A motion which will make Worcestershire County Council meetings shorter was passed by councillors this week.

But Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and independent councillors felt that it would make it harder to hold the Conservative administration to account.

Proposals by a cross-party working group (whose Labour party members didn’t attend meetings) suggested that there should be a time limit for discussion of motions of 90 minutes. And that motions should either be about the county council’s work, or on matters which “affect the county, in particular.”

The group also recommended that cabinet members ‘ reports be kept short and that 30 minutes should be the limit for questioning the cabinet member.

Motions and questions will also have to be submitted nine days before a meeting in order that they can be published in the agenda.

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group Councillor Liz Tucker proposed deferring a vote on the proposals as they wouldn’t help councillors. She said: “I’m against the way this council has stepped back from openness.”

New Labour group leader, Councillor Robin Lunn said that restricting questions to the Conservative cabinet would ‘restrict councillors’ effectiveness.

Independent councillor Charlie Hotham said restricting debates to 90 minutes per meeting meant, with 57 members and six meetings a year that each councillor had an average of nine minutes and 30 seconds to speak on important issues.

Councillor John Smith, cabinet member for health and wellbeing said: “We’re not trying to restrict debate at council meetings.” He said that the quality of questions lodged was often of “poor quality” and invited councillors to attend cabinet meetings if they wanted the opportunity to question its members.

The motion was passed by 37 votes to 14 as Conservative councillors backed it against the opposition of other parties and independents.