Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My noble friend did not say that this is party policy. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked how we would deal with things if we did not have a Standards Board for England, but it is only seven years old. The world kept on turning, although there were problems of conduct that led the Government to believe, possibly in response to difficulties in Labour-run authorities as well as in others, that some sort of standards regime, such as the one they put in place, was required. There are three powerful influences on how a councillor conducts himself. There are the influence of his colleagues and the issue of reputation, which are much better dealt with within the authority by his colleagues, and there are elections. The Standards Board for England has developed a culture that will be hard to change. It is pity that as we move towards local determination, which I strongly support, it still has some involvement. It will be hard to change that culture. As the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said, the board deals with sensitive matters, but it has not always dealt with them sensitively. With sanctions up to and including disqualification from office—being barred from standing for office—this is serious stuff. One of my colleagues on the London Assembly said, ““Hasn’t everybody been referred to the Standards Board at some point?””, which shows how it is regarded. I have not been referred, but I have frequently thought, ““There but for the grace of God go I””, because that has been overdone. My noble friend asked whether it has made a difference and went on to say that he would not talk about the London Borough of Islington case because we could be here all day. I declare an interest because I was a witness in that case. It made a difference in the toll that it took on those who were involved—the councillors who were referred and an individual who was a third party—and it took a huge toll financially, which was eventually largely paid by the council tax payer. The Mayor of London case is the other big case, although a number of small cases have gone into folklore. The Mayor of London case was separate. The adjudication panel that took the final decision was largely responsible for moving the whole thing on because it was so absurd. It was seen to be absurd by the London Assembly, which had unanimously called on the Mayor to apologise over the comments in question, but felt that to suspend him was an absurd reaction and completely over the top. That was not the adjudication panel or the Standards Board, but it was part and parcel of the same cultural approach. As we have heard, we have monitoring officers, some of whom are overzealous about ward issues. They may possibly be overanxious and their zealotry may come from anxiety about what they should be doing. My noble friend mentioned planning. The standards code will reduce that problem a little, but it does not deal with balancing conflicts of interests with proper ward representation. An awful lot is wrong with the system, and a lot of it stems from the way in which the Standards Board set itself up and went about this. It would be better if it went, which is not to say that councillors should misbehave; that is not what we are saying at all.