Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2007.

Clause 131

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I beg to move amendment No. 185, in clause 131, page 91, line 9, leave out from ‘(2)’ to end of line 11 and insert

‘include principles which are to apply at all times to a person who is a member or co-opted member.”’.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments Nos. 186 and 187.

Amendment No. 124, in clause 131, page 91, line 21, leave out subsection (4).

Government amendment No. 188.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Good morning, Mr. Chope. I am glad that the sun is shining on the Committee this morning, although I note that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove is having some difficulty in seeing. Perhaps on his behalf I may ask for some protection from the rays.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I am not sure whether this is a point of order, but I see the Minister in a golden haze with the sun behind him—it gives a somewhat unreal impression.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am sure that the Doorkeeper will sort that out.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Nothing has changed this morning, then. I am normally accused of being in a purple haze.

Turning to the amendments to clause 131, relating to standards for councillors, the remit of the code of conduct for council members is important. We are dealing with two issues. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove raised this matter on Second Reading and during the evidence-taking. It is important that I explain what the Government are trying to achieve. I am convinced that there will be consensus on that, but I am conscious that hon. Members, after reading the explanatory notes and the clause, will have the impression—for reasons that I shall explain—that we are trying to do the opposite of what we are really trying to do. In addition, it is very important to the Government that, as far as possible, there should be parliamentary consensus on the standards code. It is not a party-political matter, but is designed to achieve two things: to ensure that there is probity in the conduct of councillors, and—this is perhaps more difficult—to ensure that that is seen to happen. To achieve that second objective, I must try to persuade the Committee that there is consensus. I shall listen especially carefully—even more carefully than I usually do—to the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee so that we may have confidence.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

I would be grateful if my hon. Friend would add a third principle to his list, given the changes that are proposed. It is one that came up during the scrutiny and evidence sittings: the principle that there should be consistency across the country. Without a national Standards Board, it might seem difficult to ensure that the same standards were being applied throughout.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. Throughout our deliberations on the Bill we have debated how to obtain devolution and decentralisation along with equity and consistency. Squaring that circle has been a challenge for Governments of all persuasions. I believe that the balance and mechanism needed to achieve those things has been reached elsewhere in the Bill, and I shall explain when we consider later clauses how, we believe, through regulation and resourcing, we can move towards our goal. There are some important Opposition amendments—I believe that they probing amendments—which will allow us to tease out my hon. Friend’s point. The point came up at the annual standards conference that I attended in Birmingham.

The amendments will enable us to achieve the policy objective of encompassing within the code of conduct instances where members acting outside their official duties receive a criminal conviction. Such a conviction would lead to action being taken against the member by the authority’s standards committee or, if appropriate, the Standards Board. We are trying to say that the code of conduct should not cover a councillor’s private life, with the caveat that if a criminal conviction was involved, that should be taken on board by the standards committee.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I very much appreciate what the Minister has said which, as he quite rightly points out, goes against what appears to be the plain meaning of subsection (4). That subsection is the subject of amendment No. 124, which I will speak to in a few moments. Notwithstanding the plain meaning of that subsection, will the Minister explain why it does not mean what everyone thought that it meant?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Yes, of course. I am grateful for the opportunity to do so—perhaps I should have done that at the beginning of my speech. The problem lies in the court judgment on the Livingstone case—the Mayor of London case. In layperson’s terms, the judge said that the law currently does not allow the code of conduct as it stands to be considered. That was, in essence, the conclusion of the judgment. In order to allow the remit of the code of conduct to be along the lines that I have prescribed—not to include the private life of the councillor—and to comply with the judge’s remarks, we have to amend the law, which makes the remit of the code of conduct appear tougher in law, but allows the code itself, which is public, to be restricted. In other words, the law has to be widened and clarified so that the code can be narrowed. That is the contradiction that we are facing. As we go through the clause, I hope that all will become clear.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I have sympathy for what the Minister is trying to achieve. However, as the amendment stems from the judgment in the Livingstone case—some of us have had the benefit of seeing the whole text of that judgment—does the Minister consider this to be an exceptional circumstance in which he would be prepared to publish the legal advice that forms the basis for him saying that it is necessary to broaden the law to narrow the code so that we can see the rationale behind his proposal to get around the awkward judgment?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I have not seen such legal advice. Of course I have seen the judgment and I have read extensively the interpretation of the judgment of outside sources. The policy that I wish to adopt with regard to the code has been known for some time. Indeed, there has been consultation on the code. I will be very open with the hon. Gentleman because I wish to persuade him that I am proposing the right course of action. The instruction to the parliamentary counsel in preparing this section of the Bill did not involve me relying on legal advice. The Department may have been involved in considering such advice, but in drawing up this policy and this Bill, I did not rely on such advice other than that which said that I needed to amend the law to achieve what I wanted to achieve. The questions that the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak have asked were the same as those that my colleagues and I asked our officials and advisers, because the issue is important for councillors.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I appreciate what the Minister is saying, but will he clarify one point? He will have seen the memorandum submitted by the Mayor of London, and there are a number of specific concerns. First, the clause as drafted appears to contradict the advice of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Secondly, the clause appears to contradict articles 8 and 10 of the European convention on human rights. Will the Minister tell us how the amendments will address those issues?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am a great fan of the Mayor of London, with whom I work closely on civil resilience and other matters. As a result of their advice surgeries, hon. Members will be familiar with the notion that article 8 has many interpretations. The Lord Chancellor has recently clarified the law on that. To save time, I will continue with my remarks and then answer questions.

Getting the remit of the code of conduct right is, of course, a central element of the conduct regime for local government. Let me set out the context of the policy for developing an effective conduct regime that will be fit for purpose and that will carry public confidence in the way in which I have described. We take the promotion of high standards of conduct seriously—as do all hon. Members. Poor standards of behaviour by members would threaten the vital bond of trust between councillors and their electorate and contribute to public disengagement from the political process. I am taking care to put in place a regime that does not contribute towards disillusionment with politics because of how it is used in practice. At the heart of the regime is the code of conduct for each authority, which sets out the behaviour expected of members. It is the duty of each authority to adopt such a code and to have regard to the model code set out in regulations under the Local Government Act 2000.

Alongside the code provided by Parliament in the 2000 Act, which the Bill will modify, a regulatory regime will be introduced by which councils’ standards committees and the Standards Board—the national body—can ensure that allegations of misconduct are investigated and that high standards of conduct are promoted locally. To give the public an assurance that high standards will be followed and to underline our expectation that members should set an example of leadership to their communities, we consider that they should act lawfully at all times—even when they are not carrying out their work as councillors. We consider, therefore, that conduct in a member’s private capacity that has been found to be criminal—conduct that has resulted in a criminal conviction—should be covered by the members’ code of conduct in every local authority.

The purpose of Government amendments Nos. 185 to 187 is to ensure that enabling powers are provided in the model code of conduct to allow members to refer to a member’s behaviour at all times. Through such enabling powers, our policy will apply to codes everywhere that cover private conduct that has resulted in a criminal conviction. Let me make it clear that I am not proposing that the model code should cover any aspect of a member’s conduct outside his or her role on the council other than that resulting in a criminal conviction.

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

In the Government’s response to the Graham committee, they said that the code should be restricted to matters regarded as unlawful. The Government are now restricting it to matters that are criminal, but unlawfulness covers more than simply criminal behaviour.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on picking up that point. When I gave evidence on the standards code, that was one of the matters that was discussed. In defining unlawful, the Bill contains a definition of criminal, but hon. Members would, I am sure, like to know that a criminal conviction resulting in a prison sentence of three months or more is already covered by legislation. We are talking about criminal convictions below—I am sure that that is not a legal phrase—three months’ imprisonment, rather than the wider point that the hon. Gentleman makes about unlawfulness.

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

If that is the case, are the Government defining criminal actions as recordable offences, or ones that cover the expanding remit of criminal convictions? That covers environmental protection. Some offences are not necessarily recordable, but may be defined as criminal.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

We are talking about actions of individuals that result in a criminal conviction.

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

Is that a recordable criminal conviction?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman is quite reasonably trying to push me into areas on which I am not qualified to comment. I will get an answer for him because it is important that the matter is understood. We are providing for a situation in which a councillor who has been convicted of an offence in a court, but who wants—probably against the wishes of the council and his or her colleagues—not to be covered by the standards committee. I know of two such examples in recent months. I emphasise that bad behaviour on the part of the many tens of thousands of councillors in this country is very rare. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point and I shall give him a specific answer either later in the proceedings or in writing.

We want to provide that a member must not, in his private capacity, use his position as a member to confer an advantage on himself or others. Under the current regime, it is not open to an authority to extend or increase the mandatory areas of private behaviour covered by the code. We proposed that approach in our discussion paper of December 2005 and it has been supported by the Local Government Association. We are consulting on the precise provisions of the code and, in the light of responses, we shall either confirm our intention or reconsider our approach.

The amendments provide improved drafting of the original reference in the Bill to the aim that the principles that underline the code of conduct for members and the provisions of the code itself should not be limited to principles or provisions applying to a member only in his official capacity. It is important to make it clear what remit the clause is required to cover. To improve clarity, the original wording is replaced with reference to the fact that the principles and provisions are to apply to a member at all times.

In contrast, Opposition amendment No. 124 would to retain the current position with regard to the code of conduct following last year’s High Court judgment in the case of the London Mayor, which is that conduct in a member’s private capacity is excluded from the code unless it is closely connected with the member’s official role. That leads to a number of anomalies, which I hope the Committee will agree are not desirable.

For example, an assault by a member arising from a dispute with a fellow councillor at a council meeting would be proscribed by the code, but an assault carried out on a member of the public in the street or in the member’s home would not be likely to be covered, apart from the caveat that we have discussed. Behaviour committed by a member, including sexual offences for which the member has been convicted, might not be covered by the code if there were no direct link between the behaviour and the member’s role as a councillor. The amendment would retain anomalies such as that, which I hope the Committee agrees does not provide a sensible framework for ensuring public confidence.

Amendment No. 188 makes a minor amendment to ensure that appropriate reference is made to part 3 of the Local Government Act 2000. I am grateful for being able to lay out the Government’s policy.

I shall now answer the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. On the advice of the Department’s lawyers following the judgment, there is only internal legal advice to the Minister about what was needed to deliver the long-standing policy. We will write setting out the detailed analysis underlying our approach. The advice confirms what my memory was telling me.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

The assumption behind the changes is a clear distinction between a member’s private capacity and his capacity qua councillor. When a councillor is functioning as a councillor, clearly he is covered by the code of conduct. Equally, when he is on a body ex officio or as a nominee of the council, he is acting as a councillor. However, councillors are invited to perform lots of other roles. They are asked to participate in quangos, partnerships, community associations and so on, where they are billed and described as councillors. Is that the private world and thus not covered by the code of conduct? I think that following the Livingstone ruling, that is what the Standards Board thinks.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The behaviour of a councillor in conducting his or her duties in such public roles would be covered by the code. The issue that I was most concerned to address, and to which I hope we shall come, is the double-hatted issue. Under the code as it stands, a councillor acting in a different role—perhaps as a member of an external body—is debarred from advocating in the council on behalf of that body. That was brought to my attention by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, the mayor of whose council was a member of the Olympics committee but who was debarred under the code from acting as an advocate for the Olympics in Newham, despite the fact that he is its mayor. The double-hatted approach is not sensible if councillors are to be allowed to do their job. Where the councillor is a member ex officio of another body, that is covered by the code. The clauses refer to “official duties” in that regard.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

It applies where councillors belong ex officio or are deliberately appointed by a council, but they may peradventure join a body that is publicly funded where they are identified as a councillor. For instance, they may be invited by a local community association to become a member because they are the local councillor. In such circumstances, is that the private or the public world?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

If they are representing the council, it is covered. If not, it is not. That is precisely the sort of point that we need to debate, because such circumstances might result in a situation in which the fact that a person is a councillor might not be the reason why they have been appointed to a body such as a community association, but public perception is otherwise. If one pursues such a function as a councillor, even though the purpose of one’s being on the body is irrelevant to one’s position, of course the standards committee will want to have a say. It is the same for any ethical code. The issue is similar to those that our own codes consider, although in fact our code is slightly wider.

If I have not answered any specific questions, I shall do so during the course of the debate, but I hope that I have explained what we are trying to achieve. I invite the Committee to support the amendment.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

As the Minister rightly says, my hon. Friends and I tabled amendment No. 124 on the assumption that the words in the Bill mean what they say. [Interruption.] Although I have been here for a number of years, I am still naïve enough sometimes to believe that that could be the case.

I acknowledge that the Minister has said all that I could have hoped he would say in response, but he has led us into an Alice in Wonderland world where we must expand the scope of the law to catch even more people in even more cases so that we can let them off. I am sure that he will not mind if I am a little concerned and wish to explore exactly where that will take us. I hope that, in the spirit in which you allowed the Minister to set out a broader context, that you will not mind if I do the same, Mr. Chope.

The Liberal Democrats have a long-standing concern, one widely shared in the local government community, about the way in which the Standards Board for England has worked and the consequences of that over the years. In some cases, it has resulted in a trivialisation of the complaints procedure and in the Standards Board becoming another weapon in a partisan dialogue. On many occasions, it has traumatised good councillors, who have found themselves subject to Standards Board procedures and, because of the rather bizarre process, have not been made fully aware of the charges they faced and left in limbo, not just for a few weeks, but for months or even a year or two.

The problems have been compounded by our risk-averse society which means that when they are asked “Might this possibly, at the very outer limit, be an interest?” monitoring officers on councils will always reply, “Yes, of course it is. You must declare and you must not participate.” The process of monitoring has often resulted in tightening, often in directions that clearly produce an anti-democratic outcome in which elected representatives are not able to participate in key decisions affecting their local communities. Some of the proposed changes will deal with part of that problem, but not all of it.

Even now, in essence, if someone is local, they are disqualified. That seems to be the reverse of what we ought to be creating, which is strong local representation by people who can participate in decision making and bring to bear their own facts and information. I hope the Minister will give some assurance that the “if you are local, you are disqualified” rules that have come to pass for the Standards Board and for monitoring officers are going to be a thing of the past, and that delays in cases being dealt with will be very shorter.

On Second Reading, I pointed out that the draft code and the Government’s commentary have been published but they will not, as far as I can tell, be subject to debate in this House, other than the debate that we are having this morning. I hope that the Minister will also say that he will be open to a wider debate and that he will have a word with the Leader of the House about providing an opportunity for the code to be the subject of discussion in the House at some future time. To make a simple point, that future time needs to be before he decides what the code is to be.

On Report, we may well want to say something about predisposition and bias, both of which are core limitations on the application of the code and the effect on members’ conduct.

