Local Authorities: Standards

Debate between Lord Tyler and Baroness Hanham

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, the Standards Board regime actively encouraged vexatious complaints, often for political point-scoring. Councillors were often put through a lengthy investigation process before the matter was resolved. A councillor should not be found to be in breach of the code of conduct if, in highlighting fraud, waste or incompetence, they do so in a proper way. Our reforms will enable councils to deal with complaints expeditiously, and require them to seek the views of an independent person.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her very helpful response. During the Committee stage of the Localism Bill, I referred to the particular case of Councillor Esmond Jenkins, who was pursued to the Standards Board for England after he had blown the whistle on corruption in Cotswold District Council. Does my noble friend recall that the Minister then responsible, our noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, rightly said that such complaints to the board could be petty, malicious, vexatious or politically motivated? I am grateful to my noble friend for reiterating some of those points.

I have already established that the Standards Board for England spent in excess of £63,000 of taxpayers’ money on that case. Can my noble friend assure your Lordships' House that the replacement regime to maintain the standards of integrity and behaviour in local government will avoid wasteful expenditure on persecution of that sort? In particular, is she satisfied that councillors who investigate and expose wrongdoing will not be accused of bringing their authority into disrepute?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the changes we made to the standards committees and standards support were made, as the noble Lord will recall, as a result of concern in this House. Our thrust has always been to ensure that this matter is run at a local level so the decisions made on how the system is set up will be left to local authorities. But I assure the noble Lord that we will be monitoring what happens as a result of those changes and looking to see how local authorities are dealing with allegations about the conduct of councillors—just to avoid, we hope, the problems that he mentioned and to find out the views of councils about the new arrangements.