Welsh Lib Dem Assembly Member for Cardiff Central, Jenny Randerson AM has today lodged an official complaint amid concerns that the First Minister may have broken the Ministerial code when discussing school closures in Cardiff.
However, due to a strange quirk in the Ministerial code, Jenny had no option but to lodge her complaint to the First Minister himself, while suggesting in the strongest possible terms that he passed the complaint on to “a suitable individual” to investigate.
The complaint follows comments from Cardiff Labour Councillor, Ramesh Patel, in which he claimed Cardiff Council’s schools plans amounted to “ethnic cleansing.” Cllr Patel later apologised for the use of the phrase.
Rhodri Morgan himself then condemened proposed school closures as “ethnic polarisation.”
Concerns have now been raised that because the Education Minister has to approve all school reorganisation plans, the First Minister may have prevented her from doing so in an open and fair manner and thus broken the Ministerial code. By pre-judging her decision, through condemnation of the plans, Rhodri Morgan may have caused any decision to be legally unsteady.
More from Jenny’s press release below:
Jenny Randerson said: “Rhodri’s comments were made during First Minister’s Questions and therefore it can not be argued that he was speaking as Assembly Member for Cardiff West.
“Across Wales, Local Authorities of all political colours are struggling to deal with the extremely emotive and controversial issues of school reorganisation and the First Minister must act impartially to allow them to approach these issues in a calm and fair way.
“I have not taken this decision lightly, but I believe that this must stop. As a holder of high office, he has a duty to that office and to the people of Wales to not act in a way that is inflammatory, and not to pre-empt decisions that must be taken by his cabinet, which does of course operate under rules of collective responsibility.
“The First Minister may well have broken the Ministerial code so I have asked for an investigation.”
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