As the Minister said, amendment No. 124 is designed to ensure that the code applies nine to five and not 24/7. His interpretation of the amendment is absolutely correct. A clear understanding needs to come out of this Committee and be embedded in the legislation. If we are going to extend the application beyond nine to five—beyond on-duty hours—what exactly are we extending? The Minister has been clear that we are going to extend it only to events which have resulted in criminal convictions. As he rightly said, if the criminal conviction results in a sentence of three months or more, it is already covered by a disqualification rule and no one would seek to overturn that.

Can the Minister give some assurance that, having broadened the law to include the 24/7 concept, the risk assessors who have got us into so much trouble in the past—the monitoring officers—will not be saying, “Ah, well, I think that that ought to be included.”? There is a mandatory element to the code and a discretionary element, which might be added by a particular council or a particular monitoring officer or, on a particularly bad day, by an interpretation by a monitoring officer. How will the Minister protect councillors from that ad hoc creep of rules and rulings as a consequence of the huge broadening of the impact of the code?

We all know of many examples, which go far beyond the Livingstone case, where one might ask questions. Clearly, if somebody speeds in their own borough council area and gets a conviction, that will be subject to the code. However, if they speed while on holiday in Tenerife, will that be subject to the code? Many such examples show that there is scope for all sorts of mischief making to occur. I hope that, if the Minister cannot answer such questions now—I will understand if that is so—he will ensure that the Committee is fully appraised of how the Government intend to proceed.

Our amendment is simple, blunt and straightforward and is intended to retain the law of the land as the courts decided it was in the outcome of the Mayor of London case. That is clearly sufficient for the courts, and we thought that it should be sufficient for Parliament. Underpinning the amendment is a view that the same level of standards and code of conduct should apply to all elected representatives in the United Kingdom democracy. What is good for Members of Parliament sitting on this Committee should be good for councillors and vice versa. It is not right for Members in the House to impose on councillors a higher duty of care and a higher level of conduct than we are prepared to impose on ourselves. That also goes to the heart of the predisposition and bias argument, which I understand is not the subject of this amendment, Mr. Chope, but is something that we all want to raise on Report.

I would have pressed other points strongly if the Minister had not already conceded them. I must acknowledge that he clearly wants—or says that he wants—to go exactly in the same direction as we do. To have a residual 24/7 theme that picks up the rest of the criminal convictions seems sensible.

I accept that amendment No. 124 does not allow for that and I concede that my amendment probably should not stand in its current form. Perhaps it should be tweaked slightly to include criminal convictions. However, I should prefer to see in the Bill a clear, specific limitation of the extension only to matters that have led to criminal convictions, rather than opening it up to everything and leaving it to the discretion of the Minister, and subsequent Ministers, and the good will of the House and monitoring officers not slowly to extend, subsequently, into other areas. There will always be an outlandish incident that results not in a conviction, but just in national outrage. I can see the Minister, or some future Minister, saying, “We will eliminate that now and change the code”, but never coming back and referring it to the House.

I hope that the Minister gives a good account of himself. Whether I shall press amendment No. 124 depends on his response.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

It will probably save time if we have a slightly more gentle debate at the start, then we can whizz through the other business. I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has said and I am grateful for the Minister’s open approach. We all want to get the Bill right.

My party’s view on the Standards Board is clear. We fought the last election on the policy of abolishing it. Our current policy is evolving and we will come to a view—[Laughter.]—having no doubt widely consulted. I suspect, however, that at the end of the deliberations on the Bill, we will have to consider seriously the regime that we get. In doing so, we will rely on talking with many of our friends in local government to see whether they are happy. Clearly, people are not happy with the current regime. Anyone who really wants councils to have a good discussion need only mention the standards boards; councils will just not stop going on about the difficulties that they have.

I am glad that the Minister briefly mentioned that we shall come later to the issues around double-hatting, because they are constantly raised. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove raised the point about things being local, and people have talked to me about school reorganisations and about living in wards where monitoring officers prevent them from speaking on planning committees. Clearly, there is some nonsense going on, and I hope that we shall at least be able to put an end to some of it by the time we reach the end of the Bill so that people can genuinely represent their constituents. The old regime, based on pecuniary interest, was a lot better and, in some respects, a lot clearer. When we reach these issues later, therefore, I hope that we shall be able to narrow the scope of the provisions somewhat to allow people to be good local representatives.

The other thing that has always concerned me is speed, and some complaints can, indeed, go on for two years. We shall come later to the clauses that deal with the complaints process, and I think that that period may be too long. I hope that the regime that we get will be much speedier, because it is no fun, however innocent someone feels, to have an allegation hanging over one’s head for a long time. Some of the most disappointed people in local government are those who have had complaints made against them and been cleared, but who have gone through months, and sometimes years, with a cloud over them. That takes a lot of the fun out of representing one’s local community, so we really need to tackle that issue.

At the beginning of this section of our debate, the Minister talked about widening the law to narrow it, and we shall clearly need to be reassured about how narrow it is by the time we get towards the end of the Bill. Although I have an advantage in not being a lawyer—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—I wish I had been one, because I keep having to turn to those of my hon. Friends who are lawyers to find out where the boundaries are. We need to be very specific in the guidance. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove mentioned speeding, but my hon. Friends say that that offence would not be included, although drink driving and careless driving might be. What about cruelty to animals?

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

Careless driving, no; fly-tipping, no.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

Fly-tipping is not covered. We therefore need some reassurance from the Minister, although perhaps not now, about what is in and what is not.

I agree with what the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said about creep: we do not want monitoring officers bringing in rather more extraneous issues so that the boundaries start growing. As the provisions are drafted, there is scope for extending the boundaries, and we should like things to be rather clearer. That is a job for the Government lawyers, who can give advice on these issues as we get further into the Bill.

We have an opportunity to have the highest standards in local government, while making it easy for people to do the job that they were elected to do. I hope that we take that opportunity and that our friends in local government will thank us for that.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I rise to endorse the sentiments that have been expressed, and I do so on the basis of my observations, which are perhaps shared by most people who have served on local councils. For as long as the standards bodies have existed, many quite decent councillors have felt that their reputations have been besmirched, often through acts of political malice, and quite unnecessarily so. The Standards Board must accept some blame for that. Not so long ago, I got a huge brown paper parcel, which I opened to find—[ Interruption. ] I can assure hon. Members that it was not a backhander. In fact, it contained about 100 brochures from the Standards Board about how to complain about a councillor, and I was asked to distribute them to all and sundry.

The board was therefore encouraging people to make complaints and touting for work, and it did that against the background of a lack of clarity. Legal officers sometimes have difficulty knowing how to advise a planning committee; indeed, anybody who knows anything about planning seems to be debarred from talking about it to anybody at all. I had a particularly nice dilemma in my neck of the woods, where there was a schools reorganisation, which affected every school. Practically every councillor, quite reasonably, was on a governing body, so I asked the director of legal services whether any of them could actually vote on the council’s policy. I found that about 80 per cent. were debarred from doing so, so the council was more or less rendered inquorate in making a very difficult decision. In the end, rather than clear up the rules, the council simply wrote to the Standards Board for an exemption or some protection for what it was doing, but there was a complete muddle. There have to be some regrets about a body that is boisterously set into action, suggesting that there is a series of standards that it wants to enforce, but that leaves the standards themselves very unclear to the people who have to implement them.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I support what has been said. I have a number of concerns about the way we approach standards. That is not to come to the defence of my good friend the Mayor of London. Although my view as to the boorishness and stupidity of his conduct is on the record, I am inclined to agree with his basic contention that it should not have been for the Standards Board to get into the situation of trying to remove him from office. There is an underlying malaise with the current arrangements.

A couple of other points concern me. The principal point, made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, is that there is an inherent sense of injustice among many people involved in local government who feel that we in the House set higher standards for them than we expect of ourselves. That needs to be addressed and I hope that the Government will seize this opportunity to do so. The situation simply cannot be right as a matter of principle and I am not sure that the amendments, even those from the Government, address that point yet.

The second point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate, who has particular expertise in these matters, having practised in the criminal courts as a solicitor. The Minister’s test, probably sensibly, is what is a recordable offence, but members of the public often do not draw a distinction with certain types of offences that are criminal in a layman’s interpretation but are not recordable. Those among us who are lawyers will have come across them. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole highlighted that point. It is therefore very important that it is spelt out that we are talking about a recordable offence, and it is also important that the public are aware of what is recordable.

I may be corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate, but I think that if, for example, someone receives a fixed penalty ticket because they have fallen foul of a speed camera, that is not recordable. There comes a point at which they might, if they have been particularly foolish, end up being disqualified under the totting-up procedures, which involves a court appearance, and they might be unlucky enough for the local journalist to be there and to pick up on who they are. I do not think that that is recordable either.

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

Just to challenge my hon. Friend slightly, it may be—this is certainly consistent with the Government’s response to the Graham Committee—that the provision should be extended beyond recordable offences when, say, councillors are repeatedly fly-tipping in their own ward. That would not be a recordable conviction, but it would be a criminal conviction. [Interruption.] To many people, it would be. Perhaps that is a matter that affects conduct and should be taken into account and properly adjudicated on by a standards committee. There are other examples—perhaps even repeated speeding up and down a road. Again, that is not a recordable offence, but it results in a criminal conviction and it may be one that should be taken into account. Those matters need clarification, particularly as we know what has happened in the magistrates courts. The Government have been repeatedly extending the ambit of the criminal courts to cover more areas, so that areas that normally would not be within the ambit of the criminal courts now are.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he makes the point very well. There is a real problem. I would prefer that we did not have this structure, because I think that it is overblown, for the reasons that have been set out, but if we are to have it, there has to be some rationale in the way it works and there has to appear to be a rationale to ordinary members of the public. Certain types of conduct, although deplorable, might not, in isolation, constitute something that the public regard as so important that it affects their view of the councillor’s fitness for office. An example might be someone falling foul of a speed camera. As my hon. Friend says, however, there could be other types of conduct that at the moment would not come within the definition of recordable, such as fly-tipping, which manifestly would affect the public’s view, so we are in an odd situation unless there is much more clarity.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the examples that we have been discussing are prime territory for creep, whereby an initial ruling is expanded, either locally or nationally, in response to perceived difficulties with the current level? Therefore, it would be far better not to go into this territory at all.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I am very much with the hon. Gentleman on that. I would prefer that we did not have the Standards Board bureaucracy, because my experience was that under the old regime if something was really bad it came to light. Most people knew what was out of order, and such matters were picked up on and dealt with accordingly.

I recall, a long time ago, before the Standards Board regime, acting for a councillor who had been given a suspended sentence of three months in prison, which resulted in his disqualification. We went to the Court of Appeal and persuaded it to reduce the sentence to two months so that the councillor was not disqualified. Part of the argument we put was that it should be for his electorate to judge his fitness to be a councillor in the light of his conduct. The Court of Appeal agreed. At the next election, his electorate booted him out of office, which perhaps was the just outcome for all concerned. However, the matter was resolved without any bureaucracy, so the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

A couple of years ago, High Peak borough council had an independent councillor—that is important because it means that he was not subject to party discipline—against whom very serious allegations of bullying both officers and other councillors were made. The councillor was suspended, taken off the council, and banned from public office for two years by the Standards Board, and rightly so. However, because it was so intimidating for councillors and officers to give evidence in the case, it took an outside body deal with it. The councillor’s removal was quite right. He was then replaced, so people in that ward had a proper representative for two years, rather than continuing in the limbo that the hon. Gentleman suggested would result if there was no referral mechanism.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I think that the code covers the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes, and we have to be careful due to the danger of making broad legislation on the basis of hard cases, which is a worry for many of us. This goes back to the point that was made about mission creep. There have generally been other means, using elements of the code, of dealing with cases of blatant bad behaviour. I take the point that was made about party discipline, but I do not think that that in itself is an argument for the major broadening that the measure potentially involves, however good the intention behind it is—I accept that the Minister has good intentions.

My final point relates strongly to an issue that we have not debated under this group of amendments: the question of predisposition and planning. Many of us with experience of local government find the increasingly restrictive interpretation of predisposition ludicrous because, in effect, it almost gags local councillors from dealing with controversial planning issues in their wards. I will give an example from a ward in which there is a proposal to build a major housing development on the local golf club, which is an important factor because the course is one of the major green areas in the ward.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Is it your golf club?

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

It is not my golf club, and it is not in Pratts Bottom, and I hasten to add that the club is not even in my parliamentary constituency or my Greater London assembly constituency, although I am familiar with it. The proposed development is the biggest issue in that area because of the implications of building there. The club is in a local authority that has elections by thirds and the issue has been rumbling along for some time, so at every election people quite rightly want to know where the candidates stand on the proposed development. However, if any candidate for the ward stands as being for or against the development, they will be unable to vote on any planning committee that deals with the matter. What a lot of nonsense that is—it is a ludicrous situation. I would like to have some assurance that we can use the opportunity presented by the Bill to get rid of that absolute absurdity. I can think of nothing that turns people off democracy more than the kind of situation I described. What the hell is the point of voting for a candidate who can take no part in making a decision on an issue because they have previously expressed a view on it? It is a nonsense, and surely to goodness we can use this opportunity to get rid of the problem.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Thank you for your chairing of this sitting, Mr. Chope. I am sure that the Committee appreciates your lenience. Despite the fact that the blinds have been put down, I intend to regain my golden haze by agreeing with what the hon. Gentlemen have said and by explaining how we can implement the policies that have been discussed.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate raised an important point about recorded crime and the meaning of the term “unlawful”. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, the Government are running a consultation exercise on the code. This morning we are discussing the law that will bring about that code. The Government support the idea of having a debate on the code. The statutory instrument that will introduce it will be subject to the negative procedure, which will require a Member to pray against it. I undertake to speak to the Leader of the House about this because if a debate was possible, it would help to give people confidence in the code, as well as giving hon. Members the opportunity to speak about it.

In the consultation, “unlawful” means a criminal conviction, but as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate may know, whether that should include recorded convictions is a matter for the consultation. The views expressed will of course be taken on board. I am sure that there will be a lot of interest on that point. Importantly, to address the problem that was described as creep, if the model code provides such a limitation on criminal convictions—it will be a mandatory provision of the code—individual councils would not be able to go further in their own codes. That, of course, is our intention, and we will clarify that in the code.

Hon. Gentlemen said that we should not be doing anything that sees Members of Parliament in a better light than councillors. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak served as a distinguished member of the Standards and Privileges Committee for some six years. I can testify to that because, to his credit, despite my probing him harshly, he refused to talk to me about a case in which I was indirectly involved. I am happy to put that on record. The law debars people from being Members of Parliament if they have been sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment. However, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards can investigate and make recommendations to the Standards and Privileges Committee in other circumstances. Parliament is a sovereign body; that is a unique situation and, in effect, it is the reason why we regulate ourselves.

In future, it will be possible under this regime for councillors not to be disqualified because they have a local interest, including for planning permissions. The caveat will be that if a councillor has a greater interest than another member of the public in that ward, he will be restricted—in other words, that will be the case if there is direct self-interest. Other than that, the Government agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and others. The model code on which we are consulting directly addresses that local issue. It will provide that ward councillors will be able to participate in decisions about their wards if their interests are no more than those of others who live in that ward. That is important, and I thank the hon. Gentlemen for their comments.

