Oh dear. Craig Simmons’s letter stating that the Labour group on the county council had this year neglected to put in a budget seems to have touched a nerve with Cllr Brighouse and Cllr Tanner (Oxford Mail, February 16) The simple fact is that every year a political group should put in an independent free-standing budget proposal that has clear income and expenditure totals and costs out all the policy proposals that they are suggesting. The budgets are reviewed by the council’s professional accountants to ensure that the costings are correct and that, if passed, the policy could be implemented.

Every year the Greens, even though we only have a small number of councillors, do all the complicated work of putting forward an alternative budget. Our budget this year restores many of the Tory cuts and included new initiatives such as loft insulation schemes. Yes, it will be voted down by the Tories but it is important to challenge what the Tories are doing and to provide a progressive alternative.

The simple truth is that this year Labour could not get their act together in time and missed the deadline for submission. Anybody can write in the newspaper what they would like, but unless you put in a budget there is no official debate and in practice Labour stand for nothing. In fact, it is worse than nothing for they have effectively given up and are willing to stand and watch the Tories destroy local services.

The Greens will not stand idly by because we put our budget in on time. There will be a debate between the Greens and the Tories...all Labour can do is sit and watch their incompetence exposed.

David Williams, Oxford City Councillor (Green)