Cllr. Addenbrooke moved, and Cllr. Lari seconded, under Standing Order 42, to suspend Standing Order 30, to allow up to eight minutes for speeches by the Leader of the Council and Leader of the Opposition Group. This was carried.

The Mayor invited the Leader of the Council to address the meeting. The Leader then rose to speak:

‘Mr Mayor, there is only one place I can start tonight. As the Chief Executive outlined at the start of this meeting, last week this Council alongside Westminster City Council and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham was the victim of a large cyber-attack.

Before I talk about what this means for our residents and what our plan is for the next stage of recovery. I wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to our staff. Our teams have stepped up and faced this challenge head-on, working literally day and night. Our IT team has been fighting back, investigating the cause, and assessing the impact. I am incredibly proud of the way that our staff have responded. It shows the very best of this Council and reminds me of why this place is so special.

As we recover, we will have set backs this is a complex issue, but people are working hard to overcome challenges and keep this Council running as well as it possibly can. Our main aims will be to support residents who need us fix things as quickly as possible and be transparent with the public on where we are on this recovery journey.

We have written to everybody in the borough – and our communications will continually be updated as we know more –please do keep checking our website for the very latest updates. We have a plan but there is a long way to go on this – our advisors are telling us to prepare for weeks of disruption but in some cases it could be months.

Mr Mayor, being given the news that we are under attack, is what no Leader wants to hear. But, like any public body, there was always that possibility. To counter this threat, we had invested significantly in our digital, data, and technology services and had up to date cyber defence systems. That system worked well mitigating the damage. Part of the response to an attack is to shut off systems, taking them offline ourselves and away from the reach of the attacker. Because we believe the attack started on K&C infrastructure, we are likely to be hit the hardest and will take longer to recover as a result.

Mr Mayor, there are three things I can announce tonight.

One, through our ‘gold,’ ‘silver,’ and ‘bronze’ structures, we are establishing a Cyber Recovery Team with staff from across the council. It will include staff in IT, experts in data and in resilience as well as senior staff leading on details of departmental recovery.

Two, our efforts are supported by some of the best cyber experts in the UK. We have brought in NCC Group to advise and support us. They have huge experience, helping the British Library recover from Cyber Attack, and many other local authorities and universities who had been hit previously.

Three, I want to say a huge thank you to staff from Westminster and H&F – and other London Boroughs – who have been supporting us, with IT teams working together to fix issues.

When the time is right, my intention will be to establish a review into what happened and work with the Information Commissioner’s Office and National Cyber Security Centre, alongside the leaders of Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham to understand how our joint infrastructure was affected and if there is anything we can do, jointly, in future to protect ourselves even more than we did on this occasion.

Mr Mayor, we are certain we are following all the right steps. Our resilience plans were well tested, and we were very effectively able to stand-up a gold, silver and bronze structure, ensuring that we had operational grip of the incident from the very beginning.

We activated our business continuity procedures with teams using planned workarounds for systems that were down. Many of the key services our residents rely on such as our twice weekly bin collections our parks and street cleaning are continuing as before – and our ambition is to keep as much on track as possible so that residents notice little difference or only suffer minor delays. The essential functions of the Council will continue. With the business continuity procedures working well, the key question on my mind was whether any data was copied.

Mr Mayor, I am absolutely committed to the Duty of Candour this Council adopted. Trust is hard won and easily lost, and I felt that how we responded publicly to this incident was a real test of the culture of transparency, compassion and care that I had sought to foster since I became leader and indeed since the Grenfell Tragedy.

I was clear with the team that if there had been a data breach, we needed to disclose it as soon as possible. Thanks to their round the clock work, we were able to do this on Friday last week and give residents guidance and advice. We confirmed a breach had occurred, but that we still had access to the information that had been copied. We were honest and upfront. We outlined we did not know whether the data copied contains any personal or financial details that might affect residents, customers, or service users. And that we couldn’t rule out the possibility of it ending up in the public domain.

Mr Mayor, as a resident myself. I can completely understand that many will be concerned by this. That is why we wanted to get the information out as soon as possible and working with the National Cyber Security Centre, we have provided residents with advice on how to protect themselves. It is also why we are working as quickly as possible to understand what data has been copied and why.

