Local Government: Nolan Principles
Debate between Dan Aldridge and Alberto Costa(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Alberto Costa
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome intervention, with which I entirely agree. Not only should publicly elected councillors—at parish, town, local authority, district and county level—be obliged to follow those principles but, importantly, a code of conduct developed and underpinned by those principles should have teeth. What he is ultimately saying is that there must be appropriate sanctions, as there are for us as Members of this House.
For some of those Members who fall short, sometimes those are cases of minor lapses—moments of frustration or poor judgment—while other times they are severe errors, with devastating consequences for colleagues, staff and the reputation of elected office. Such errors are not unique to elected representatives; to err is human, and no human being is without flaws. That said, it is right that elected representatives, while undertaking their public duties, are held to a higher bar. That is not about their private lives, but about the work that we, and local authority councillors, do in the course of our public duties.
Dan Aldridge (Weston-super-Mare) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate on the Nolan principles, which I have been very interested in for a long time, working in public service. In a digital-first world, with so much of our lives documented and undertaken online, does he agree that there is a greater necessity for a reimagination of the Nolan principles?