Andrew Stunell rose—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I give way briefly, because we are nearly out of time.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I appreciate the tight deadline. Do the Minister’s comments apply also to planning, where monitoring officers often take a contrary view?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It does apply to planning for precisely the sort of reasons raised by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst.

On the point about speed, the regime that we hope to put into place will abolish the national adjudication role. It was the adjudication committee and the adjudication process, not the Standards Board itself, that caused the severe delay in the Islington case, which caused such controversy. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Poole for clarifying Conservative party policy—[Laughter.] My goal is to persuade the Opposition that they should support the Standards Board.

The hon. Member for Southport mentioned a box of leaflets. It was the arrival of a similar box in my constituency office that led me to the views that I have expounded this morning. A leaflet that says, “Is your councillor corrupt?” does not instil confidence in the democratic process. The changes that we are making to the regime will improve the standing of the democratic process and elected councillors.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I beg to move amendment No. 189, in clause 131, page 92, line 6, at end insert—

‘(9A) References in subsections (6) to (8) to the code of conduct of a relevant authority include, in relation to a relevant authority whose members and co-opted members are subject to mandatory provisions by virtue of section 51(5)(b) of the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22), those mandatory provisions.’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government new clause 17—Certain references to code of conduct to include default code.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It is good to welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Benton.

I hope that the Committee will agree that it is important that members of councils should give a clear and transparent promise that they will abide by the higher standards of behaviour. The amendments relate to how members of councils will undertake to comply with the code of conduct. Such an undertaking will,in effect, include the code’s new remit in respect of members’ behaviour. It is a long-standing procedure that, when taking up office, members should give an undertaking that they will comply with the code of conduct adopted by the authority. We want that arrangement to continue so that members will still make a commitment.

When authorities have not formally adopted a code, the legislation provides that the mandatory conditions of the model code of conduct issued by the Government should apply to their councillors. There is currently no express requirement for members whoare subject to the mandatory provisions of the code to give a similar undertaking. The amendments, taken together, therefore provide that councillors who are subject to the mandatory code should be required to give the same undertaking to follow the code as the legislation already provides for councillors whose authorities have adopted a code.

The second amendment in the group is designed to enable authorities that have not adopted their code to operate the rules relating to the conduct of their members more effectively. An authority that has not adopted a code of its own will be required to maintain a copy of the mandatory model code as part of its constitution. Provision is also made for the functions of standards committees to extend to the assistance of members to follow the mandatory terms of the code in cases when the authority has not adopted a code of its own. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Welcome back to the Chair, Mr. Benton.

As we discussed this morning, the Minister has clarified the Government’s intentions in respect of the clause and those clarifications are welcome. However, I hope that he will take the opportunity when replying to this short debate on the clause as a whole to colourin a little of the detail that he set out this morning. During the break, I returned to the consultation on amendments to the model code of conduct that he and the Department issued in January, just to makesure that—[Interruption.] I am asked, “What about lunch?”. That is a very good question, which I do not intend to answer.

It was said this morning that the limitation on the extension of the code beyond nine to five to 24/7 would be restricted to places where a member had received a criminal conviction. The Minister was tested quite a bit on what that meant. I asked whether that referred to UK criminal convictions, but he sensibly did not venture into that territory. I draw his attention to his consultation document, particularly to the final paragraph on page 9, which states:

“Ministers are currently minded to provide that only private behaviour for which a member has been convicted by a court should be proscribed by the code of conduct”.

That is not exactly the same as what he said this morning in relation to a criminal conviction. We discussed that point—about whether a conviction, a recorded conviction or a criminal conviction was meant. I hope that the Minister will say something about where that boundary lies and whether he would consider introducing a Government amendment at a later stage to make explicit on the face of the Bill the limited extent to which private behaviour will be invaded by the code.

On a different point, I note that at the bottom of page 10, the comment about paragraph 5 of the draft code appears not to be controversial at all. It says that there will be

“specific reference to clarify the intention that an authority’s resources should not be used improperly for party political purposes.”

That is a common-sense provision and mirrors closely what is said in this House.

However, I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, periodically, members of a council—particularly those in opposition parties—are highly discontented about the use of the council’s PR machine in the propagation of a ruling group’s policies. It happens in this place as well: we have concerns about the waythat the Government use their machinery, althoughI appreciate that, by definition, anything that the Government do could not possibly be improper. On that specific provision, it would be helpful if the Minister set out how he is minded to advise the Standards Board or how he believes the code should be interpreted in that grey area.

I welcome what the Minister said this morning about seeking an opportunity for a debate to take place when the statutory instrument comes before the House. That is welcome as far as it goes, but I remind him, that will be at the point at which the code is a statutory document brought to the House for approval. He knows that when a statutory instrument is debated, even if the whole Committee unanimously rejects it, it has no effect in the terms of the procedure of this House. It is therefore not a very powerful lock, or even a constraint, on how that code is constructed and implemented. It would be helpful if he revisited that point and helped Members to contribute on some of the nitty-gritty issues in the code document. I am sure that you would not permit us to do that in the context of this debate, Mr. Benton, and anyway we have other important matters to deal with. There is a host of other minor issues—minor in the context of the Bill—to do with the shape of the statutory code to come. My colleagues and I believe that they should have an airing before the door is shut and the key thrown away.

I would like to comment on what the Minister said this morning about a common code of conduct for all those in elected office—Members of Parliament and councillors. The outside world would expect a code of conduct for Ministers, Members of Parliament, councillors and parish councillors that reflects ethical values and proper levels of conduct. If an ordinary member of the general public were asked which of those groups should have the highest standards expected of them, they would reply, in descending order, Ministers with Government responsibility, Members of Parliament and, somewhere further down, councillors and parish councillors. In this country, however, we have codes that have the stiffest standards for the people at the bottom of the pyramid.

I do not make any judgment about the performance of people at different levels. I entirely agree with the Minister that the huge majority of councillors do not just avoid ethical problems, but struggle desperately to provide a proper service to their constituents and the last thing on their mind is breaching those standards. It rubs hard with them to see a less severe code applied to Members of Parliament than is applied to them. I hope the Minister will be able to help us with that issue.

Finally, I return to what the Minister traded as one of his big concessions this morning—that in future councillors will be able to support their local communities when contentious decisions are beforethe council. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst raised the case of his golf club—sorry, not his golf club, but an adjacent one—and the 500 houses. The Minister explicitly said in his response to an intervention that in future councillors would be able to participate in such cases.

I refer the Minister to a letter which I think was sent to all members of the Committee, but was certainly sent to me on January 23 by Mr. David Prince, the chief executive of the Standards Board for England. The letter contains a before-and-after checklist comparing the requirements of the existing code with those of the new code. On page 3 of the letter there is a

“note on predetermination and bias”,

which states that

“Members who will be voting on a planning and licensing matter and clearly identify themselves with an outcome to an application which they will be involved in considering make a decision open to legal challenge.”

That is not because of the code; it is because of the common law doctrine on predetermination and predisposition. I am not a lawyer. I have had the law on that point explained to me several times and I am still struggling with it. That it exactly the sort of matteron which monitoring officers make their money by providing interpretations. According to the Standards Board, at least until January, members would not be able to take part in decision making on issues such as houses on a golf course in their ward. I would like the Minister to comment on that.

Will the Minister consider tabling a Government amendment or look favourably on an amendment from another quarter that would set aside the common law doctrine on predetermination in respect of councillors performing their duties on behalf of their local community? When I started as a councillor, in 1979, nobody had discovered that doctrine. Councillors from every party on the authorities that I served on took strong public views about the progress of a planning application as a matter of course, followed it through in committee and voted accordingly. The doctrine has emerged over the past 20 years to the detriment of local government, local democracy and strong local representation. I say to the Minister that it should be overturned. If that requires an amendment to the Bill, that is what should happen.

I hope that the Minister understands that I am in no way failing to acknowledge the progress that has been made and I appreciate what he said earlier. However, the Committee may have got the impression that the Minister has gone further than he has. I will welcome any clarification from him on the points that Ihave raised and any help that he can give us on howwe might proceed from now to the point of implementation of the code, so that it is appropriate to the needs of local democracy and fully secure against any subsequent mission creep—either from this place or from monitoring officers around the country.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I, too, welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Benton.

I want to pick up one or two of the points made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove. On conduct that may be covered by the code, will the Minister consider whether current regulations and the new draft code adequately cover material that councils might placeon their websites? It appears that some councillors, including in City of Durham council, which I know well, are using websites inappropriately and that the Standards Board does not appear to be clear about how it can prevent that, particularly when it involves material from individual councillors passed through officers—for example, the relevant press officer. Such material can be personally abusive or factually inaccurate, yet the Standards Board appears to think that it has no jurisdiction over such matters. Will the Minister consider that issue and, in particular, whether current legislation is indeed inadequate to safeguard against political bias or personal vindictiveness? If it is, will amendments be considered on Report?

Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish)

Personally, I have always been sceptical of the value of the Standards Board. Serious cases have always tended to be flushed out by the system anyway. My own concern is that it is basically a snitch’s charter for frivolous and vexatious complaints. I have been a victim of those myself.

They say that an antisocial behaviour order is a badge of honour, but I have been reported to the Standards Board for England on three occasions and no action was taken on any of them. Such events cause a great deal of concern and upset, and sometimes bad publicity when the press get hold of the allegations. A person does not always have the opportunity to put their side directly to the press until after the hearing when they have been cleared. Having said that, I think that the Minister has moved considerably in the course of today’s debate.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove has raised real points about the inconsistencies between the different tiers of government and the standards expected. For me, as a new Member of this House, but having been a councillor for 11 years—I still am—it has been a real eye-opener. Were this a local government meeting, Mr. Benton, I would first have to declare an interest as a member of Tameside metropolitan borough council. You would determine that I would have to leave the proceedings; I certainly would not be able to speak, let alone vote.

To put that into context, at the Tameside council meeting about this time last year, when the parliamentary boundary commission’s proposals were being debated by the local authorities, I was at a meeting of Tameside council, where, as Member of Parliament for one of the three constituencies being considered as part of the review, I had to declare an interest, as did my wife, a cabinet member on Tameside council, because she is the wife of that Member of Parliament. We then both had to leave the council chamber and take no part in the debate or the vote that followed. That highlights the inconsistencies between how things work in local government and nationally.

However, planning is the major issue. When I was21 and only just elected to Tameside council, I had a baptism of fire. There was a controversial planning application affecting my ward. It was a proposal to build not houses but an industrial estate on an open green space, which happened to be a golf course—yes, we have golf courses in Denton. That was the Kingswater Park development, and I was proud to be one of three Labour councillors who—I hope that the Whip is not listening—who defied the Labour group whip and voted against the building of that major industrial estate in Denton. Thankfully, the Deputy Prime Minister refused it planning permission on three occasions. The point is that there was a massive 30,000-signature local petition. People did not want to lose their piece of open space, and as their councillor I spoke up for them and voted accordingly. I would not have been able to do that if some of the present rules and regulations had been in place in 1996. I might not have been one of the Kingswater three.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I shall make a few remarks now to save me from intervening on the Minister later. We appear to be debating two distinct issues in connection with planning. One is the role of local councillors. At one stage when I was on Sefton council, we considered devolving a lot of planning decisions to the area committees. Had the Standards Board made its subsequent ruling then, the area committees would have been incapable of determining any of them.

A fair case has been made that local councillors have the right to express their views on planning matters. However, that is separate from the question whether councillors can express opinions prior to a planning meeting. A different kind of ruling and adjudication is involved, and that rule seems not to stem directly from anything that the Standards Board has produced butto have grown over time. The distinction is partly artificial. I can recall the days when many major planning committee decisions were ratified in full council, and I do not remember people absenting themselves on any ground to any great extent unless they had a direct financial involvement.

I should be interested to know at what stage the natural history of planning committees changed and planning councillors—those who sat regularly on the planning committee—were forbidden to express an opinion prior to the committee’s determination. Was it identified as unlawful, or simply as unwise? Clearly, if a planning committee member gives their view before seeing all the facts and hearing the case made by the applicant, there is a firm case for the applicant to register an appeal, win and overrule the planning committee. Have the rules binding planning committee members always been there? Has expressing a prior view always been unlawful, or has practice changed?

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

Welcome back to the Committee, Mr. Benton.

I support the points that hon. Members have made on the planning issue and predetermination. I mentioned it at some length earlier today, but I think that it is important for the Minister to help us. I am grateful to him for his response about the Standards Board, and I appreciate the Government’s move on that, but like the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and others, I should be concerned if the issue were to fall between the two stools of the common law ruling and the Standards Board regime. Either way, the current situation is nonsense; either way, it is wrong.

I say to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that I too was elected to a council at 21. I can only promise him that it gets better as one gets older. I made my maiden speech in the council chamber opposingan industrial development in my ward. There was no problem with that under the old regime, but the common law on the matter has grown, more judge driven than driven by any will of the House, which is troubling. We might need to examine it.

I served for a time as a member of a planning committee back in the ’70s and ’80s. The rules were not as rigid then as they are now. Our problem now is that councillors feel gagged when dealing with key issues. For many—particularly in small authorities, although it applies to London boroughs as well—planning issues are the bread and butter of their ward work, especially major issues involving matters of principle, such as the cases that we have discussed, which affect whole communities and not just individuals. It is important that we do not allow—for any reason, be it judge-made law or a gap in the regulations—an unreasonable fetter on elected representatives carrying out their job and what the public perceive to be their job. Any help that the Minister can give us will be much appreciated by Members from all parties, because there is a consensus that the current situation is not acceptable.

Peter Soulsby (Labour, Leicester South)

I rise as one who had reached the comparatively ripe age of 24 before first being elected to a local authority—I was a late starter. That causes me to reflect on the average age of councillors now—the late 50s. In a later debate we might discuss the fact that it is difficult for any party to attract young people to become members of local authorities.

I am more sympathetic to the Standards Board than some of the other hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, although I would be even more sympathetic to a board that had a lighter touch than has been the case of late. There is no doubt that both the board and the code have been brought into disrepute for a number of reasons that include vexatious complaints, high-profile cases such as that of the London Mayor, and officers who have been over-zealous in their interpretation of the code.

I welcome the clause and the provisions that follow it because I have no doubt that they will provide an appropriate balance between a national framework and local discretion. I hope that the Committee will approve the clause as amended. I am minded to referto the debate on Second Reading, in which some Opposition Members expressed scepticism about whether the Bill contained anything worth while. There is much else in the Bill that is worth while. However, if there were there nothing else worth while in the Bill, and there is much that is worth while, it would be worth while for the clause and the following clauses alone.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I suspect that the Hansard report of the last 26 minutes will be among the best read reports of a Standing Committee that there has been for some time. Many thousands of councillors are looking to us for guidance, so I shall be careful both in answering the points and in my choice of words, in order to convey the Government’s policy intention accurately.

