Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register of Members’ interests. I am an elected councillor of the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing forward the Bill for debate today, which has the full support of the Opposition. We will not table any amendments to it and urge all noble Lords to do likewise. We wish it a speedy passage through this House and hope it will receive Royal Assent soon afterwards.

The Bill is short and, in effect, makes only one important change. It will allow journalists to inspect accounting records of the public bodies listed in Schedule 2 to the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 for one month without being required to have an interest in the authority, as the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, explained to the House. Those who spend public money should be accountable to the public for how they spend it and what they spend it on. The Bill goes a considerable way towards improving the present position, and that is to be welcomed.

The Bill is necessary because the “interested person” test goes only so far. It goes beyond a registered elector but not as far as to include a journalist. The definition of “journalist” has been written in such a way as to include bloggers and others who may not be seen as conventional members of the media, but perform a valuable function in covering the activities of local public bodies and questioning them. This is to be welcomed as their efforts are of benefit to the local community and local taxpayers.

I do not expect to see a stampede of journalists or bloggers heading down to their local town hall to inspect the invoices and receipts for the coffee machine in the members’ room or anywhere else, because there are provisions in the Act to deal with vexatious requests. This is important because some people go beyond what is reasonable and see conspiracies and corruption where people have acted perfectly properly. Simply not liking a decision does not mean that it was not a perfectly lawful decision to take. It is important that there is a protection for members of local authorities.

Anyone who has been on a council or is a Member of this House or the other House will have had to cope with losing a vote every now and again. That is part of our democracy. I always believe that anything I put forward from this Dispatch Box is worthy of support from the whole House, but that is not always the case. The actions of journalists can alert the local community to some of the decisions taken in its name, raise questions about how the money has been spent and lead others to question whether the actions taken are the most appropriate use of public money—of their money.

The period for allowing inspections is limited to one month. While looking at the documents is free, the local body can make a reasonable charge to cover its costs where copies of documents are taken. That is sensible as all public bodies have to think carefully and account for their money, which is tight at the moment.

I welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy passage through the House in the next few weeks.