HL Deb 24 July 2000 vol 616 cc70-1

126 Page 27, line 14, leave out ("local government") and insert ("relevant authorities")

Lord Whitty

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 126. I shall speak also to a large group of Commons amendments, most of which are minor drafting and technical amendments to tidy up the Bill. They cover a large number of clauses and issues. If the House insists, I am happy to go through each in detail, but I suspect that that is not the wish of the House! If noble Lords want to raise any points on the amendments, I will take them.

Perhaps I may merely draw attention to the more important and substantive amendments. Amendment No. 129 adds both the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority to the list of relevant authorities to which Part III should apply.

At present, Commons Amendment No. 332 inserts new subsections to Clause 77. Subsection (6) will ensure that the standards board is able to consider breaches of the mandatory provisions of the model code of conduct by members even where an authority has failed to adopt a code.

I turn to Amendment No. 456A. Commons Amendment No. 456 ought to tidy up the legislation relating to employees of fire authorities. However, in trying to clarify the position, we believe that that amendment went further than we should wish and introduces an inconsistency in the way in which different fire employees are treated. Amendment No. 456A would therefore restore the position prior to the Commons amendment.

Commons Amendment No. 468 clarifies the duty of the monitoring officer. It has been tabled following consultation with existing monitoring officers and local government representatives and is intended to simplify the way in which monitoring officers will work.

The remaining amendments in this group are technical and consequential and in some cases grammatical, and are intended to tidy up the Bill. I commend the amendments to the House and I hope that noble Lords will agree to them.

Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 126.—(Lord Whitty.)

Lord Prior

My Lords, having listened to the proceedings for the past half-hour, the Minister now tells the House that the Bill just requires a little tidying up. I believe that the Bill requires a good deal of tidying up and is an example of bad legislation to be passed by this House. I hope that in future the Government will take more notice of this.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

6 p.m.