I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove for giving up his lunch—he and I were considering the same matters. I gave the Committee the good news on local representations and the criteria that the Government are proposing, but there is an important point on planning and licensing that enters the equation. My remarks were outside of those two areas, but that is not to say that the Government disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The tests on planning and licensing that are being questioned are not based on the same principle. A planning committee member must abide by planning law, and must justify his or her decisions in planning terms; the fear of being prejudicial is what causes the problem.

The hon. Member for Southport made an important point—he asked whether certain conduct was unwise or unlawful. I am informed that the current position is largely the result of case law and of the fear of appeals being contested on case law grounds. The answer to his question is that the Government undertake to consider the matter in a sympathetic light—indeed, we are discussing the issue in planning policy. The problem cannot be solved directly through the code of conduct, however; we will have to consider the case law on planning.

The remit of licensing committees has changed under the Licensing Act 2003, and it is opportune for me to undertake to the Committee to discuss the potential future period of development in the field of licensing with my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. If a planning area can be contentious, the grant of a licence could be even more so, and we do not want Parliament’s will to be overtaken by the case law that could develop in that area.

I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove for giving up his lunch. When we began debating this part of the Bill, I said that I wanted to try to build a consensus. If I am to be true to that commitment, I shall be obliged to consider the points that he has made, and I shall do so with all seriousness.

I turn now to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham and by other hon. Members in relation to publicity and party political propaganda. The code covers the behaviour of individual council members. A decision by an individual councillor to misuse publicity for party political purposes can be subject to the code as it is now and the code as it will be, if it is implemented. There is a separate code, a statutory code on publicity, that regulates the activities of an authority—either groups of councils or the authority itself. If an authority uses funds in breach of that code, it is a matter for the auditor and for me or my successors, with the advice of officials. My hon. Friend has written to me on that point. Therefore, the behaviour of individual councillors and the decisions of authorities are separate issues.

The hon. Member for Hazel Grove made a very good point about the statutory instrument, which is to be subject to the negative procedure. The same point had occurred to me as a member of the former Whips’ club. It is often not understood in the House that a negative statutory instrument can be defeated, but that does not legally change anything. In my earlier remarks, I added a second point that I would talk to the Leader of the House about it. I think it desirable to have a debate on the code as well as on the legislation that is behind the code, which we are debating now.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Standards Board’s consultation. It is perhaps not widely understood—certainly not by the journalists who report these matters—that the Standards Board itself is not the board that takes decisions on conduct. The Standards Board, ably chaired by Sir Anthony Holland and overseen by the chief executive, David Prince, runs the Standards Board operation. It is the adjudication officer that makes the decisions on conduct. However, the Bill provides that that function be got rid of and that decisions be taken locally.

I believe that the change will speed things up and cut the number of vexatious complaints, for the simple reason—I apologise if I use layperson’s language rather than legalistic language—is that a headline in the local paper saying, “I have referred a fellow councillor to the national Standards Board” is a bigger headline than one saying, “I have referred him to the local standards board”. Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are nodding, showing that they recognise what I am saying. The experience of elected members at council level is why I want to see party political appointments on the local committees. I believe that the committees should have experience. Of course they should be balanced and have an independent chair, but they should also have experience to be able to judge these matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish referred to the Kingswater three. He shocked me when he said that it was 11 years ago. The first early-day motion that I signed was about Kingswater. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) told me to sign the piece of paper and then told me what it was that I had signed. That resulted in a phone call the following day from the leader of Tameside council, who is still in his position. I realised then that politics was a tough old game. I was damned if I did and damned if I didnot, so I never signed an early-day motion affecting somebody else’s constituency after that.

My hon. Friend made an important point. For the record, he was referred to the Standards Board during the course of the parliamentary selection procedure. I wondered at the time, reading in Tameside Reporter, whether that had anything to do with it, but who knows. He was, of course, cleared. He makes a serious point about these processes, in which some councillors have described themselves as being gagged. I hope that I have answered his point, which was also made by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and others.

In light of my opening comments—and in seeking strong support for the new code—I have undertaken to consider the important points on planning and licensing made in the debate and those made in the response to the consultation on the code of conduct.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I appreciate the way in which the Minister is approaching this matter. I am sure that he is right that the broader the consensus that can be built, the more enduring the application of the code can be. That consensus should extend beyond the Committee to all our local government colleagues of all parties. Will his reconsideration stretch as far as considering whether, as well as reversing the judicial decisions in respect of the Mayor of London, he might reverse those in respect of the predetermination issue? That would be a major step forward for local government.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. The Government are considering planning policy. We have made a public commitment to a planning White Paper. I confirm that the matter is being debated. The hon. Gentleman will have gathered from the tone of my remarks what the thinking is inside Government. There is a cautious note to be struck on the other side of the debate, which is that one has, quite rightly, to protect the planning procedure. It is often forgotten that proposers have rights as well as objectors, as the Kingswater case proves.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I understand what the Minister is saying and I would not want to push him so far that he predetermined his decision. If he did so, he would not be able to participate in the final part of the process.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

That problem is avoided by the involvement of my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning, whose job it is to consider such matters, so I would be able to participate, but the hon. Gentleman would probably press me on collective Government responsibility.

I think that I have answered all the questions. I commend the proposals to the Committee.

Clause 132

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 165, in clause 132, page 92, line 20, at end insert—

‘(1A) Where a standards committee receives an allegation under subsection (1) it must copy the allegation to the person who is the subject of the complaint.’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 166, in clause 132, page 92, line 41, after ‘allegation’, insert

‘and the person who is the subject of the complaint’.

No. 167, in clause 132, page 94, line 46, after ‘allegation’, insert

‘and the person who is the subject of the complaint’.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

Under the clause, after a complaint goes in, the person who makes it has to be written to after a period of time about what is happening. However, the clause contains nothing about the person who is being complained about. We suggest in amendment No. 165 that where a standards committee receives an allegation under clause 132(1), it must copy the complaint to the person who is its subject as a matter of natural justice. If an allegation has been made, the person against whom it is directed ought at least to have the right to know as soon as possible what it is.

In proposed new section 57A(4) of the Local Government Act 2000, the standards committee

“must take reasonable steps to give notice in writing, to the person who made the allegation, of the decision and the reasons for the decision.”

However, there is no recognition that the person who is being complained against should also be written to and told why the standards committee is or is not going to proceed. That is why we have tabled the amendments. Our aim is to balance the legislation. I could say a lot more, but I will not do so.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

I support amendment No. 165. Recently in my constituency, an independent councillor against whom a series of complaints were made to the Standards Board was not aware that a complaint had been made until the announcement of the result. As it happens, the Liberal Democrat mayor of Bridgnorth made the complaints. The matter caused considerable distress to the councillor because it happened not once, but twice. It is entirely reasonable to propose that individuals of whatever party or cause who are the subject of a complaint be notified before a result is determined.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Our desire is to encourage the efficient working, transparency, and fairness of the operation of a Standards Board’s role of assessing allegations. I accept the importance of providing information to the person against whom a complaint of a breach of the code has been made, so that he or she knows what the accusation is and is able to defend him or herself.The national Standards Board currently provides information to the person whom is the subject of a complaint. In any event, I expect that the guidance the board will give to standards committees will include a requirement to inform and that they will follow that practice.

By tabling the amendment, the hon. Member for Poole has raised the question of whether the measure should be in the Bill. I have a strong tendency to agree with amendment No. 165, but I ask the Committee to give me some time to ask the Standards Board for its view. I have a couple of problems with the drafting of the amendment. I hope I am not being pernickety but, for example, the amendment does not indicate when an allegation must be copied to an individual. Should that be before a standards committee meets to decide an outcome?

None the less, I am minded to accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I do not know whether other people agree with me, but the amendment seems sensible. However, I would like to ask the Standards Board for its view on whether such a measure should be in the Bill, and to come back to the Committee as soon as possible.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

It is most acceptable and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 151, in clause 132, page 93, leave out lines 9 to 29.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 152, in clause 132, page 93, line 34, leave out ‘and 57B(4)’.

No. 153, in clause 132, page 94, leave out lines 4 to 9.

No. 154, in clause 132, page 95, leave out line 20.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

The clause deals with the right to request the review of a decision to take no action. As the Bill stands, a person who puts in a complaint has a second go, because they are able to go back to a committee. I would like the Minister to explain how that would work. When a complaint is made, a committee decides either to farm it out or not to act. The committee might then tell the individual who has made the written complaint that it will take no action. On what grounds within the 30 days that have to elapse can the complainant write back? Can a complainant request more information from the committee or the council? If a person simply reiterates the original complaint, does the committee have to consider it or can they bin it? I would like more information on those matters. If a committee decides not to examine a complaint made by someone it has decided is absolutely barking, it gives the complainant another 30 days to get more coverage in, say, the “Tameside Herald”, and to go back to the council for another go with their complaint.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

We all agree that the conduct regime should be fair to both those facing allegations and those who make them. It is therefore important that provision should be made for those making allegations to request a review of a decision to take no action. We are talking about the gateway—the prima facie decision, not the investigation and decision itself. The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that point in his remarks. The provisions will allow the right to request a review in that period, whereupon the standards committee must reconsider the complaint afresh.

I can see where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, and the provision sounds slightly overzealous on the face of it. Apart from natural justice considerations, my thinking is influenced partly by a pragmatic point. We are talking about local standards committees in every council in the country, so the issue relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak about consistency in decision making. The provisions will be beneficial particularly in the early days.

We expect that the guidance on practice will be much quicker in dealing with prima facie allegations than has been stated. For that reason, we and the Standards Board wanted the assurance in the Bill so as to provide and be seen to provide a guarantee. There have been examples of complaints being knocked back, so the complainant will have the right to ask for that to be reconsidered. Obviously, it must be done efficiently and expediently. That was the thinking behind the clause.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I thank the Minister for that answer. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 164, in clause 132, page 93, line 38, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Standards Board for England shall publish the reasons for making or revoking a direction under subsection (1)’.

This part of clause 132 contains a power to suspend standards committees’ powers. The amendment would require the Standards Board to publish the reasonfor doing so. I should be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that suggestion, as there ought to be some justification for the action taken.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there should be justification for the action. The board should be transparent in its processes and decision making. However, although I agree with him, proposed new section 57C(6) of the Local Government Act 2000 will provide for that. In light of that, we certainly wish the Standards Board to publish the reasons for making or revoking such a decision.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I realise that I should have read that at lunch time, but I was doing something else. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I beg to move amendment No. 190, in clause 132, page 94, line 26, at end insert—

‘(e) modifying section 67(2A) in relation to any case where a direction under this section is in force at a time when the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales is of the opinion mentioned there.’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 191 and 192.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I thank the hon. Member for Poole for his comment on the previous amendment. It gives me the opportunity to put an important point on the record, because many councillors will agree with him.

Government amendments Nos. 190 to 192 will provide for regulations to amend the existing arrangements for consultation between the public services ombudsman for Wales and the Standards Board when a direction issued by the board is enforced. The need for the amendment is a consequence of the exercise of the board’s direction-making powers and will allow, for example, that, when the direction provides for the standards committee of another authority to deal with misconduct allegations, the Wales ombudsman can consult the committee rather than the board if he considers an issue has arisen that may relate to a breach of the code of conduct and which should be considered by the committee.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

The Minister, laudably, said that the whole thrust of the Bill is to provide a level playing field between those who accuse and those who are accused. If we consider how the process of a complaint is handled, we must say that it will be judicious; it will be balanced; it will be well evidenced and so on. As we all know, very few charges actually stick, but much publicity is attached to the process of making a charge. It often takes place during a fevered electoral period. There does not seem to be anything in the Bill or in what the Standards Board tells us that will resolvethat difficulty. It is a simple expedient device used regrettably by all parties from time to time to make an allegation in the run-up to election time, the accused being exonerated afterwards. Of course, during election time, it is rare to get a council committee together because all the councillors are out campaigning for re-election. Has the Minister or even the Standards Board given thought to not only how the process can be balanced, but how the relating to the public ofthe complaints process can be balanced, which is something altogether different?

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

I welcome the proposal to devolve a lot of the responsibility for investigating complaints to the local standards committee, but I wish to raise a specific concern that was highlighted by the Graham committee when it reported on resources in January 2005. The Government so often impose obligations on local authorities and expect them to fund obligations without providing additional help. In this case, the Graham committee estimated that the Standards Board would save £9 million through such measures. That was fine for the board, but it implies that a cost equivalent to that is imposed on local authorities. Has the Minister given thought to providing resources to the monitoring officers to fund the additional work that they will have to undertake and to providing additional funding out of the savings that will be made by the board to give additional allowances to the independent panel members whose numbers will inevitably increase if there is an increased work load?

Lynda Waltho (Labour, Stourbridge)

I seem to be one of the few members of the Committee who was not a councillor. [Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member for Lichfield is in the minority with me. For my sins, I was regional officer for the Labour party. I was there to encourage councillors and to assist them during the election period. Has the Minister thought about the way in which publicity is used as a weapon? It is almost a legitimate campaign tool inasmuch as its use appears to be fair game. I did not realise that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish had suffered from that particular weapon. Could the element of publicity be withdrawn until the complaint had been properly investigated?

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I merely point out that very few headlines say, “Blameless councillor exonerated.”

Lynda Waltho (Labour, Stourbridge)

Absolutely. I just feel that my suggestion could be the way to stop the process being used in a vexatious way. In some cases, the glare of publicity is basically a job done. We have had a bit of a laugh about it, but it is really quite damaging to a person’s reputation and family. I know of cases where a councillor’s children at school have been upset and damaged by the whole thing. I wonder whether taking the draw of publicity away from it would assist us all.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Member for Southport and my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge have made similar points.

The hon. Member for Ludlow asked a specific point and I should like to deal with that first. We takethe new burdens policy seriously, not just in my Department, but across government. That policy is about providing the net cost of new burdens. Councillors often write to me about the gross costs of new burdens, but never about the net costs. I am sure that, as somebody who wants good use of public finances and to bear down on inefficiencies, he will accept my point. In that regard, if the House to agrees to the Bill, we will apply it in this instance. At the moment, we estimate that the savings to the board are about £2 million. That will be reflected in the revenue support grant.

Our policy is that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, money in the RSG should not be ring-fenced. That is also the hon. Gentleman’s party’s policy. However, if the budget is not ring-fenced, can one guarantee, and be seen to be guaranteeing, the independence of the function? Although I have thought about that matter, thankfully we have not had to address it yet. If I did so, I would be jumping ahead of Parliament—and I would not do that. I will take on board soon the points made by the hon. Gentleman.

