HL Deb 03 February 2000 vol 609 cc372-81

(".—(1) Every relevant authority must establish and maintain a register of interests of the members and co-opted members of the authority.

(2) The mandatory provisions of the model code applicable to each relevant authority ("the mandatory provisions") must require the members and co-opted members of each authority to register in that authority's register maintained under subsection (1) such financial and other interests as are specified in the mandatory provisions.

(3) The mandatory provisions must also—

  1. (a) require any member or co-opted member of a relevant authority who has an interest specified in the mandatory provisions under subsection (2) to disclose that interest before taking part in any business of the authority relating to that interest.
  2. (b) make provision for preventing or restricting the participation of a member or co-opted member of a relevant authority in any business of the authority to which an interest disclosed under paragraph (a) relates.

(4) Any participation by a member or co-opted member of a relevant authority in any business which is prohibited by the mandatory provisior.s is not a failure to comply with the authority's code of conduct if the member or co-opted member has acted in accordanx with a dispensation from the prohibition granted by the authority's standards committee in accordance with regulations made under subsection (5).

(5) The Secretary of State may prescribe in regulations the circumstances in which standards committees may grant dispensations under subsection (4).

(6) Every register maintained under this section must be published and made available for public inspection.

(7) The interests which may be specified under subsection (2) in relation to a member Dr co-opted member of a relevant authority may include any interests of that member's spouse or partner or any member of that member's household.

(8) In this section "partner", in relation to a member or co-opted member of a relevant authority, means a person to whom the member is not married but with whom the member lives as husband or wife.

(9) The duty of a relevant authority under subsection (1) is to be discharged by the monitoring officer of the relevant authority.")

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 359 introduces a new clause to replace the current Clause 53. It sets out important details of how we intend the new ethical framework to operate. In particular, it gives the monitoring officer a clear duty to set up and maintain a public register of members' interests. It also makes provision for the model code of conduct to cover the registration and declaration of interests.

In addition, the new clause enables the standards committee rather than the Secretary of State to grant dispensations for members to participate in business where they have an interest, subject to regulations issued by the Secretary of State. We believe that this is a significant and sensible delegation to those who are best placed to decide such issues so long as there is clear guidance on interpretation.

The amendment also widens the definition of interests that need to be registered and declared to include those of the spouse, partner or any person in that member's household. We believe that this is necessary to take account of the increasing diversity of society today. Bringing the declaration and registration of interests within the model code of conduct will mean. that for the first time we will have a single document that clearly sets out a member's duties. One of the key aims of the new framework is to remove the plethora of primary legislation, regulations and guidance that make up the current framework, frequently causing uncertainty, confusion and doubt as to how councillors should behave. The provisions of new Clause 53 should go a long way to clarifying the situation. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 359, Amendment No. 359A: Line 24. after ("may") insert (", after consultation with such representatives of local government as he considers appropriate,").

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 359A requires the Secretary of State to consult with representatives or local governmern before making prescriptions in regulations —in this case, as to the circumstances in which standards committees may grant dispensations. It may be something of a knee-jerk reaction on my part but I feel that as a matter of general practice, where the Secretary of Stale is making regulations affecting local government, he should be required to consult with local government first. It may well be that the noble Lord will assure me that this will be done. As we have said on previous occasions, we are legislating for every Secretary of State, not only the current one. Assurances front the Minister as to how the Government intend to proceed would be helpful. I beg to move.

Baroness Hanham

I speak to Amendment No. 359, in particular to subsection (7) of the proposed new clause. 1 appreciate that the Minister is struggling to ensure that it is inclusive, but all local authorities may struggle with "member's household". Where does one start and finish with "member's household"? Is the nanny included? Is the stepdaughter who is staying for a short time included? Is the fiance who is living there for a year included? It is a very all-embracing phrase. I appreciate the intention behind it, but intentions are not good enough in legislation. We have to be specific so that people are not casting around subsequently for the meaning.

Lord Whitty

As far as concerns the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I understand that we need to be reassured that representatives of local government will be consulted. As she rightly said, this is provided for in various parts of the Bill, particularly in Clause 34(3) and Clause 35(4), where the Secretary of State has to consult before making any order on general principles or on the code of conduct.

