlier this year, Tony Lloyd decided that he wanted to appoint Deputy Portfolio Holders in the Combined Authority and he was assigning two of those positions to Stockport. At the moment, the Combined Authority is just the 10 Leaders, but he also wants to have Deputy Portfolio Holders. Now, as I say, he is allocating two for Stockport and I’ve decided that to reflect the political balance of this Council, I would offer one of those deputy positions to the Liberal Democrats. Councillor Hunter (Liberal Democrat, Cheadle Hulme South) has been put forward as their nominee, which Tony Lloyd has today accepted. The Portfolios for Council Leaders were agreed this morning and I’m going to be leading on Culture which is an interesting one because I don’t get out much, so I don’t know if Tony took that into consideration.

Following our acceptance of those roles this morning, Tony’s now going to go away and look at those Deputy Portfolio Holders. The Labour representative is Councillor Wild (Labour, Davenport and Cale Green). Both Councillors Hunter and Wild have asked me if Tony can appoint them to roles that relate to either their Executive Portfolio or Shadow Executive Portfolio. That’s fine with me, I’ve suggested that to Tony, and hopefully he will take that on board, but I can’t make any promises.

The biggest single thing that’s happened since I took over was of course the floods. I want to pay tribute to the way in which Councillors, Council officers, officers of other public authorities, and members of the public have responded to this and worked together. It really has been a tribute to the people of Stockport and to you in this room. I want to pay particular tribute to the Councillors who represent the wards that have been affected. I have had lots of feedback from residents in those areas saying what a good job you have done in representing them, keeping them up to date and supporting them.

Councillor Booth (Liberal Democrat, Offerton) in relation to those issues you mentioned earlier where you weren’t satisfied or haven’t had a response from officers, if you want to e-mail me those outstanding issues I will chase them for you and make sure you get answers to all of those points.

We have commissioned an Independent Review into the possible causes of these floods, how the Council reacted, and what we can do to mitigate the impact of this moving forward. Secondly, we have agreed a package of financial support and thirdly, I have written to relevant Government Ministers for extra support. I’m not going to give you any more details on that now, as that would be stealing Councillor Bailey’s thunder and she would not thank me for it.

Lastly, I just want to say a few words about the EU Referendum. As with, I can confidently say, the majority of members in this room I’m very disappointed by the outcome of that referendum. I’m still going through the stage of grief, I’m not sure which stage I am at the moment, I still think I’m at the beginning. I am glad that Stockport voted convincingly to remain in the EU which for me was one of the bright sides of the outcome of the referendum.

I just want to say a few things about the outcome of the referendum. Firstly, in terms of the Executive and Local Government, this has cast into a great deal of uncertainty the funding that we receive from the EU. Between now and 2020, Greater Manchester is due to receive around €500 million in structural funds and that’s a combination of ESF Funds, relating to employment and skills, and also ERDF, in terms of infrastructure and there’s great uncertainty about that. It may be that the Government decides to give all of that money to the NHS in Greater Manchester instead, in which case we can make that trade off, but we’ll have to see about that.

Secondly, I want to just point to the increase in attacks based on peoples religion, nationality and skin colour over the past few couple of weeks. I recognise that this is only a very small minority of the people who voted to leave…so I don’t want to associate with this referendum. I do think it’s time to re-visit the pledge in opposition to discrimination that Group Leaders signed 2 years ago though, and to look at doing something ahead of the next Full Council meeting.

I do understand the reasons why people voted to leave. I do recognise why so many people in Stockport wanted to leave the EU including those people did it based on their personal circumstances and economic circumstances. I have to say that is due to things like structural changes in the economy over 30 years that all Governments have not done enough on, issues to do with housing, productivity skills, employment rights which are very weak and I think we need to do something about that as a Council and as a Combined Authority. That’s nothing to do with the EU but I think there is a lot that we can do [as a Council] to help those people.