Regarding the more general points, Mr. Benton, I do not think that you want me to open up a general debate. I consulted informally a cross-party group of councillors about what the solution to this problem may be and it came up with the answer that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge gave, which is that if a law were passed saying that a complaint could not be put it in the press until it is dealt with, that would probably dry up the number of complaints made. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak will recognise that issue from his days on the Standards and Privileges Committee. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has to take swift action in response to press inquiries that have been generated by press releases that arise often before the complaint itself has arisen.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

I was about to intervene when my hon. Friend the Minister made exactly the point that I was going to make, which was that even the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge would not work when people make complaints first to the press and then to the formal body. As the Minister says, that happens just as much in the House as it does in respect of the Standards Board.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

We considered whether there might be a mechanism to close that down again, but we quickly came up against the pragmatic problems that would result. The freedom of the press would probably have been an issue as well. As elected representatives, we have to live with the fact that these problems happen in an ethical regime. As we all know, complaints are made in letters to the Speaker of the House about Members of Parliament, and those complaints often have nothing to do with the Speaker.

Part of the thought behind the new framework and new strategy is that localising the process will bear down on such problems for the reason that I gave before. It is not as headline grabbing to go to a local committee as a national committee. The chemistry will have that effect as well, because individuals are likely to be known, the chair of the committee is likely to know individuals and the local newspapers will know them too. Crying wolf might, in time, help the situation.

I considered the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge and by the hon. Member for Southport. I have moved a long way away from the clause, but I commend it to the Committee.

Clause 133

Neil Turner (Labour, Wigan)

Following our debate on vexatious and politically motivated complaints, may I suggest that the Minister talk to the Standards Board about a way in which we might tie down some of the issues through the requirement for local authorities to report on their work annually to the Standards Board? I believe that Wigan is recognised as having one of the best councils in the country—I say “one of the best” in deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. Perversely, however, it has one of the highest numbers of complaints against its members. That is largely because one party—the main opposition, which is not represented in this Committee—uses complaints in the way that other hon. Members have described.

I read the comprehensive performance assessment and the local standards report. The local standards report quite properly made the point that such exercises are not without cost. If a complaint is made to the local standards board, the board has to take on board the complaint and consider it, and that costs time to officers as well as real money, which has a real impact on the services that a council can provide, because the money has to come out of the council’s coffers rather than going into front-line services.

I wonder, therefore, whether we should not give the Standards Board for England the opportunity to include in its report the number of vexatious and politically motivated complaints that it receives, and the cost of handling such complaints for local authorities. I wrote to the board to request a list of the complainants in Wigan to find out whether I could prove what I knew to be the case, but the board said that it could not provide such a list. It could give me the number of complaints made by councillors and by the general public, but it could not give me a breakdown by individuals.

The particular party that makes the large number of complaints in Wigan is called the Community Action party, although we know it in Wigan as the no-community no-action non-party, on the basis that it proposes not having community councils, has never proposed any action, and its members fight like rats in sacks. It uses its membership to make complaints as well, so most complaints come from that one party. Dealing with the complaints will have a major impact on the finances of the local authority in Wigan, despite the fact that the motivation for them is political.

I suggest that we give the oxygen of publicity to that issue, so that we can say which party is costing people money and how much, and tell the electors that the money is coming out of the budget for teachers, social services and street cleaning. That might make the complainants think twice.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on a very good point. There is no penalty for submitting a complaint that is vexatious and a waste of time, and which is made merely in order to produce a headline. There is nothing that we can do about the free press, and we would not want to do anything, anyway. I wonder, however, whether when local standards committees deal with complaints they should make a judgment on whether those complaints—even if not upheld—are either reasonable, or politically motivated or vexatious. Why should they not be able to comment on that?

There might be individuals in a district who are always making complaints. One cannot stop that, but if the committee considers five complaints from Mr. or Miss X, and all of them are trivial, that should be on the record so that people are aware of what that person is doing. Then, the next time that he or she rings the press or sends in a press release, the council can say that that person has complained on five separate occasions and that each complaint was either vexatious or unimportant. That would impose a test on those who used the system, whereas at present there is no cost to making a complaint. I am not sure whether it would be possible to do, but will the Minister consider some way of allowing the people who judge the individuals who are complained about to make some comment on the person who makes the complaint?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I said at the beginning that I wantedto build strong support in the Committee for this process. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan and Opposition Members have made the same point. I am obliged to try to achieve that, and I certainly agree with it. I shall explain what the clause does, because it goes some way to make the point, and then I will respond to the specific questions.

The clause enables the Standards Board to direct an authority to provide it with periodic and ad hoc information about the allegations of misconduct it has received, any request to review a decision to take no action, and the exercise of any of the functions bythe standards committee or the monitoring officer.The authority must comply with the request for information by the date that the Standards Board specifies.

The measure is quite tough and reflects the fact that we are creating a new regime with 450 authorities in the country. It also covers the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan made. The Standards Board can request information as it sees fit. The information is primarily intended to be used by the Standards Board to monitor the performance of the committees and the monitoring officers, who often have an influential voice in the matter. The ability to request information is needed to ensure that the board is able to decide what further support and guidance it needs to provide to help standards committees and monitoring officers. That is the purpose of the clause, which covers the point being made.

Bringing the council into disrepute is a matter of conduct as well. In response to the points made from both sides of the Committee, I shall write to the Standards Board in relation to the types of information it provides to see whether it has a view on that point. We discussed a sanction on vexatious complaints and that is something that was consulted upon. The example that my hon. Friend has given highlights the costs. I could make the point that parliamentary questions are very expensive as well. One estimate puts the cost of answering at £1,500 per question, which makes the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) a very expensive Member indeed. However, I promise not to issue a press release on that point.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

On the question of vexatious of complaints, will my hon. Friend make it clear—either in legislation or in subsequent guidance—that the timeliness of the committee’s response to a complaint is also very important? In particular, could the committee weed out the trivial and vexatious complaints quickly? That means not waiting for an entire committee cycle to go on before a complaint is deemed to be trivial or vexatious. There needs to be a way for standards committees to meet on an ad hoc basis to weed out vexatious and trivial complaints very quickly, so that they are not given time to ferment in the media and elsewhere.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Under the regime, the chair would be allowed to act to speed things up. That is one of the reasons why I am proposing the idea of a strong independent chair. In other circumstances, committees can delegate matters to the chair and I think that that regime is correct in that respect. That will help to address the point that my hon. Friend has made. If the chair is strong and independent and the committee has confidence in him or her, and if the chair is able to knock back complaints that are, in his or her view, clearly mischievous, that could help to resolve the problems.

Clause 134

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

I commend the clause and believe that it providesthe integrity for standards committees now thatthose bodies have further local determination. The impartiality of committees is properly enshrined because chairmen will now be independent of both members and officers of the relevant authority.

May I briefly recount the experience in Enfield? We had one of the first standards committees—we had one before the guidance to do so, and before much decision making was referred to the Standards Board. We in Enfield determined a number of complaints involving councillors and others locally, and the chairman dealt with vexatious complaints in the same way that the Bill proposes. Enfield still has the same independent chairman, Geoffrey Mills, who performs an excellent service and takes his role very seriously.

My question is about the burden on the chairman. Historically, Enfield had local determination powers, which have been taken away from it over the years. When I was a member of the committee, the chairman took his role seriously, but his burden was considerable. To draw out the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow about resources, in order to support good chairmen such as Geoffrey Mills and to attract people to the role of chairing standards committees, which authorities are now obliged to have, proper resources will have to be provided to support the work of such offices. I support the view that the Government need to look seriously at the issue of resources, not only those provided for the monitoring officer, but at the remuneration available to chairmen. Given the vital importance of protecting the integrity of a standards committee by having independent chairmen, remuneration should not be prescribed or limited.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point, and for his support for having independent chairmen. The issue of resources, which the hon. Member for Ludlow raised, is important and will be dealt with after the deliberations of the Committee. There will be consistency throughout the country. Via the training and guidance that will be available, I am trying to create a superstructure and framework of support for committees, chairmen and monitoring officers, rather like those in place for returning officers, who are often employees of a council, but who operate independently.

To briefly explain why I want independent chairmen, I am trying to create a situation in which members of standards committees have experience of local councils and elected members from across the political spectrum. To make a comparison, employment tribunals have an independent chair who has knowledge of the tribunal and carries its respect. Often, although not by prescription, the tribunal also has a retired trade unionist or officer and a personnel officer or manager, both of whom have experience at the front line—at the chalk face. It is important that standards committees have on them elected members and councillors of different political persuasions, with the guarantee of an independent chair and some independent members. That is the thinking behind the measure.

The chair will receive allowances according to a council’s own scheme. Local authorities set allowances having regard to the advice they receive from their own independent panels. That is something that neither I nor my predecessors got involved in. The consultation did not throw up a problem with that, but it may come up in future. The clause deals with independent chairs, but I note the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Clause 136

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Clause 136 inserts new section 56A into the Local Government Act 2000. It will empower the Secretary of State to make regulations under whichtwo or more local authorities may establish a joint committee and arrange for functions that would normally be carried out by a standards committee to be carried out instead by the joint committee, so particular districts and groups of councils can have the same committee. It may be difficult to recruit enough people in counties with seven or more districts, for instance, if seven committees are required. That isthe simple idea, and I commend the clause to the Committee.

Clause 138

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 163, in clause 138, page 98, line 32, leave out subsection (3) and insert—

‘(3) Section 62 of the Act (ethical standards officers: investigations and findings) is amended as follows—

(a) omit subsection (1),

(b) in subsection (2)(b) after “such”, insert “documents,”.’.

I could go into a long technical explanation of the amendment, but I think that it would probably be better if the Minister explained his view on it.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for moving the amendment, which would delete the ethical standards officer’s existing right of access to every document that appeared to him or her to be necessary and replace it with a power to require any person to give the officer the documents necessary to conduct an investigation.

Once a misconduct allegation has been made and a decision is taken to investigate it, it is crucial for the investigator to have access to information to test whether a breach of the code has occurred. For that reason, the amendment’s proposals to limit the ethical standards officer’s access to documents are wrong. I do not think that it would encourage public confidence in the robustness of the process. The existing right of access to every document that appears necessary to the ethical standards officer is one of the many bits of procedure that works at the moment. We fear that putting that right at arm’s length might jeopardise it. That is our thinking on the amendment.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I thank the Minister and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 155, in clause 138, page 98, line 35, at end insert—

‘(3A) In section 63(1) of that Act (restrictions on disclosure of information obtained by ethical standards officers)—

(a) at the beginning insert ‘Confidential’;

(b) leave out paragraph(c).’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 156, in clause 138, page 99, line 5, at end add—

‘(5) After section 63(1) of that Act insert—

“(1A) Confidential information obtained by ethical standards officers under section 61 or 62 shall be disclosed to the person who is the subject of the complaint on terms that the information is to be kept confidential by that person, his solicitors or counsel, and named advisers, if it is in the interest of fairness that it be disclosed.”.’.

No. 157, in clause 138, page 99, line 5, at end add—

‘( ) After section 63(3) of that Act insert—

“(3A) If an ethical standards officer is not able fairly to continue his investigation because of a notice given under subsection (2), he shall discontinue his investigation and state that the investigation is being discontinued because of the notice.”.’.

No. 158, in clause 139, page 99, line 15, at end insert—

‘(3A) After subsection (3) insert—

“(3B) Subject to subsections 3(C) and 3(D) where an ethical standards officer produces a report under this section he shall take reasonable steps to send a copy to any person who is named in the report or who made any allegation which gave rise to the investigation and shall publish the report.

(3C) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63 the report shall be released to the person who is the subject of the investigation on terms that the information subject to section 63 is to be kept confidential by that persons, his solicitors or counsel, and named advisers.

(3D) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63, the report which is sent to any person under subsection (3B) (other than the person who is the subject of the investigation) and is publish shall be in a redacted form.”.’.

No. 159, in clause 139, page 99, line 25, at end insert—

‘(8A) After subsection (5) insert—

“(5A) Subject to subsection (5B) where an ethical standards officer produces a report under this section he shall take reasonable steps to send to copy to any person who is named in the report (other than the person who is the subject of the investigation) or who made any allegation which gave rise to the investigation and shall publish the report.

(5B) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63, the report which is sent to any person under subsection (5A) and is publish shall be in a redacted form.”.’.

No. 160, in clause 139, page 99, line 32, at end add—

‘(11) After section 71(3) of that Act (reports etc) insert—

“(3A) Subject to subsections (3B) and (3C) where the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales produces a report under this section he shall take reasonable steps to send a copy to any person who is named in the report or who made any allegation which gave rise to the investigation and shall publish the report.

(3B) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63 the report shall be released to the person who is the subject of the investigation on terms that the information subject to section 63 is to be kept confidential by that person, his solicitors or counsel, and named advisers.

(3C) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63, the report which is sent to any person under subsection (3B) (other than the person who is the subject of the investigation) and is published shall be in a redacted form.”.

(12) After section 72(5) insert—

“(5A) Subject to subsection (5B) where the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales produces a report under this section he shall take reasonable steps to send a copy to any person who is named in the report (other than the person who is the subject of the investigation) or who made any allegation which gave rise to the investigation and shall publish the report.

(5B) If the report contains information whose disclosure is prohibited by section 63, the report which is sent to any person under subsection (5A0 and is published shall be in a redacted form.”.

(13) In section 83(1) of that Act (interpretation of Part III) insert after “Police Act 1996”—

“redacted form” means a version where confidential information has been removed and replaced by a non-confidential explanation of the removed material;’.

No. 161, in clause 140, page 99, leave out lines 36to 40.

No. 162, in clause 140, page 100, line 2, after ‘report’, insert

‘and the ethical standards officer has also produced the report in a redacted form’.

No. 177, in clause 140, page 100, line 2, leave out ‘it’ and insert ‘the unredacted report’.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

Again, I shall be extremely brief. The amendments deal with provisions on essentially confidential information accumulated by the ethical standards officers. They pursue a theme in one or two of our other amendments by providing that the person against whom the complaint is made should also have access to some of the documents that the ethical standards officers have, so that there is a degree of equity and fairness in the process. Again, I should be interested to hear the Minister’s views on the amendments.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

My argument is that there arealready arrangements by which members’ conduct is investigated by ethical standards officers under the auspices of the Standards Board and not by individual local authorities. In future, those officers will deal with the most serious allegations and because it is vital that we have a robust conduct regime that carries public confidence, it should allow information about the allegation and the results of the investigation to be circulated to those who have an interest, to ensure, for example, that the subject of the investigation knows his position.

In principle, making reports available to interested parties may be beneficial for various reasons, including informing complainants about the allegations, as well as encouraging the spread of information and experience on the operation of the conduct regime. However, I am concerned about the implications of the amendments. In particular, there are issues about the timing of any such information being made available, the fear that we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face, in line with the debate that we had about mischievous allegations, and the balance between making information available to the right people and ensuring that genuinely sensitive information is treated appropriately. I worry that that balance is not quite right.

