A heated debate erupted at the town hall over “discipline” and “removing democratic rights” during a motion about “limitations” towards councillors asking questions.

The motion was put by Cllr Martin Tighe, who represents Westhoughton and called on the council to address alleged “plans to limit the number of questions this council can ask during full council meetings. Or any other manner in which our democratic right to ask unlimited amounts of questions would be removed.”

But his claim at Wednesday night's full council meeting that the Labour council could be “attempting to limit the number of questions” or “limiting the amount of time of any exec member or leader” to answer said questions prompted a lively discussion amongst council members.

Council leader, Nick Peel argued that the Conservative party should not “lecture us on democracy” and assured the council that the labour leadership “has no plans to stop asking questions, Councillor Tighe, in fact we look forward to members asking them.”

Cllr Peel also added: “Martin Tighe has asked a good number of questions tonight, ironically, one of them being a question about us limiting the number of questions.

“He comes out with a very interesting point about his democratic right to ask questions, it absolutely is, and I will always defend that. I also defend the duty of other members to have the decency to listen to answers.

“You were the only group that didn’t stand up and stage a walkout in this chamber in response to the Labour councillors asking questions. I appreciate you weren’t there, but all of your front bench, along with their allies got up and walked out.

“Showing total disrespect for the mayor of Bolton and to all members in this chamber.

“So don’t lecture us on democracy and respect. This is about group discipline and the individual discipline of councillors to decide what is the best use of the limited time we’ve got in this chamber.

“Your group have 11 questions this evening, that’s one third, yet you make up 25% of all councillors. We are 42% of this entire chamber but have asked less than 10% of the questions.

“We need to reconvene and to bring the members together and look at the process of how we run this council. There are many people who will argue we should take motions before questions; others will want to keep it as it is.

“I think this structure needs to be re looked at, because clearly this is not working.”