Mr Mayor, I don’t have all the answers tonight. Responding to these incidents takes time, and it is right that we let the professionals get on with their jobs. But let me be crystal clear: this remains an incredibly serious incident. We expect significant disruption to continue for at least two weeks and the ramifications to rumble on for months after that. We will continue to tackle this incident with honesty, professionalism and absolute determination. Our priority is to protect our residents, restore our systems and ensure that services remain resilient. We will keep Members and the public updated.’

This is a difficult moment – but with the dedication of our staff, the patience of our residents, and the support of everyone in this chamber. We will come through it stronger. Thank you.’

The Mayor invited the Leader of the Opposition to address the meeting. Cllr Ali then rose to speak:

‘Mr Mayor, as you have heard, our Council has been under a cyber-attack since the beginning of last week. This attack has affected several services, including a planning meeting I was due to attend yesterday. Residents have contacted us because they could not pay rent or access essential services. I have reassured them and have raised with the Chief Executive that no one will be penalised for faults not of their making.

The Council is continuing to work closely with Westminster City Council, Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the Metropolitan Police, central government, the National Cyber Security Centre, and other agencies.

I want to thank the officers handling this incident, and the Chief Executive, for keeping me updated as Leader of the Opposition.

Mr Mayor, after Grenfell, the council leadership and all councillors pledged to listen to residents. Yet many residents tell us they continue to feel ignored — particularly regarding the Kensal Gasworks development, approved by the Conservative majority councillors.

We, the Labour Group, support building new homes in the borough, and Kensal Gasworks was an important opportunity. But the scheme approved by the Council provides an inadequate level of social, affordable, and keyworker housing.

It fails to meet both the borough’s housing policies and the GLA requirement of at least 35% affordable housing. With more than 3,000 households on the waiting list, it is unacceptable that a development of this scale will deliver fewer than 20% homes for social, affordable, or keyworker use. This shortfall undermines efforts to tackle homelessness and housing insecurity in the borough.

Mr Mayor, the Fair Funding Review aims to return local authority funding to a formula that reflects need, cost and local resources.

As Leader of the Opposition, I have continually lobbied government not to see RBKC only as a wealthy borough able to absorb cuts, but as the Grenfell borough and one of the most unequal places in the UK. I want to thank local MPs for Kensington & Bayswater and Chelsea & Fulham for their support.

Inequality in our borough has worsened since 2021 due to cost-of-living pressures and long-standing housing challenges.

The ONS Index of Multiple Deprivation shows that our poorest wards, including Golborne and Notting Dale, remain in the bottom tenth nationally, with little improvement since 2019.

Kensington & Chelsea is among the boroughs most affected by the Fair Funding Review, facing a projected £82 million reduction in central government funding over five years — around £16 million per year.

Although this is significant, 81% of council income comes from Council Tax and Business Rates. With Kensington and Chelsea Council Labour leadership after next year’s local elections — we can navigate the upcoming difficult period. Council Tax: £108.6m (49%). Business Rates including Revenue Support Grant: £71.5m (32%). Social Care Grant, New Homes Bonus & others: £26.6m (12%). Additional grants: £4.8m (2%). Other. Collection Fund adjustments: £2m (1%). Council Tax. A 5% annual increase from 2026. A Council Tax premium on second homes — something Labour proposed last year, and which RBKC is currently the only London borough not to charge. Savings Programme. Target: £22m in savings which is £6m more than is required simply to balance the books, yet another Conservative austerity-led budget will be proposed next year.

Mr Mayor, let me end with some good news from the Autumn Budget. I am pleased that the Labour government is supporting businesses and tackling child poverty by scrapping the unfair two-child benefit cap introduced by the previous Conservative government.

More than 1,200 children in Kensington & Chelsea will benefit from its removal, and nationally this reform will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade.

The government is also delivering cost-of-living support including £150 off energy bills, freezing prescription charges and rail fares, and raising the real Living Wage - benefitting 200,000 people across London including Kensington Chelsea.’