The lead amendment would seem to preventthe disclosure of information that has already been disclosed lawfully to the public. The second amendment, which would allow confidential information to be disclosed to the subject of the investigation, seems likely to cause difficulties for investigators as a result of the timing of the disclosure and not as a result of the disclosure itself. Of course, it is vital that, when an investigation is under way, witness testimonies are not passed to the subject of an investigation until after he or she has been interviewed, in order to avoid their memory of events being polluted. I think that that point will be understood.

The existing provision, whereby the ethical standards officer is required to give the subject of the information the opportunity to comment on any allegation, adequately allows for appropriate information about the allegation to be given to the subject at the appropriate time.

Amendment No. 157 would provide for the standards officer to discontinue his investigation following a notice by the Secretary of State preventing the disclosure of a document—that is an existing power—but I believe that it is flawed. That is because the prevention of the onward disclosure of a document by the officer is not likely to prevent him from completing his investigation, as the amendment could imply. The notice would prevent the officer from passing the document to another person, but it would not prevent him from undertaking his investigation.

The remaining amendments in the group would require that reports by ethical standards officers be published and copies sent to everyone mentioned in them. I am slightly concerned that that would be unnecessarily bureaucratic. On occasion, the number of people mentioned in a report exceeds 20. I therefore believe that it would impose a disproportionate burden to require copies to be provided for everyone mentioned, many of whom will not have a particular interest in the issue.

The other amendments relate to the disclosure of information by the monitoring officer, and we consider that the proposals in the Bill make the provision that the hon. Gentleman is seeking in his amendment for the information received by the monitoring officer to be disclosed to interested parties.

In short, although I recognise the good intent of the amendments, we believe that their aims are either already covered, or that they would cause unintended consequences that would take us down the path that we discussed before.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 141

Clause 143

Clause 149

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I beg to move amendment No. 193, in clause 149, page 107, line 24, at end insert—

‘( ) A standards committee must when determining for the purposes of subsection (3) or (4) whether or not the duties of a post fall within section 2(3) have regard to any general advice given by the Secretary of State under section 3B.’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendmentNo. 194.

Government new clause 18—Politically restricted posts: consequential amendments.

Government amendment No. 195.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I ought briefly to explain the amendments for the benefit of the Committee. They supplement the provisions already in the Bill that put in place the new regime for handling politically restricted posts in English local authorities. The new regime is also intended to be devolutionary.

Our proposal is to abolish the national independent adjudicator, as has been discussed. I made the point that the board runs the service whereas the adjudicator is the person who considers serious allegations. We are devolving the responsibilities in question to each local authority’s independently chaired committee. They include the responsibility to manage and maintain a list of posts designated as politically restricted and tomake determinations on applications for posts to be exempted from that list. That will fulfil our commitment made, as hon. Members will know, inthe December 2005 discussion group, which was the subject of one of the lunchtime reading documents of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove. I hope that I have got there first.

The amendments will enable decisions on political restrictions to be made by local standards committees and allow those committees to have access to advicein undertaking their roles. Taken together, they will provide for the Secretary of State to issue advice to assist standards committees in making their decisions. That will replace the current arrangement whereby the independent adjudicator issues such advice.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

The Minister said that the amendments will allow the committees to take advice, and then he explained that that advice would come from the Secretary of State. Can he say something about the strength of that advice and what obligation there will be on the committees to have regard to it, implement it or whatever the other legalistic words are? In other words, how much freedom will they have to take a decision in defiance of the Secretary of State?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The measure is devolutionary, and the obligation will be to have regard to the advice. The matter has come about because if the national adjudicator is abolished, it must be replaced. In the spirit of decisions being taken locally, I am trying to ensure that committees will have regard to the advice. Of course there is limited room for a committee to operate in respect of politically restricted posts, but it seems to me common sense to allow some leeway. The idea is that the Secretary of State’s advice will have to be given regard to by the local committee. Sorry, Mr. Benton—that was an intervention, was it not?

The Chairman indicated assent—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Thank you.

Before issuing advice, the Secretary of State will be required to consult relevant organisations and representative bodies. Standards committees will be required to have regard to any advice that is issued in that way. If that point is accepted, we shall make consequential amendments arising from the Bill’s provisions on political arrangements to ensure that the new arrangements will be consistent with existing legislation. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Clause 150

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Never has so much time and effort been taken by political activists in this country over one simple clause as it has been over clause 150 of this Bill. It relates to political assistants’ pay and has been the subject of intense lobbying in the past. I found myself in the unusual position 10 years ago of representing political assistants, and it is a delight in regard of that history to bring the clause to the House. It will be even more of a delight for me as the Minister for Local Government for the clause to be accepted. I plead with the Committee not to oppose it.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

It is just as well that the doctrine of predetermination does not apply to Members of Parliament.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It does, but there is cross-party support for the clause. If members of the Committee are interested, I shall explain what it does. It amends section 9 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to enable the Secretary of State, in making an order under that section, to specify the maximum pay that political assistants are to receive, by reference to a point on a relevant pay scale. It gives the political assistant the advantage of being linked to a point on a pay scale rather than to a whim. It also means that the Secretary of State does not determine the pay rate of political assistants in councils throughout the country, which has been the case indirectly until now.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

Will the Minister clarify whether my reading of the clause is at fault? It suggests to me that it provides a fog over the pay of political assistants rather than the transparency that his opening remarks suggested was the Government’s aim. By referring to points rather than amounts, surely the system would make it even more difficult for those who are interested in establishing how much political assistants actually earn.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the clause will not do that. At the moment, the Secretary of State is required to lay a new order each time the maximum rate of pay for political assistants is to be uprated. Their pay was essentially frozen for several years. It was illegal for councils to increase the pay of political assistants unless the Secretary of State introduced an order, which would have meant that, say, the pay of the political assistant to the leader of Birmingham council would be determined by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister or the current Secretary of State. The system was very bureaucratic. It meant that we were being asked to determine someone’s pay, which we did not consider was the right way round.

Under the clause, the maximum pay of political assistants will be linked to a point on the local government pay scale. That will allow any increases in that pay point as a result of increases to the scale to be automatic for the political assistant. The council will determine where on the pay scale the political assistant should be appointed, and any subsequent increases will be within the general rules and linked to the scale.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. It is helpful. Does that mean that the scale itself will be published and available for public disclosure?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Indeed it does. Some local councils make different provisions for pay scales that aresubject to discussions and agreements between local government employers and trade union representatives, often over and above those provisions. That information is public. Similarly, it is not often known that a Member of Parliament’s pay, as discussed by the Senior Salaries Review Body, is linked to the pay of the superintendent or deputy head teacher of a large secondary school. One would not know that from the press coverage, but I take this opportunity to put it on record.

David Burrowes (Conservative, Enfield, Southgate)

I rise to make the point that the Minister’s work load and mailbag for the provisions would have been lessened if many authorities had followed the model in Enfield, where we have nothad political assistants since the Conservative administration came to office. We have three stars for improvements made for the taxpayers of Enfield, who have not had the burden of political assistants imposed on them. We do not seem to have lost anything from it in terms of improvement. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware how many other authorities have followed Enfield’s good example.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am completely lost as to whetherthis is a speech, an intervention or the reply to an intervention, but I seriously advise the hon. Gentleman not to go down that route, in light of the political composition of political assistants. Although he makes a point on behalf of his authority, I shall not write to the Conservative leader of Birmingham to point out the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised. That would be a cheap party political point, and I would not make one in this Committee unless urged strongly to do so by my hon. Friends.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

For the avoidance of doubt, and despite my earlier intervention, I must make it clear that the Liberal Democrats support the clause. There are a number of serious anomalies in the way that the existing legislation applies, with the question as to whether somebody is or is not deemed to be a political assistant somewhat in doubt. It is not in doubt in individual cases, but different determinations have been made in different authorities, leaving some people at a serious disadvantage. The clause is to be welcomed.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I concur. The cross-party representations that I received confirm that. The situation has also had the undesirable effect of placing policy officers, who are officials and sometimes administrative staff, in a difficult position. A council leader may be the leader of an organisation with hundreds of millions of pounds of expenditure and a wide range of responsibilities. If, in practice, councils have not been appointing political assistants—despite the fact that they previously did so with all-party agreement—but have relied on policy officers, who are council officials, it has placed those people in a difficult situation. That was part of my reasoning for introducing the clause. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, and I assure Conservative Members that Conservative council leaders’ political assistants support it as well.

Clause 151

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I beg to move amendment No. 125, in clause 151, page 108, line 23, leave out ‘abolished’ and insert

‘to be amalgamated such that each new tribunal exercises jurisdiction over cases arising within each Government Standard Economic Region.’.

The amendment is designed to test exactly what the Minister is up to in the clause. At the moment the valuation tribunals throughout England are many and have the advantage of local knowledge and local experience. The proposal is for a single valuation tribunal for England. Our amendment says, “Hang on a minute, if we are going to bring them together, let’s have one for each region of the country.” For thesake of simplicity, we have suggested one for each Government region. I want the Minister to say exactly what he is doing and why he is doing it.

As it happens, not only was my lunch time disrupted, but my late-night reading last night was disrupted, because I received a communication from the Council of Valuation Tribunal Members for England. I presume that the Minister has also seen that document, which sets out a large range of possible changes to the Bill that that body would like to see and that it says would lead to amendments to the Local Government Act 2003 that would make the situation better. I should like to know whether he has seen what that body is saying and whether he accepts its line of reasoning.

The purpose of my amendment is to test the Minister on what we are doing and why we are doing it. It would be of further benefit if he responded to some of the criticisms and suggestions made by the Council of Valuation Tribunal Members. It is fair to say that valuation tribunals do not appear very often on the political radar of Members of Parliament, but we might enter into a whole new realm if we ever get around to the revaluation of council tax and various other things. The tribunals could suddenly become much more important. It is therefore appropriate for the Secretary of State to give good justification for what, on the face of it, appears to be anything but a devolutionary measure—if the Government get rid of individual tribunals around England and consolidates them into one body.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reasoning and to his evaluation of the critique provided by the Council of Valuation Tribunal Members in its submission to Committee members.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for tabling the amendment. The clause has been long awaited by the service and the people who serve in it. I shall use this opportunity to explain the Government’s thinking.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the work of valuation tribunals rarely appears on a Member of Parliament’s radar screen. That indicates that they are doing a good job. The Government’s view is that they do a good job, which prompts the question, “Why are you changing them?” I want to explain why. Conservative Members, if they are true to their philosophy, would object to change for change’s sake—although not all Conservative Members would do so, of course. We are adopting a devolutionary approach, consistent with the Government’s wider policy on tribunals, which ensures their independence and—I was going to say “modernise”, but I suspect that Conservative Members’ ears would prick up and it would prompt them to oppose me, so let me say instead, “To bring them more up to date”.

At the moment, there are 56 tribunals in England, with chairs and presidents nominated from their local areas, and with members who serve on them. We should be grateful to them. They do not often get the headlines, and we might ask how much work they do in light of the fact that there has not been a valuation of domestic properties since 1991-92. Of course, they also deal with appeals on new houses; anomalies resulting from cases in which houses have been wrongly valued or in which that has been alleged; and non-domestic rates.

There is a revaluation of non-domestic rates every five years, and one took place two years ago. Those have nothing to do with the future of domestic property revaluations; members of the valuation tribunal services get on and do their jobs. The Government’s policy on tribunals in general is to bring them under the remit of the judicial appointments process, so that they are independent and seen to be independent.

The hon. Gentleman asks whether this is not a centralising measure, given that there are 56 local tribunals at the moment. It is not our intention, nor will it be the consequence of this proposal, that those local tribunals will cease to sit. There will still be local tribunals. They are needed in order to give the public confidence, to bring local knowledge to the job and for the sake of administrative efficiency. At the moment, the Valuation Tribunal Service, the national body, services the tribunals but does not take judicial or quasi-judicial decisions relating to valuations—that is the work of the tribunals, and that will remain the case. That is the crucial point and answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

Clause 151 establishes a valuation tribunal for England by giving effect to schedule 12 to the Bill. It also abolishes the separate legal entity of the 56 valuation tribunals that were created by the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and provides for the transfer of the jurisdiction of those tribunals to the valuation tribunal for England. Schedule 12 amends schedule 11 to the 1988 Act.

The Government’s view is that it is not sustainableto continue with 56 separately constituted valuation tribunals in England, and that variations from modern tribunal practice in place in the valuation tribunals must be addressed. Importantly, that view found support in the consultation that we undertook. Although it has been the cause of some contentionin the valuation tribunal world, the consultation supported these moves, the responses to which emphasise that the local culture of the valuation tribunals should be preserved, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. That is why we have designed the framework for the VTS in the way that we have.

The Government’s aim in bringing forward these legislative amendments is to provide for good tribunal practice and to encourage the efficient and effective running of the valuation tribunals for the user and all interested parties while continuing to sustain their judicial independence. I must emphasise that it is not our intention, in making these changes, to lose the local connection, nor do we believe that implementing the proposals would alter or affect the local nature of the service provided.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

This is another instance in which what the Bill says is not what the Minister is tellingus. Let us take the valuation service for Greater Manchester. Is he telling us that it will still have the same chairs, the same participants and the same office structure? What will be the difference between where we are now and where we are going to be? Although we are making a change, he is painting a picture as though we will see no change if we take Greater Manchester as our example.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Of course, the remit and the administration of the tribunals have evolved in recent years in any event. A number of administrative centres have come together to ensure greater efficiency and,in administrative terms, I see this measure as a consequence of that move. It is not efficient to have 56 different administrative centres, let alone tribunals.

In the case of Manchester, tribunals made up of Manchester members will sit and consider decisions that relate to the area, so the local nature of tribunals will not be lost. What will change is that the single legal entity of a national valuation tribunal for England will have at its head a person appointed by the Commission for Judicial Appointments through the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, as is the case for other tribunals. The employment tribunals that sit in Manchester and are made up of Manchester people to discuss Manchester cases are part of a national tribunal service, albeit locally implemented. We are putting forward the proposals to bring about a greater guarantee of judicial independence, a more sensible arrangement of administration and a greater chance of consistency. The measures were contained in policy documents and, I think, in the manifesto, and they were supported on the whole, although not unanimously, by the consultation.

The hon. Gentleman might ask why the Department for Communities and Local Government willmaintain its role as the sponsoring Department of the valuation tribunal, rather than the Department for Constitutional Affairs taking it on. The answer is that I wish to pursue an evolutionary approach. I do not want to create unnecessary turmoil or turbulence within the service; there is no point in fixing something that ain’t broke. In making my improvements, I am taking a gradual, Fabian-like approach. I hope that hon. Members will support the proposal.

