Councillor Claire Holland is set to be the new leader of Lambeth Council. Lambeth Labour councillors elected Cllr Holland, currently serving as deputy leader and cabinet member for sustainable transport, environment and clean air, on Monday (May 24). Cllr Holland, who has represented Oval ward since 2014, will officially take the reigns at a special meeting of Lambeth’s full council on June 2. She has been a legal aid children’s lawyer for over 20 years and has lived in Lambeth since 1995. The new leader has promised that Lambeth will be “relentlessly focused on tackling poverty, inequality, poor and insecure housing and violence affecting young people and women and girls”.
The leader of Lambeth Council has “vehemently denied” allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted touching, according to a report in The Guardian on May 16. The story revealed that leader Cllr Jack Hopkins is being investigated by Labour for the allegations, which it says were made to the party by a woman in March this year. The news came a week after Cllr Hopkins announced he was stepping down as leader. In a move that was a shock to many, Lambeth Council released a statement on May 10 in which the councillor said he believed it was time to “hand over the reins to a new leader” as the “roadmap out of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions progresses”.
An extra £1.5 million is set to be added to the council tax support scheme for 2022/23, which is expected to reduce bills for 7,000 eligible households “with most of those seeing their bill reduced to nil”. At the council meeting the leader of the opposition, Green Cllr Jonathan Bartley, reiterated his concerns that the added support would not come into effect until 2022/23 and that the council plans to raise funds through enforcement. Cllr Andy Wilson, cabinet member for finance and performance, previously said there is a precedent for having to go through a long consultation before the extra support is introduced. But he said between now and the outcome of the consultation the council is putting forward funding to “essentially create the same amount of relief for residents as they would receive under the new council tax support scheme”.