A Conservative councillor who walked out of a motion debate at a recent meeting after accusing Labour members of "grandstanding" has put forward proposals calling for future motions to have a clear objective and be relevant to residents.

At December's full meeting of Stoke-on-Trent City Council a motion put forward by Labour members condemning no-fault evictions and calling for a letter to be written to the Government sparked a mass walk-out by Tory members.

Dave Evans said the Labour group did not need the council's permission to send a letter to the Government because the party was currently in charge of the administration. And he added that debating whether or not to send a letter while the council was facing unprecedented challenges "seems a waste of officers' time".

At this month's full council meeting (January 25) Councillor Evans presented a motion of his own, He assured fellow councillors: "I will stay in the chamber for the entirety of the debate this time."

At this month's full council meeting, which took place on 25 January, Councillor Evans presented a motion of his own (Nub News).

His motion, which was backed by fellow council members at Thursday's meeting and did not spark any walk-outs, calls on the Constitutional Working Group to meet "to examine the relevance and subject nature of motions submitted and how motions can be made more relevant to residents of this city and the business of this council". There was also a request for the group's findings to be published and debated at a future full council meeting "under the relevant regular report on the constitution".

Councillor Evans said: "I hope this is treated as a friendly motion – it's meant in that vein. I'm not saying any one party has been guilty of doing political motions for the sake of it, I think every party does it quite frankly.

"I think it's something that is inevitably going to be part of our discourse. But this motion seeks to have a conversation about how we make our time in this chamber a bit more beneficial for all – "I've often said to candidates in local elections 'its OK, it's only six meetings a year' and we've all heard that old chestnut. It is only a handful of full council meetings per year and therefore the time we have in the chamber is quite finite.

"We only have a limited time here to talk about some of the key issues that affect our residents. And that's why it's important we use the agenda time we do have here as wisely as possible."

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