On the amendments, I mentioned that there are56 separate tribunals. By establishing a single tribunal for England with a national president, we seek to provide judicial independence. We envisage that that will result—this comes out of conversations with the service as constituted—in the creation of a regional dimension, to go along with the local dimension that exists at the moment. We do not think that to prescribe what that structure should be is the correct approach, although we envisage that, in practice, that which the hon. Gentleman seeks will be implemented. The consultation underlined to many tribunal members the importance of preserving the local culture of the valuation tribunals. The policy that we have put in place will preserve it.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I shall probably need carefully to look at Hansard, but I think that I heard the Minister say that the practical outcome of the reorganisation that he proposes will probably be that there will be regional units or sub-units of the administration. Was that the point that he made or did I misunderstand him?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

That is, indeed, what the hon. Gentleman heard. There are already sub-regional arrangements between the tribunals. One has to maintain the judicial independence of the tribunal members, particularly the chair, so that decisions are taken free from the administration of the tribunals. There is a members’ committee, which operates on a national basis, outside the formal constitution of the Valuation Tribunal Service.

It is envisaged that, in order to best service the tribunals at a local level, the office servicing it will not be a national, but a regional or, often in practice, a sub-regional one. Greater Manchester is a case in point—there is a tribunal service for Manchester south and for Manchester north. It is envisaged and expected that that will be the case. That is the advice of Anne Galbraith, the chair of the Valuation Tribunal Service, and of her board. Although I agree with the intention of the amendment, I object to it because I do not think that we should prescribe in the Bill in advance of the creation of the tribunal.

Leaving aside the question of whether the structure of the regions is suitable, I do not think that it is appropriate to set out in the legislation the internal structure of the VTE. Organisational arrangements will be first and foremost matters for the president of the single tribunal, who will, of course, be appointed through the independent judicial process. It would be contradictory to suggest that the head of the organisation should be independent, but to tell him how he should do his job.

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentlemanby, again, emphasising that our view was supportedby the responses to the proposals set out in the consultation document entitled, “Valuation Tribunals: Modernisation and Reorganisation”—not a title picked during my tenure, but we know what it means. As I said, those responses were generally positive about the proposals for the creation of a single tribunal for England and of the new position of VTE president to be appointed through that judicial process. The consultation also received support for the idea of vice-presidents in order to maintain communication between the national tribunal for England and the local tribunals that, in practice, do all the work. Again, I commend that policy to the Committee.

We received support during the consultation that took place in the summer of 2006. Some 80 per cent. of responses to the consultation came from tribunal members. I emphasise to the Committee that the proposal for the creation of a single valuation tribunal for England, with a national president supported by a number of vice-presidents, received widespread support. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider withdrawing the amendment on the grounds that it would prescribe in advance what an independent president might want. I assure him on his point about the local nature and, more importantly, on the judicial independence of the valuation tribunal for England.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I thank the Minister again for a very measured presentation of his case. It would appear that I shall get what I want by default. I will have a couple of points to make during the clause stand part debate so as to put further matters on the record. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I shall not detain the Committee for long. I referred before to a briefing provided to the Committee by the Valuation Tribunal Service. Bearing in mind the reference that the Minister made to its chairman, Anne Galbraith, I thought that I should draw the Committee’s attention to its briefing which says that she has stated on several occasions that she considers the appropriate sections of the existing Act,—that is the Local Government Act 2003—to be flawed but neither she nor the Department has attempted to rectify the problem as it would require primary legislation. The new Bill offers that opportunity. The briefing goes on to say:

“The present Bill should change the composition of the VTS board by removing judicial members and replacing them, if that is considered necessary, with persons of administrative experience.”

Can the Minister tell us whether he has had the opportunity to consider the briefing that has been provided, what his analysis of that briefing is and whether he will give consideration to the matters raised there about the necessity for further adjustments to this clause at some later stage to take account of their concerns.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I have not had sight of the particular document to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I amof course familiar with many of the issues that have been raised and I think the points reflect a very understandable anxiety among members of tribunals who hold their independence, quite rightly, very preciously. The members of the tribunals are asked to take decisions about people’s level of council tax and the placing of the council tax band. That is an important decision and the tribunal members do take that independence very seriously indeed.

As the hon. Gentleman has said, reflecting the views in the document, the Valuation Tribunal Service is there to facilitate the running of the tribunals. The idea of the president being appointed through the Judicial Appointments Commission would be that we had somebody of high standing who would have experience of the administrative functions of an organisation and the areas of decisions of the tribunal service itself. That president would be subject to appointment through recommendation of the Judicial Appointments Commission, subject to the ratification of the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. Indeed, ratification by the Lord Chancellor is the correct procedure.

My dealings with the tribunal service have not been as high on the political barometer as the political assistants pay issue has—in fact, it has been in the bottom decile compared with that issue—but it is nevertheless a serious issue that is subject to much intense debate. I would certainly want to ensure that the model that would be created would serve for the purposes of ensuring that independence.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

Given all the matters that are making blips on the Minister’s radar screen, it is quite understandable that this one has not. However, I would appreciate it if he could take the time to catch up with this particular bit of paperwork.

I understand that this particular council of tribunal members, if my briefing is correct, currently represents two thirds of the presidents of the existing tribunals. Clearly it is a body that has measured its words carefully, and if it is appropriate for further adjustments to be made I would ask the Minister to give the Committee an assurance that he has not closed his mind to that possibility when he has had the opportunity to digest its words.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am more than happy to do that. The members committee has indeed a judge as its chair to advise and help them. My officials have met with that person and I have received representations over the years on these matters. I understand there is currently a request for a meeting with me on these matters. I undertake to follow the course of action that the hon. Gentleman has urged on me.

I give the hon. Gentleman further reassurance by pointing out to him that many of the members of the tribunals are prominent councillors of all political persuasions. I have been surprised to learn just how many councillors are on the tribunals. They bring with them knowledge and expertise. These are not just the warm words of a Minister in a Committee giving an undertaking on behalf of his officials who will, as ever, diligently carry out the work; it is something that comes not on the political radar screen but on the policy radar screen.

Clause 153

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 196, in clause 153, page 109, line 26, at end insert—

‘(aa) monitoring the quality of the delivery of care services;’.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr. Benton. I apologise to the Committee for being absent for the last couple of sittings. I was in the holy land of Israel, once memorably described by David Vine, the BBC sports commentator, as a Mecca for tourists. Sadly, I have to report to the Committee that the seriousness of the issues being dealt with over there and the stubbornness of the sides involved make a return to the bonhomie and the present discussions of this Committee very welcome. It puts all our deliberations in this country into some sort of perspective. It is nice to be back and good to see colleagues.

This amendment begins the discussion on part 11of the Bill which deals with patient and public involvement in health and social care. Members of the Committee have received a great deal of information about this from various bodies. They all have specialist knowledge in this area and have been generous with their time and expertise in briefing us for this part of the Bill. I shall ask for your generosity, Mr. Benton, in dealing with this amendment. I will not discuss all aspects of the concerns that members of patients forums have about the Bill, but if I could include one or two general remarks it would save repetition when we debate later amendments.

We have all been a little taken aback by the vehemence of the concerns expressed by those involved in patients forums and the concern with which they have approached us in relation to this part of the Bill, which does away with patients forums and substitutes for them a new creation called LINKs. Part of the reason for their concern is that there is some history here which is relevant to the amendment and the power of patients forums to monitor the activity for which they are given responsibility. Part of the history of that concern is related to the way in which patients’ representatives feel they have been treated over a period of time.

The Committee will remember the evidence given to it at the beginning of the witness sessions by Elizabeth Manero and Sally Brearley of the social enterprise body, Health Link, and the worries that they expressed during the course of their evidence. I shall quote, as I have quoted before, from Elizabeth Manero, because she puts it very clearly and sets down a marker that we should take into account and that will guide us through these discussions. She said:

“The other day, I met someone from my local patient and public involvement forum who was involved in mental health and who talked about the despair and disillusionment of the forum members, many of whom are mental health service users. They had found, yet again, that they were told, ‘You are really great; you are doing a great job, but we are going to get rid of you.’ The message that comes across from that is, ‘We are going to get rid of you’, not ‘You are an excellent resource.’ Actions are judged more than words, and all the other reassurances about the quality of the forums, which I thoroughly endorse, are undermined entirely by abolition.”——[Official Report, Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Public Bill Committee, 30 January 2007; c. 56.]

Elizabeth was moved to quote from Brecht’s poem “The Solution”, in which he raises the possibility of a Government, disappointed with its people, abolishing the people and electing another. That was an ironic statement if ever there was one—a statement that we would all agree was a strong one to refer to in the present context.

Patient representatives have not been alone, however. A number of hon. Members of all parties spoke on Second Reading, and made clear during the witness sittings their own concerns about abolition of forums and the manner of that abolition. As I have said, there is history in all this. The guide to the Bill prepared by the Library includes, on page 91, a quote from Melanie Johnson, who was then Under-Secretary of State for Health. In July 2004, she said that forums were the cornerstone of patient and public involvement and:

“They will not be abolished, nor will their independence be undermined.”

Incidentally, if it has not been done before, this is an appropriate time to pay tribute to the Library staff for their excellent work in producing the entirely bipartisan and neutral research papers that help us so much.

The same changes have happened before, when community health councils were abolished some years ago. Patient representatives feel marginalised by processes whereby they are first involved in the health service, and then let go; by situations being adjusted without proper consultation; and by not being involved in the decisions that are made about them. It is clear from all their submissions to us that they strongly believe that the measures in the Bill, and the first amendments, justify concern. I shall elucidate the nature of that concern as we proceed through the clauses and amendments. However, the patient representatives believe that there will be a dilution of the powers and expertise that they have and that they would like to bring to the service of those involved in health care provision in future.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Pausing only to point out that Jerusalem contains the third most holy shrine in Islam, may I point the hon. Gentleman to the questions put to the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central(Ms Winterton), in the fourth scrutiny sitting? In that sitting, I raised the use of the term “abolition”, because it is a term that causes alarm and concern despite being merely the necessary legal description of a process of change. In her reply to my question, my right hon. Friend said that there was no reason why that process could not be seamless. The only reason that the change is necessary is because of integration with the now well-established scrutiny powers of local authorities.I agree that it is unfortunate to have had two fundamental changes in a relatively short time, but I hope that the changes that will take place during the next 12 months or so can be regarded as part of a process, rather than as abolition and as starting from scratch, because they do not amount to that.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. In fairness, however, he made exactly those points in questioning Elizabeth Manero and Sally Brearley in the witness statement sitting, and we are now some three weeks beyond that stage. I have not noticed that we have received, in answer to the requests for reassurance sought by the hon. Gentleman from the Minister, information from those who previously lobbied us that their fears have been dealt with and that they regard everything as okay. On the contrary, they have continued to express their concerns about the way the measure is being progressed, specifically on a number of particular powers and offices that they expect to carry out.

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to make his point. However, if the matter had been dealt with to the satisfaction of those who are lobbying us, if they regarded the transition as seamless, and if they accepted the Minister’s assurances at face value, we would not have had the continuing representations that many of us have had.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

Surely, like me, the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire must find slightly implausible the suggestion that all we have is an existing organisation given a new function—a seamless transition. What we have is a new organisation defined with a different structure and a different set of responsibilities. That is abolition.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman has made his own point and one with which I thoroughly agree. That is the point. It is not the seamless carrying on of the existing forums. They have been turned into something quite different. It is those very differences that lead to the amendments and the concerns, which we will be discussing.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the way in which local authorities are organised means that there is a bigger area of grey between the fields of health and social care than ever before. Is it not therefore right that the method of scrutiny and patient intervention and involvement should reflect that huge area of overlap between local authority and health service responsibilities?

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman is taking us into the substance of part 11 as a whole. I do not want to get into the general discussion because, rather like an onion, the various layers will unpeel as we go on. To make the point, if what he said held water with those who are most closely involved, we would not be engaged in the discussion of the clauses that we are going to be engaged in. He is entitled to put his point, one that I have no doubt the Minister and his loyal colleagues will be making equally strongly. However, to judge from some of the amendments tabled and from previous comments, I suspect that not all the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues share his belief that all is sorted.

I will make one response to the general point the hon. Gentleman has raised about the expansion of LINKs theoretically encompassing a very large number of people and thus diluting the very special patient voice which exists through the forums. The forums maintain that they are patient representatives, not collections of organisations with connections to the health service. They are not diluted by having a number of health professionals sit on their bodies. They are patient representatives, which is what has given them the voice which they believe provides such an important point of reference in the monitoring of health services. The central point of their concern is whether that will be lost. Notwithstanding the different provision of health services, a distinctive voice is going to be lost in some manner. It is for the Minister to convince us all, during the discussion on the next few clauses both today and next week, that that is acceptable. However, I maintain that the views expressed to us suggest that there is doubt about that.

Let us turn, if we may, directly to amendment No. 196 which seeks to add the phrase

“monitoring the quality of the delivery of care services”.

The aim is to ensure that a particular type of expertise will not be lost. Forums have told us that they clearly regard their function not as cheerleaders for services, people eliciting views about services or making private reports for service providers—we will come onto that in a moment—but as people who monitor the quality of services. By their presence, they make service providers think carefully about what they are doing because they are dealing with those who directly represent service users. The concern is that the power to monitor has been taken away. This amendment seeks to put that back in.

We also believe that monitoring is a proactive role, not simply a passive one. Without the remit to monitor, the power of entry—we will discuss later whether it should be one of entry or to inspect—will be just that: the ability to enter premises and gather views rather than take a more proactive role, one which the term “monitoring” implies. Monitoring also gives substance to what members are to do. As we will hear later, it is difficult enough for forums to attract members at present; they will maintain that they have been messed about in the past and that they need a dedicated core of people who build up expertise in order to be able to do their job. People must have something positive to do. It is not a matter of getting a group of well-meaning volunteers to sit around, be told things about the health service, nod knowledgeably and go away; these are people who want to do something.

Part of the discussion has been about what councillors feel now. The argument is that because the nature of councils has changed and their powers are different, it has become more difficult to recruit councillors because some feel that they do not have a proper job to do any more. That is something that every member of the Committee understands.

The same point is made about the forums: members must be given something proper to do. They must not be seen by the public, the press and health services as well-intentioned, well-informed patsies who go around masquerading as people who can take a serious part in the provision of health care services. That is the gist of their concerns. The amendment would ensure that monitoring the quality of services would become a distinctive part of what LINKs will be about in future.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

Clause 153 will create a strange beast, which we do not yet recognise as it does not exist, and it will apparently have the potential to morph into all sorts of exciting things that the Government hope will serve patients and the NHS ever better. That is the rationale for the change, which is not expressly said to be to negate the work of an already troublesome body that is a thorn in their side. It is said not to be a reflection in any way on the performance of that body; it is thought to be a progressive development. However, it is very difficult to grasp what it will look like and how it will function. Trying to get one’s hands on exactly what the new institution will be like is a bit like knitting fog.

I was grateful for the policy document that was sent to us prior to this sitting, which endeavoured to spell out further what was involved. It does not altogether pre-empt all my criticism, most of which I will save for the stand part debate, neither does it give the reassurance that would completely reassure the critics on Second Reading.

