§ Lord Brougham and Vauxasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have yet prepared the regulations provided for under Section 1(5) of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh)The Department of the Environment has today sent copies of draft regulations to the local authority associations and others for comment. I have arranged for a copy of the draft to be placed in the Library of the House.
The regulations will complete the provisions to ensure that local government officers who hold politically sensitive posts are subject to restrictions to ensure that they do not undertake public political activity which are broadly comparable to those to which senior civil servants have been subject for over a century.
The Act already provides that from 1st May 1990 such local government officers will be disqualified from election as MEPs, MPs and members of county, district and London borough councils. The regulations, when made, would ensure that a comparable range of restrictions apply to other forms of public political activity.
In general, the regulations follow the proposals in the Government's consultation paper, but changes have been made which will permit local authority officers to hold offices in political parties which are concerned solely with the internal management of the party (for example, as auditors), and which will make clear that the restrictions do not apply in any way to the officers' official duties.
726WAThe draft regulations provide that the restrictions would apply, like the disqualifications, from 1st May 1990.