Last updated 10:26, Friday, 26 September 2008

The fashionable view is that it doesn’t matter who runs the county council. Politicians are all the same, aren’t they? Stewart Young begs to differ.

Stewart Young

The Labour man says that, had he been in charge for the past seven years, your council tax bill would be lower.

And Carlisle’s new central academy school would be built in Harraby, not the city centre.

Mr Young, 51, was the county’s last Labour leader in 1999.

He was in office for only 13 months before a Conservative/Liberal Democrat pact sent Labour into opposition.

The collapse of that alliance led to his re-election as leader two weeks ago.

This time his tenure may be even shorter. Elections next summer may alter the council’s political complexion yet again.

He sounds like a man in a hurry. Top of his list of priorities is council tax.

He said: “There’s a balance to be struck between the level of council tax and investment in services.

“I don’t think the last administration got that right.

“They gave us Cumbria’s first double-digit council-tax rise, 11.9 per cent [in 2003], and significant rises since.”

The projected increase for next year is 3.5 per cent but Mr Young thinks that is too high.

“At the moment the public are suffering cost increases from all sorts of things, food and fuel to name two,” he said.

“We have a duty to keep tax increases as low as we can.”

One factor driving up council tax is an equal-pay claim brought by 3,000 female cooks, cleaners and care workers.

The council has been hoarding cash to meet the bill, expected to be more than £50m.

Mr Young wants to fast track the process, partly out of a duty of care to the women and partly so that the council knows where it stands.

He said: “This issue was around when we were last in control and it is still around.

“There has been endless litigation through the employment tribunal system and the courts but we don’t seem to have made much progress.”

His solution is to set up an all-party working group to talk directly with the unions.

He added: “I want to explore whether we can do a negotiated settlement although I understand the legal complexities.”

Mr Young was born in and grew up in Carlisle.

He was among the first intake when Morton School opened in 1968.

He went on to graduate in philosophy and statistics at Aberystwyth – handy skills for a council leader, perhaps – then returned to Carlisle to work for accountancy firms Armstrong Watson and Dodd & Co.

His partner Valerie Fisher is a tax professional. The couple live in Denton Holme in Carlisle.

Mr Young’s political awakening was the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1979.

He said: “You could say she inspired me to enter politics.

“I was horrified at the prospect of a Conservative government following policies that were inevitably going to create mass unemployment, so I joined the Labour Party.”

He became the county councillor for Upperby in 1989.

Mr Young describes himself as “centre left” and “more old Labour than new”.

He didn’t vote for Tony Blair as party leader in 1994, preferring Margaret Beckett.

And you don’t have to read very far between the lines to see that he is no great fan of Gordon Brown either.

He said: “I don’t support all the ideas the Government comes up with.

“I’m not a big supporter of academies, for example.

“The Government lacks a narrative at the moment but there’s time to turn it around before the general election.”

Mr Young bemoans the way that new Labour has chipped away at the powers of local government. One example being Carlisle Renaissance, the regeneration plan set up by the city and county councils but now run by a private sector-led board.

He said: “The complete lack of progress on Renaissance has been embarrassing, despite huge sums of money being spent on consultants.

“Now we get our information from reading The Cumberland News that significant parts of the original proposals [for Rickergate] have been dropped.

“I wasn’t a supporter of the proposals for Rickergate.

“I would have liked to see proposals for the south end of Botchergate, Caldewgate and the area around the top of Warwick Road instead.”

He has doubts, too, about the Renaissance board’s enthusiasm for building the University of Cumbria’s new HQ and campus in Viaduct Estate.

“Viaduct Estate is a cul-de-sac opening out onto the James Street junction,” he said.

“They will need to convince me that they can deal with the traffic consequences of putting all that activity on that site.

“There hasn’t been enough done to support the university in its aspirations for Carlisle.

“The view of county councillors [of all parties] in Carlisle was that we didn’t want the Richard Rose Central Academy on the St Aidan’s site.

“We would have built it at Harraby then offered the St Aidan’s site to the university. That decision has been taken now and we can’t reverse it.”

There are a few more big decisions facing the county council between now and next year’s elections.

It has yet to approve a £400m contract to appoint private firm Shanks to handle waste disposal. The agreement was drawn up by the previous Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration but Mr Young says it is far from being a done deal.

Then there is the thorny matter of getting the 2009-10 budget and council tax approved given that Labour, although the largest party, does not have a majority on the hung council.

Hopes of consensus appear slim given that the Conservatives have refused to serve in a cabinet led by Mr Young and the Liberal Democrats say they won’t unless the Tories do.

Mr Young said: “Feelings were running high at the council meeting two weeks ago.

“When the dust settles they may take a different view.

“There are vacant places in the cabinet and if they wish to take them up they can do so.”

Even if the Conservatives stick to their guns, Mr Young believes he can still be an effective council leader.

“Labour ran a minority administration on the council from 1985 to 1997,” he said. “We have experience of negotiating to get our policies through.”

There is no doubt that Stewart Young is respected by his opponents.

One senior Liberal Democrat described him, privately of course, as “the most able politician on the council”.

His name is often touted as a future Labour MP for Carlisle when Eric Martlew retires.

But he said: “Certainly not. I’ve never had ambitions in that direction. Being an MP must be a difficult and thankless task.”

That’s refreshingly clear for a politician. David Miliband take note.