Localism Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stunell]

I think the hon. Gentleman might be confusing different processes. The Standards Board regime applied to councillors at parish, district and county level. We are sweeping away the Standards Board and making sure that local authorities put in place sound and sensible provision to safeguard the integrity of themselves and the members who serve on them.

To return to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), district councils do not have to monitor parish councils. They do need to have in place arrangements to deal with allegations of misconduct by a parish councillor, but how they do that is up to them. We will expect district councils and parishes to work together to make arrangements as simple as possible.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I welcome the fact that the Government at last recognise they may have some responsibility for appropriate standards being maintained in local councils. Can the Minister give an assurance, however, that where there is a serious complaint against a chief executive or leader of a council—perhaps about bullying of a junior member of staff or another councillor—the complainant will receive as robust an investigation into those complaints as under the current regime that the Government seek to abolish?

[Andrew Stunell]

Absolutely. We are clearly setting out what councils have to do and have in place, and the safeguard that they are required to provide.

On the application of the standards regime in London, we took the opportunity on Lords Report to make amendments 16 to 19, 28, 37, 408, 411 and 413, which ensure that the Mayor of London and the Greater London assembly are given equal roles in and responsibility for promoting and maintaining high standards, rather than leaving that function to be discharged by the assembly alone. The amendments also allow the assembly and Mayor to delegate functions to a committee or member of staff.

With these amendments, taken as a whole, we have achieved a balanced approach to the promotion and maintenance of high standards of conduct, with local authorities determining for themselves how best to achieve that. They will be freed up from the top-down, bureaucratic yoke of a national regime, of a model code and of a quango-regulated regime that became a vehicle for petty, vindictive and often politically motivated complaints. Our approach, which balances localism with safeguards, is the right one to ensure accountability locally and consistently high standards right across the country.

This group also contains a number of more minor amendments, many of them technical in nature, but I will mention one because it will be of particular interest to Labour Members. Lords amendments 38 to 43 introduce measures intended to increase accountability on local authority decisions about pay and reward. During the Commons’ consideration, Labour Members welcomed these provisions, as far as they went, on senior pay and asked us to go further to see how the Bill could bring similar levels of accountability on the pay of the rest of an authority’s work force. We committed to do so, particularly in the light of Will Hutton’s review of fair pay in the public sector, which made several recommendations. Following the representations that we have received, and with that report as the background, we made amendments in the Lords which have the effect of expanding the scope of pay policy statements to include an authority’s policies towards its lowest-paid staff, as well as the relationship between the pay of its most senior staff and the rest of its work force. I hope that Labour Members will agree that these sensible changes broaden the scope of the measures to capture the spirit of their comments and the Hutton recommendations.

In summary, this group of amendments will radically reduce the prescription bearing down on local authorities, freeing them up to serve their local communities better. I wish to pay tribute to the way in which hon. Members from all parties have—in Committee and on Report in this House, and in the other place—engaged with this part of the legislation to deliver a much-improved Bill. I urge the House to agree to these Lords amendments, and I hope that hon. Members will not press their amendment (a) to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 156 strengthens the test of soundness of the duty to co-operate, and amendment (a) deals with transitional arrangements. Again, I want to assure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington and his colleagues that there will be transitional arrangements. In a system that is designed to advantage plan making, in the move from one system to another, it was always intended that we would not contemplate anything that does not allow local authorities to maintain their ability to plan for the future and make decisions in accordance with their needs. So there is no need for legislative measures. Such an approach can be delivered through policy, and we will set that out very clearly in our response to the consultation. I give that commitment.

[Mr Betts]

We on the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government received much evidence on the important issue of transitional arrangements. Does the Minister accept that the purpose of transitional arrangements is to enable local authorities to adjust to the new planning regime that will eventually be implemented, and to give them time to do so properly? There will be detailed, thorough negotiations with the Local Government Association in trying to reach an agreement about what a proper length of time for that transitional arrangement should be.

[Greg Clark]

I concur with that.

Overall, the amendments improve the Bill. I am grateful to their lordships for the time they spent scrutinising and approving them, and to all Members of this House and the other place who participated in initiating the amendments we have back with us today.