Government assurances in this area should be enough for the noble Baroness. However, I am not entirely clear that the provisions in the Bill on consultation will explicitly cover this particular requirement. I shall check on the situation to see whether it would be sensible to specify what is requested on the face of the Bill or in some other relevant place in the Bill. I thank the noble Baroness for her suggestion. Perhaps I may take it away and consider it.

Baroness Hamwee

I am very happy with the Minister's reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Whitty

I have not yet replied to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. I take the points she made. Although there is a definition of "partner"— which some may feel is even more difficult to define— the definition of "household" is not in the Bill. Once again, perhaps the noble Baroness will permit me to take the point away, look at it and perhaps write to her.

Baroness Hanham

I should he grateful.

Baroness Hamwee

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 359A, as an amendment to Amendment No. 359, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment No. 359 agreed to.

Clause 54 agreed to.

Clause 55 [Interpretation of Part III]:

Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 360 to 361: Page 33, line 37, at end insert— (""co-opted member" has the meaning given by section 34(6),"). Page 33, line 44, at end insert— (""interim case tribunal" has the meaning given by section 50(1A),"). Page 34, leave out lines 1 and 2.

On Question, amendments agreed to.

Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 361A: Page 34. line 2, at end insert— (""member" is to be construed as including the elected mayor, if any, of a relevant authority,").

The noble Lord said: This amendment can be dealt with in a countable number of seconds because we have already dealt with this matter, at least in principle. Clause 55 deals with interpretation, and an elected mayor, to be a member, should be included in the interpretation. I think that we have covered the matter elsewhere. Unless my memory is seriously adrift, I recall discussing this specific issue earlier this week. I beg to move.

Lord Whitty

The noble Lord is correct. We passed an amendment to Clause 25 to the Bill which provided that an elected mayor of an authority is to be treated for the purposes of local government legislation as a member and councillor of the authority. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by that explanation.

Lord Dixon-Smith

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 362: Page 34. line 12. at end insert— ("(2) In relation to a parish council. the functions of a monitoring officer under any provisions of this Part are to be discharged by the monitoring officer of the district council or unitary county council which is the responsible authority in relation to that parish council; and any reference in this Part to the monitoring officer of a relevant authority which is a parish council is to be construed accordingly. (3) Subsections (12) and (13) of section (Standards committees or sub-committees for parish councils) apply for the purposes of subsection (2) of this section as they apply for the purposes of that section.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 55, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 62 agreed to.

[Amendment No. 362A not moved.]

Clause 63 agreed to.

Clauses 56 and 57 agreed to.

Clause 58 [Power to specify a scheme for elections]:

Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 362B: Page 35, line 11, leave out from ("order") to end of line 13.

The noble Baroness said: This amendment takes us to the part of the Bill dealing with the options for elections, there being a number of schemes. Under Clause 58 the Secretary of State has the power to make orders for schemes for elections under any of the options set out in the Bill.

My amendment seeks some clarification as to what is proposed. Clause 58(2) provides for a council to be specified, either as being, a principal council … specified by name in the order",

or a council,

falling within any description of principal council specified in the order".

I tabled the amendment in order to ask the Minister to clarify how the Government intend to proceed beyond what will be on the face of the Bill.

First, are individual authorities to be able to apply to the Secretary of State to change arrangements on an individual basis? I am interested in how the arrangements the Government envisage will compare with what happened following the Local Government Act 1972, when districts were given the choice to go for all-out elections or elections by thirds; and also, after the reorganisation following the 1992 Act, when unitary authorities were given a choice.

Secondly, I confess that I am unclear as to what that will mean in practice for particular authorities. How should authorities deal with periodic electoral reviews? Some, of course, are going through them at present or will be doing so shortly. Should they be proposing arrangements to fit the current criteria or to reflect the Government's intentions?

Thirdly, I ask the Minister for clarification of the role of the Local Government Commission for England. At present it makes recommendations to the Secretary of State on those issues. What is to be its role in the future?

Finally, how do the Government envisage that the timing of elections for directly elected mayors and cabinets—if there are to be such—will slot in as part of the overall process? The mayor, as we have just heard, is to be treated as a councillor, although for certain purposes that will perhaps be limited. Will the mayor stand for election at the same time as the councillors? Will there be a deliberate attempt to alternate the process? Where does local choice fit in? I hope that the Minister will assist with all those issues. I beg to move.

