Localism Bill

My Lords, I thank everybody for the very kind compliments. It is unusual to hear them, so I am basking a little bit. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, who fought very hard with the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, to make sure that we took this matter on board. He has been very persistent and was gracious in saying that he will not move his amendment. We think that these procedures will have a real impact on the conduct of local councillors. While not spelling out how councils should put a scheme in place, it is clear that they have to. They must have some means of dealing with complaints. It seems almost inescapable that if you are going to do that, you are probably going to have to have some sort of committee structure to deal with them. That would be fine if local authorities decide for themselves, but to be fair and independent, they will need to have a balance. I do not think that anybody has misunderstood. However, I want to make it clear that whatever the system and whether local authorities have independent members in that committee structure, they will still be required to have a further independent member who will act outside the committee system and will have to be referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, asked about the monitoring of the process. From the Government’s point of view, there will not be any further monitoring. It is possible that the Local Government Association will want to know what is going on, but unless things are very different from what we anticipate, it will be up to local authorities themselves to see their systems through and to make sure that this structure works. I have been asked questions about representation on outside bodies. I think the answer must be that where the council is appointing somebody to another body, if there is a complaint about the councillor, the council is still responsible for them so it would be able to take action against them. The other aspect that must be clear is that this has to be a transparent process. Each step must be open to comment and it must be dealt with openly. If there is a complaint that results in a warning or a letter, that must be clear so that local people who have elected these councillors know exactly what has happened or can find out. Some of the sanction will therefore be imposed by the electorate. They will know that somebody has transgressed or offended before they chose to re-elect him. The day-to-day monitoring will be carried out under the transparency of the decision-making process. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned the decision on allegations. I hope that I have covered that. If not, I will talk to him subsequently. I think this system will work. It leaves a big localist element, but it has structure and elements that were not there before. I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this debate. Amendment 4 agreed. Clause 28 : Voluntary codes of conduct Amendments 5 to 9 Clause 28 : Voluntary codes of conduct Amendments 5 to 9 Moved by