Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 236: 236: Clause 184, page 124, line 22, leave out from ““include”” to end and insert ““the principle that the conduct of a member or co-opted member in their private capacity is not covered by this Part of this Act except where it has resulted in a criminal conviction which is directly relevant to the performance of the official functions of the”” The noble Baroness said: This more substantive amendment is designed to give the Minister a chance to clarify the situation regarding the private behaviour of elected members in terms of the code of conduct. As we have already heard from my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the most high profile case of private behaviour being used as grounds for bringing the council into disrepute concerns Ken Livingstone, but there have been a number of others. As we know, Mr Livingstone’s case resulted in no action being taken, but there have been cases where councillors have been suspended from office. I wish to place on record that it should be understood what a significant step this is. First, the individual concerned may have their reputation tarnished by such a finding, which will inevitably be used against them when they stand for election in the future; and, secondly, they may suffer a significant financial penalty through the loss of their allowances. But, for me, the most important aspect is that when a councillor is suspended from office, the local area loses its democratically elected representative. In a single-member ward, this may mean that an area has no elected councillor. If we are going to have a system which results in this kind of interference in the democratic process, the principles and the processes which underlie it have to be absolutely watertight. There are significant problems with the Government’s desire to see the private behaviour of a councillor used as grounds for suspension from office, and there is a significant question mark about whether it would infringe the provisions of the Human Rights Act in relation to the right to a private life. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill refer to the fact that there is a potential conflict with Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on this aspect. In professions which have sanctions, it is usual that the sanction applies only to its members’ professional conduct—for example, doctors being struck off and so on—and it is difficult to understand why councillors are treated as a separate category in which it would appear that what they do for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is seen as being part of their job as a councillor. My second area of concern is that a charge of bringing a council into disrepute comes with a certain amount of subjectivity. I do not believe that the processes of the Standards Board in enforcing the code of conduct has been conducive to getting to the bottom of whether something does bring a council into disrepute. To a certain extent, disrepute is in the eye of the beholder, and we have heard from my noble friend Lord Greaves how what is for one person a fairly robust discussion might be seen as something much worse than that by another. If—heaven forbid—we were ever to have a council run by the BNP and my noble friend Lord Greaves took a fairly robust stand against it, he could technically be said to be bringing that council into disrepute. So we have to be careful about this question. The process is quasi-judicial, the penalties are significant and people may have to resort to expensive legal advice to help them through it. Our amendments therefore seek to remove the private behaviour of an individual from the scope of the code of conduct unless the activity in question—this is an important caveat—is a criminal one. For me, there is a combination of doubt about whether or not private conduct should be included in the process because of the potential infringement of the Human Rights Act. There is a question about whether the disrepute can be judged sufficiently objectively and about the procedures being carried out in a kind of legal framework, but without many of its safeguards, combined with the severity of the penalty. I beg to move.