OPPORTUNITIES to ask public questions of Newport's council leader are being stifled under current rules, the leader of the city's opposition has alleged.

Matthew Evans said the 15 minutes allotted for leader questions at full council meetings each month was barely enough for more than two councillors to make representations and receive answers.

He also claimed Labour councillors were asking generic "leading" questions such as "how wonderful is Malpas?", which then invited long answers from the council leader, eating into the allowed time.

But his attempt to bring in a new ruled limiting answers to two minutes was voted down this week, when Labour colleagues of leader Jane Mudd jumped to defend the current system, arguing that a time limit for answering questions was "counter-productive".

Speaking to the Argus after that heated debate in the council chamber, Cllr Evans called the current situation "the last nail in the coffin for Newport if we can't even have debate".

He claimed there had been "a gradual erosion of opportunities" for opposition councillors to question the leader, adding that it was "sad to see us going down that route".

During the council meeting, he was backed by independent councillor Allan Morris, who said: "If there has to be a limit on the time to ask a question, there should be a limit on the time to answer, just out of fairness, so the opposition sides have a chance to ask a question in council without being thwarted or timed out."

Kevin Whitehead, leader of the Newport Independent Party group, said Cllr Evans made a "valid point", adding that that if people "prattle on" while asking and answering questions, other councillors waiting their turn "will never get" a chance to speak.

He pointed out, however, that all councillors are "at liberty" to submit written questions to the leader or cabinet members at any time.

Labour councillor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, said he was "surprised" people wanted to limit the leader's time to answer questions, and called the move "counter-productive".

"Surely if you’re interested in the answer, and in the information you’re asking about, you don’t think to the person 'you’ve got just under two minutes to say that to me,'" he said.

His colleague John Reynolds said the time limit sounded "on the face of it... reasonable" but "a complicated question might need a very complicated, longer answer".

And Emma Stowell-Corten, also Labour, said "limiting an answer to two minutes simply isn’t correct or good enough for members of the public".

That was at odds with Cllr Morris, who suggested people were "afraid of answering questions".

"At the moment… we have three opposition parties," he said. "Very rarely do we get to a third question, and that’s because the answers are drawn out to fill up the time."

A Newport City Council spokesperson told the Argus "all councillors are able to submit questions to the leader and cabinet members at any time, so they do not have to wait for a full council meeting".

"Both the questions and the responses are then published on the council website so are in the public domain," the spokesperson added.