The leader of the country’s third largest local authority by population has defended spending taxpayers’ money giving free wreaths featuring the council’s crest to elected community leaders to lay at Remembrance events.

Councillor Carl Les said North Yorkshire Council was in effect giving an annual donation to the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, which amounted to a small fraction of the financial and in-kind support the authority gave to charitable and voluntary groups.

The leader of the Conservative authority, which is working to reduce an annual £48m black hole, was responding to criticism levelled by the lead of the authority’s Labour group, Councillor Steve Shaw Wright, who said councillors should be funding any wreaths they wished to lay.

Earlier this week council officers issued an invitation to councillors to order wreaths stating: “As in previous years we are going to be purchasing Remembrance Day wreaths for those of you who want to lay one on Remembrance Sunday.”

When asked how much the council had spent on Remembrance wreaths over the last three years, a spokeswoman said it could not give figures for before last year, when the council was formed.

She said in 2023, 49 of the 90 elected members had taken up the offer of a wreath, at a cost of around £1,225.

The spokeswoman added with two weeks until the deadline for taking orders, so far 35 councillors had requested wreaths this year, one of which would be used at the annual wreath laying ceremony at County Hall in Northallerton on Monday, November 11.

At last year’s event, Councillor David Ireton, the council’s then chairman, said: “It is important that we continue to remember those who have given their lives in conflict, making the ultimate selfless sacrifice for others.

“It is particularly pertinent at the moment that we remember, as we are all too aware of the currently unrest in various parts of the world.”

Coun Shaw Wright said he would make a contribution to the Poppy Appeal and that doing so was “a personal responsibility not a council one”.

He added: “However, if councillors wish to avail themselves of a free wreath that’s their decision.”

Coun Les said the wreaths were only offered to councillors who represented the authority at Remembrance events.

He said the council used taxpayers’ money for services from other charities, such as Citizens Advice, and many councillors used part of their annual £10,000  Locality Budget to boost North Yorkshire charities.

Coun Les said: “I think it’s only right that the council makes a contribution directly to the Poppy Appeal. If councillors want to pay for their own wreaths that’s entirely up to them, as indeed they buy their own poppy.

“If you see it as a cost to the council it’s perhaps misunderstanding that it’s a contribution to the charity which makes the wreaths. I don’t think anybody would object to the council making a donation to that charity. I’d be surprised if any taxpayer objected to that.”