Lord Whitty

I gather that the noble Baroness is seeking some clarification of what lies behind Clause 58 rather than pursuing her amendment. The intention of the amendment is to prevent an order under the clause from applying a new scheme of elections to any council falling within a description of councils specified in the order. On the face of it, the amendment would appear to have such an effect, but in practice, it would make little difference to the exercise of that power, since an order could simply list all the councils

by name instead. For example, a provision could be used to specify all district councils in a particular county. Therefore, the amendment does not achieve its intended purpose.

However, the questions that the noble Baroness raised were more substantive. She asked whether local authorities would be able to take the initiative and to apply to the Secretary of State to change to a different scheme of elections. The drafting of the provisions would in no way preclude a local authority or group of local authorities from making a request to the Secretary of State to make an order under those clauses. However, they would not require the Secretary of State to act upon any such request, just as he is not required to comply with requests under current legislation; for example, requests from shire districts wishing to move between thirds and all-out elections. They may certainly take the initiative, but the Secretary of State would not be required to enact their request.

The noble Baroness asked about the role of the Local Government Commission. It will be required to have regard to the frequency of elections when it goes through its process of undertaking a review of the electoral arrangements of any local authority in the normal process. It is our intention that, once an order under Part IV has been made in respect of an authority, it will not then be open to the Commission to recommend a different scheme of elections. Clearly, it would not be appropriate for the Commission to be able to recommend a scheme different from the one already provided for under such an order.

There is no timetable on the face of the Bill and movement down that road is not necessarily an immediate government preoccupation. Nevertheless, we need those powers to improve the frequency of elections as we move into the reform of local government. It is therefore unlikely that the first batch of mayoral elections following the earlier provisions of the Bill will interfere with the process of changing from one system to another under those clauses.

The noble Baroness asked about periodic electoral reviews. It is clear that the current periodic electoral reviews cannot reflect provisions under the scheme until we move to enacting orders under the scheme. There will not be confusion on that matter in the immediate future. It may be some time before orders are made under the provisions. Nevertheless, it is important that the provisions are in the Bill. I hope that, following that clarification, the noble Baroness will he prepared to withdraw the amendment.

5.15 p.m.

Baroness Hamwee

I realise that I should have done the Minister the courtesy of explaining what I was going to ask before Committee stage began. I appreciate that my questions are quite detailed. They relate to the need for the local authorities to understand with some certainty what the future holds for them and to be assured that their voice will be heard in the way that it has been—by custom, if not by statute, as the Minister said. The Bill is no different in that respect, in that the Secretary of State is not required to follow a request from a local authority. However, that kind of matter of course exercises authorities with regard to planning for their future. It exercises individual councillors who need to plan for their future and understand how matters may proceed and how quickly.

I am sure that further questions will arise on the matter. In particular, the interlocking or otherwise of mayoral and council elections deserves a good deal of thought as to what the implications of one arrangement or the other may be. I see that the Minister wants to intervene.

Lord Whitty

Perhaps I may clarify that specific point. The White Paper made it clear that the mayoral elections would fall in the fallow year; for example, in unitary authorities. Therefore, there would be an intermeshing of the kind envisaged by the noble Baroness.

Baroness Hamwee

I thank the Minister for that explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 363: Page 35, line 40, at end insert— ("(8) No order may be made under this section unless the Secretary of State has consulted the particular authority or authorities concerned in the order and has obtained their agreement to the scheme to be made in the order.").

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 363 follows fairly conveniently the debate that we have just had on the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Under Clause 58, the Secretary of State will have the power to determine whether an authority is elected on a three-year cycle, a two-year cycle, or all together. The amendment seeks to ensure that, before he makes an order which might change a particular local authority's custom and style of elections, the Secretary of State consults the local authority concerned and obtains its agreement to his proposal. The Minister may find that last provision rather more difficult to take, but where an authority is used to and happy with, let us say, a scheme of annual elections of one-third and where the Secretary of State—let us suppose that it is me—has a prejudice in favour of all in, all out, he should have the grace to consult those who are directly affected and obtain their agreement to any change that he proposes. That should apply unless there is an overriding reason of national necessity as to why the change should be made over the local view of what is happening and what should happen.

