Localism Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of a council—hence my straying into jargon that we apply in council debates—a member of the standards committee, which meets later this week, and vice president of the Local Government Association. I join other of your Lordships in extending warm congratulations to the Minister who is clearly responsible for, and indeed embodies, an outbreak of sweet reasonableness over this issue that we hope to be pursued by some of her ministerial colleagues when we come to other legislation after this evening’s proceedings. Like other noble Lords, I believe that there are issues that one might have wished to have taken a little further. A mandatory code would have perhaps been preferable. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, indicated, in all probability we will end up with something like that. I hope that the Local Government Association, with others, will draft something that will be useful and adopted by many local authorities. It is very important that this independent role should be reflected. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that mandatory committees, perhaps with that independent element, would have been preferable. Nevertheless, we have gone a long way forward since the original Bill and our earlier discussions on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. For that we are clearly indebted to the noble Baroness the Minister. I am not quite so sure about the sanctions that are available and whether they are sufficient to meet some of the more serious cases. A huge range of cases has applied at national and local level. I note that people from all political groups have transgressed, sometimes quite significantly. A prominent Conservative ex-leader of a council was found to have leaked a confidential document related to a land sale and was suspended for 28 days by his council. A Labour deputy group leader was also found to have breached confidentiality in relation to a compulsory purchase order. These are not insignificant issues, and they are not personal issues either. He was suspended for three months by his local authority. A Lib Dem councillor was suspended for six months for bullying and disrespectful behaviour at a training session. One of the worst cases was an independent borough councillor who had undermined and humiliated the council’s press officer systematically in front of other councillors until she began to cry and had to leave the room. That is intolerable behaviour in any circumstances and is certainly not consonant with holding a public office. A suspension for three months took place in that case. However, I wonder whether suspension from a committee or even removal from outside bodies is necessarily sufficient for the more serious types of case. We clearly cannot pursue this further tonight, but it may be that over time, and bearing in mind that we need to see how this works in practice, we might have to revisit that element. Another place has quite draconian powers of discipline. I am not quite sure that they are quite as draconian in this place, although there are matters currently under consideration of a very grave nature and one hopes that one would not see anything like that again in your Lordships' House. It may be therefore—given that the national framework has been dismantled and that there may still, unfortunately, be a few cases where really serious misconduct occurs—that one must wonder whether the sanctions currently available and reflected in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, are adequate. We have clearly moved on and I am grateful and pleased that we have achieved this. I congratulate the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and thank them for the work they have done on this matter.