Draft Local Authority and Combined Authority Elections (Nomination of Candidates) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to once again serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I thank the Minister for her detailed explanation of the instrument, which will update the candidate consent to nomination forms to reflect the very welcome changes introduced by the Local Government (Disqualification) Act 2022, to which the Minister has referred.

It is vital that we uphold the best standards in public life at all levels of government. An overwhelming majority of local councillors, mayors and mayoral candidates do so, serving their communities to the best of their abilities in the spirit of public service and public duty. I did so for 11 years as a councillor in Manchester, and other Members present will have done the same. However, when individuals fall short of the standards we expect from elected representatives, we must ensure that action can be taken to remove them from office and, importantly, prevent them from standing in the first place. The previous loophole identified by the Minister in other parts of the body politic has allowed local government elected members who were convicted of sexual offences, but were not given custodial sentences, to remain in office. That has caused unacceptable situations that degrade and undermine our local democracy.

As such, we owe our thanks to the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for using his bite at the legislative apple to ensure that people put on the sex offenders list cannot be elected or remain in their elected post—the absolute bare minimum that all of us on this Committee would agree the public should expect. Given that we are all in agreement today—it is great to have some cross-party agreement on what is quite a sensible thing to do—I will go further. As the Minister has referred to this issue in the past, I ask her to use her experience and her Department to advise on Northern Ireland’s implementation of similar reforms.