Local people like their local customs It has always appeared paradoxical to me that councils like to be elected in thirds. There is no doubt that some councils like that, even though I find it illogical. When I entered local government, the authority was all in, all out. After a while I found that I had a certain affection for that rather simple system.

The purpose of the amendment is simple. It is to require that before the Secretary of State exercises his power to make regulations, he should consult and obtain agreement.

I hope that the Minister will forgive me this comment. Had all the guidance and some examples of regulations been provided before we started discussing the Bill, we would not have needed to have this discussion. This is an important point. Local communities across the country have a vital interest in their local electoral systems. The amendment seeks to ensure that those vital interests are properly taken into account. I beg to move.

Baroness Hanham

My Amendment No. 364 takes a little further what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, proposes. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill, we have been talking about consultation. It is clearly the Government's intention that communities should be consulted by local authorities on more or less everything. It therefore seems logical that if the arrangements for elections are to be changed, an opportunity should be given for those communities to be consulted on the regulations. My amendment would allow a period of three months for that consultation to take place and for views to be returned to the Minister. Furthermore, any change to the frequency or nature of the electoral scheme should be laid before Parliament in draft form. My amendment would allow for that to happen.

This is a serious matter. People feel strongly about it. Therefore, there should be the maximum opportunity for comment before such a major change is made.

Lord Whitty

In terms of consultation, one would presume that the regulations—the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, complained that they are not available—and, indeed, the practice would make it clear that it would be inconceivable that the Government would not consult interested parties on a change to electoral procedures requiring the drafting of orders under these clauses. However, the noble Lord's amendment goes further than that. It provides in effect that the local authority might well have a veto over such provisions. We cannot accept that. The whole purpose of this measure is to provide for councils to become more responsive to their electorates. I know that there are different views in local government on that matter as indeed there are on all sides of the Committee. Nevertheless, that is the purpose. At the end of the day, someone has to take a decision.

It is our view that the Secretary of State should take the decision if there is that conflict. The noble Lord clearly has a different view and would like to preserve the privileges and practices of the county of Essex and of others which want to stick to their current arrangements. We consider that in that conflict the Secretary of State should take the decision. One hopes that there will not be many differences in this context. Consultation should lead to agreement on both content and timing.

Perhaps I may turn to the approach of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. She should take what I said about consultation as confirmation that I would envisage a period of consultation. I would not want to be bound to 72 days prior to the order being laid before Parliament. That is unduly prescriptive. More importantly, I do not think that it is appropriate that that should be the subject of the draft affirmative procedure. Indeed, when the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee considered the matter, it did not suggest that this area of order making should be drawn to the attention of the House. What we propose is proportionate and appropriate for the negative procedure. Therefore, I cannot accept the noble Baroness's amendment. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Dixon-Smith

The Minister has disappointed me in his response, but we have crossed swords in a metaphorical sense over this kind of issue on a number of occasions. The difference between us is that he thinks that the Secretary of State is superior on local community matters to the local community itself. I happen to take the other view. That is an irreconcilable difference, but at least we can both respect the other's point of view. I hope that the noble Lord respects mine as much as I respect his.

The noble Lord has given an assurance that there will be a great deal of consultation over these matters. I was happy to hear that part of his response. I was not quite so certain when he said that he was sure that the Secretary of State would reach agreement. After all, if a big man is holding a 14-pound hammer over your head and he says, "We want to do things this way", it is not very easy to disagree with him. However, I take the point that there will be consultation and that, of course, things have to change.

I should make the point that elections of councils by one-third with possibly a mayor every fourth year, so that annual elections are taking place, does not necessarily make a council more responsive to its electorate. If the electorate gets what one might call "electoral boredom" and ceases to participate or lowers its participation rate in the local elections as a result of electoral boredom, the opposite effect may well occur. All systems are fallible. We can have wonderful academic arguments both ways about them.

With the assurance about consultation, I am happy; with the rest of it, I am not. However, there is nothing more to be said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 364 not moved.]

Clause 58 agreed to.

Clauses 59 and 60 agreed to.

5.30 p.m.

Lord Tope moved Amendment No. 364A: After Clause 60, insert the following new clause—