There is a lot to be said for amendment No. 196, which endeavours to flesh out what is very ill defined; I could think of many other areas in which such fleshing out is required. The clause talks about “involvement”, but it does not specify what that might itself involve. Monitoring is something that we would want such a body to do. Most health services are very well monitored already in a professional capacity by a variety of different inspectors and service deliverers. We are talking about monitoring in respect of the patients’ experience.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

We can expect to hear from the Minister that the very nature of monitoring means that he wants to reduce it in some way to reduce the pressure. Is not the whole point that this is monitoring by those who represent the users of the services, so it is unlike any other monitoring or auditing? That is why it should remain as a distinctive part of what people are asked to do.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman, who cited the example of mental health services, where the experience of users and of people delivering the service can differ markedly. We could all figure out if we were medical practitioners what the experience of a patient might be in an operating environment or a hospital bed, but to have a concept of what it is like for the user of a mental health service is not easy to establish. It can be done effectively only by a group that can monitor effectively. I support the amendment.

Several hon. Members rose—

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Order. Before I call the next speaker, it is right to mention to members of the Committee that I will not at this stage be allowing a standpart discussion because we have already, quite appropriately, gone into the issues. I ask anybody who intended to speak in a stand part debate to make a contribution now, because there will be no formal discussion on that basis.

Peter Soulsby (Labour, Leicester South)

I understand, as do other hon. Members, the concerns expressed by patients forums and their members. Such people see the word “abolition” in the Bill and understandably fear that their experience, expertise and commitment will be lost as part of that process. Many of those people feel undervalued and to some extent marginalised by the process that has led to the measures in the Bill. They feel that there is no guarantee, despite the reassurances given, that they will be able to continue the work they have done, or that they will be engaged in the work of the new LINKs. As other hon. Members have reminded us, those people will have in mind the abolition of community health councils and all the fears attached to that.

There are two issues about which I hope the Government will reassure us. The first is about the powers and responsibilities of the new LINKs and whether they will be as effective as the Government intend. The second issue is about the arrangements for existing forum members and their ability to continue their work, and whether they will have opportunities to undertake the work they do on behalf of users of health services within the new LINKs structures.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

I begin by expressing my condolences to the Minister for having to incorporate these measures within his Bill. Clearly, the measures extend beyond the remit of the Department for Communities and Local Government into that of the Department of Health. Given the consensual approach that he has taken to the Bill, it behoves us to act reasonably when we come to making criticisms of certain aspects of it. The clauses we are coming to clearly give rise to criticism, and the Minister will have to take responsibility for them even though they are not his responsibility in the first place. I am sorry that he has been put in that position.

Having said that, it is clear that what we have before us is a dog’s breakfast, to put it as politely as I possibly can. I had the opportunity to consult an existing forum on reconfiguration in my own area and so have some experience of the difficulties that forums face in representing patients and other health service users. I therefore have some sympathy with the Government’s objective of trying to make the forums work better. However, the Government’s set of proposals is so ill thought through that I see little prospect of LINKs consultation groups achieving the objectives that the last groups, which were set up in December 2003, signally failed to achieve.

At the same time, the proposals will serve to alienate some 4,500 individuals who gave of their own time to help and support the forums. From the conversations that I have had with those currently involved with patients forums, it is highly unlikely that they will wish to volunteer to help out with the formation of LINKs, given the way in which they have been treated and the way in which the Government still are changing the rules about the involvement of forums in, as it were, an interregnum period. My understanding is that every time the Government think about the matter, they decide to extend the period over which the forums will continue to exist in the hope that some forum members will remain and that they will then volunteer to join LINKs as and when they are established. The proposals are muddled from start to finish.

An issue that I would wish to raise as part of my stand part contribution is that of governance. There will be powers, which we shall go on to discuss, that are different from the current powers residing with the overview and scrutiny committees, not least thepower to enter and inspect. That power is probably appropriate, but it is a statutory responsibility. The way in which LINKs will be established and supervised appears to be a complete free-for-all. I am sure that the Government will argue that it is yet another example of their attempt to devolve power to local communities and that it will be up to local communities to decide how they want to do things.

Mr. Woolas indicated assent.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

The Minister nods his assent. In some respects, he has my sympathy but we are dealing with statutory powers, so there must be some kind of oversight or control over how LINKs will operate. The Bill is virtually silent on the governance of the new bodies. Will he give some amplification on how that governance will work? For example, if someone is established as a director, or whatever they choose to be called, and is a responsible officer for a LINK, where will the powers reside to remove that individual in the event of some impropriety or conflict of interest?

Let us take the example of a private health provider putting forward one of its directors to be an officer of a LINK and there being seen to be a financial relationship between the primary care trust and that provider, which is now supervised by the LINK. Will that be permitted, and what will happen if it is discovered after the event? There is a whole host of issues on the governance of LINKS that we do not have time to go into now but that I do not believe the Government have thought about at all.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I endorse what my hon. Friend has said. I was recently in discussion with the local patients forums in my borough of Bromley. I am sure that all other Members have had the same experience: they are excellent people who do an awful lot of hard work, but they were thoroughly disillusioned and demoralised by the way in which this change has happened. It is very sad that we run the risk of some of those good people walking away. I hope that they will not, but at the moment there is not much to give them comfort.

Although the Minister has stated that the Department of Health talked about making the transition seamless, which I accept, that is not the way it comes across to the people who are involved on the ground. It is fascinating to examine the written and oral evidence that we have been given and the evidence that we have picked up from small organisations in our constituencies. The overwhelming consensus among the thousands of people involved at the grass-roots level is that the Department of Health—let us put the blame where it belongs, rather than with the Minister—has got it wrong. I am sorry to say that I am inclined to think that those thousands of people are more likely to be right than the Department of Health. Despite the draft that is promised, nothing that has come forward so far will reassure those people. Another concern is that the folk involved, often in a voluntary capacity, have valuable links with other organisations in the community. If they walk away, some of those informal networks, which help to oil the wheels, will tend to be lost.

I also wished to make a point on the clause stand part debate about the involvement of local councillors. I appreciate the point about the desire to strengthen working between patient involvement on the one hand and the overview and scrutiny committees on the other. None of us would dispute the fact that that is perfectly sensible. However, I fear that there is a missed opportunity. Although there is useful work in the Bill on the involvement of the overview and scrutiny committees—in other words of councils as a whole—an opportunity has been lost to involve ward councillors by giving them a right to consultation on changes in health service provision in their areas.

The Commission on London Governance made a recommendation on a cross-party basis—all three principal parties on the London assembly and in London Councils supported it—that harps back to our earlier discussions. It recommended that if we were to strengthen the role of councillors as local champions, one way in which that could usefully be done would be if they were entitled to be consulted about changes—for example, in local GP or dental provision. Armed with the benefit of a democratic mandate, they could be empowered to take up the cudgels on behalf of their communities and, because of their local LINKs, they would be able to work well with exactly those volunteers that we are in danger of losing at the moment. I think that it is a shame that we do not have more about that in the Bill.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Let us think back to earlier clauses and the importance of local strategic partnerships and other such bodies in which councillors—presumably consulting and being informed by their constituents on an ongoing basis—are involved directly with health authorities. Is that not where the level of input comes from councillors in that respect?

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

That is one level of the input. However, we have discussed the fact that some health trusts are not included on the list of bodies and that they should be. The process would be strengthened if they were. I still stick with that point. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the Minister for that. That works at a strategic level. The point that I am making is that there is also a lower, more local level in which the ward councillor could have a very useful and legitimate input into what happens below the strategic partnership level.

What I have suggested does not rule out what the hon. Member for High Peak is suggesting. I take that on board, but I think that we could usefully go a step further and that is what the Commission on London Governance was suggesting. As part of that broader strengthening of the existing democratic process with local councillors, we could give them a right to consultation on a number of the issues about health service provision in their wards and communities.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting an additional tier? I understand that there are health overview and scrutiny committees on nearly every major council and there is an obligation to consult them on a whole range of health issues in that area. Is he suggesting that something needs to be done in addition to that, a further process of consultation managed or otherwise?

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I would be very reluctant to create other tiers, but I would have hoped that, with a bit of good will, it would not be impossible to achieve my aim. If local councils are given that right, that could be built into the existing tiers. I understand the desire to have the local area agreements and the local strategic partnerships looking at the strategic level. There is nothing wrong with feeding into that process. For example, the councillors in the Chislehurst ward in the London borough of Bromley would be consulted about local changes. They would then be able to feed in their suggestions. This is not intended to be a large or bureaucratic process, but it comes as part of the package that we would argue is desirable in strengthening local councillors as community champions. I am asking the Minister to consider how the current structure could accommodate that being taken on board, without, I accept, the need for us to create yet a further tier of bureaucracy.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I believe that historically local councils had to be consulted on the distribution of pharmacy services. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is asking for something similar to apply in the case of health services.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

That is a very useful analogy. I think that it could be done with a fairly light touch. The key thing is the right to be involved. When the Greater London Authority Bill was discussed, a number ofus raised concerns about the way that local ward councillors are sometimes, perhaps more by accident than design, kept out of the loop in the developmentof safer neighbourhood powers. That would be undesirable if it was to become entrenched. Similarly, it would be desirable if we could get into a culture that gets local councillors into the loop over local community health facilities because they would have a great deal to contribute. That is the point that I was raising. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

Before my hon. Friend ends his speech, and bearing in mind that he was making remarks that would have formed part of a stand part debate, would he be good enough to ask the Minister to consider the fundamental question of why this is being done? We tried to get an answer from the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central, and we asked the witnesses who came before us and they could not give us an answer. I asked the Minister twice and I am not certain that I got an answer. As he now has the bridge in relation to this particular matter—I do not know during which amendment it will come up or during which part of the debate—I would be grateful if he could be asked the question so that he can enlighten us now.

Bob Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst)

I am happy to take that on board. I am sure that the Minister will accept that there is nothing personal if I lob my hon. Friend’s question in his direction, but it was exactly the same question that the people raised with me on the patients forum in Bromley—why? When the London assembly’s health committee scrutinised the proposal, people asked, “Well why?” Nobody has yet given a satisfactory answer to that question. On that note, I end my contribution by asking it on behalf of my hon. Friend.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It has been my experience that it is always a good idea to respond to the amendment in a broad debate on a clause by praising the wisdom of the Chair. I wish to do that to curry favour with you, Mr. Benton, because the task falls to me to respond to the amendment, to put the clause in context and to take up the baton of explaining the policy. I shall certainly also answer the question that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst asked.

When the Local Government and Public Improvement in Health Bill was presented to the House on 11 December—at least, I think it was11 December, because that was my birthday—I was proud that although it does not have the snappiest of short titles, it is a hugely important landmark for local government. As far as I have been able to establish, it is the first Bill in 50 years to bring the health service and local government closer together again in legislation. The Bill is a local government reform Bill, a public involvement in health Bill, and a local government involvement in health Bill.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

That is even less snappy.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It is indeed—I cannot imagine the “Lichfield Observer” using it as a headline.

Subsection (1) places the obligation to put in place local involvement networks for health services and social services on the local authority. It is the council that the legislation, should Parliament agree to it, will compel to make arrangements for scrutiny and involvement in the monitoring of the health and the social care services. That is an important point. It is local government that will be involved in health care.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

Why?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It is the job of the Opposition to ask intelligent questions and that is a very intelligent question, which I am going to answer—not in one word, which could in fact be the three words: “Because we can”. That would irresponsible and dishonest, too. The background to the policy proposal in part 11 should be seen in the context of our earlier debates, particularly on the provisions dealing with the local area agreements, the duty to co-operate and the best value duty to inform, involve and consult. The clause brings together local service provision.

The judgment that the Government take is as follows. We have representative democracy. We agree with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that elected councillors should be the fulcrum of local policy making and local scrutiny, and we wish to ensure that through the Bill. We are strengthening overview and scrutiny, so that those councillors can scrutinise health and social care policies and services. The community call for action that we discussed previously will empower an individual back-bench councillor to refer a matter to overview and scrutiny, which includes the provision of health and care services in their area.

I have talked about representative democracy through elected representatives, but we now need to talk about participative democracy. The reconnection of politics and public services to the citizen requires participative democracy, which must always be subservient to representative democracy, but is important none the less. The Government are trying to provide a model for the public, including patients, to participate in making health services accountable and helping them to improve by making suggestions. It will then join up that participation and the scrutiny that follows from it with health and social care. Why? Because, as we heard from evidence, patients do not distinguish between providers of services. People do not care whether it is social services or the health service that provides care.

We must look at the matter in the round. Through LINKs, we want to provide an interface between participative democracy in the monitoring, scrutiny and improvement of health and social care, and representative democracy in the form of elected councillors. The crucial point is that the interface is provided through the ability of LINKs and the people in those organisations to refer those matters to the overview and scrutiny committee. That will empower the public—patients and users of the service—to have access to representative democracy as well as adding to the power they have through LINKs. Hon. Members rightly have questions, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford has tabled a series of amendments that he believes would improve the set-up, as have Opposition Members. However, that is our policy on LINKs.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I am grateful for the Minister’s explanations and for his generosity in giving way. I want to expand on the question “why?”. The follow-up question is: what is it in the composition of the forums or their conduct that did not allow them to be expanded to take on a new role in the provision of services through local authorities? Why did they have to go and why did they have to be subsumed in the manner proposed by the LINKs? What was so wrong about what they did that they could not continue to exist with new powers?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

As a parent, I have always found the question “what for?” more difficult than the question “why?” In practice, the former often requires a convincing answer, whereas the latter often requires a philosophical one—normally, “Because I say so”. In logic, that is what is called the 16th law of the imperative. In response to the question “what for?”, I say to the hon. Gentleman—I am really pushing you here, Mr. Benton—that there are three components to part 11: the establishment of LINKs; the abolition of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement of Health and the patient forums that flowed from it, and a strengthening of the requirement to consult patients and the public. About £28 million is being provided to the commission this year, and the budget three years ago was about £32 million. We believe that there is a resource there that can respond to the changes taking place in the landscape of health and social services, such as the creation of trusts through the Children Act 2004 and the creation of a greater local concentration through local area agreements that will be in place at the end of this month in every local authority area in England. It is that change in framework and those changes in the evolution of health and social care that justify the reconfiguration.

The second part of my answer is that we can look at change in two ways. We can keep the name and evolve it, which is a broadly conservative view, or we can change the name and evolve it, which is the view of the radical. I try to examine the content and say, “If it isn’t broken, why are you fixing it?” The question that the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire is really asking is, “Is it broken?” The system is not broken in the sense that it is not fulfilling the purpose for which it was set up; however, it needs, and can now have, a broader purpose. The original legislation was tightly defined and inflexible.

One hears frustration from patients forums, and hon. Members have talked about demoralisation. We know that any change in infrastructure can lead to demoralisation but my positive message is that the broadening of the role, because of the change in the architecture of health and social care, gives greater power and freedoms and a greater remit to the same people.

I acknowledge the point that we need to carry people with us. Part of the way in which one does that is to ensure that functions are properly resourced. The hon. Member for Ludlow raised the net new burdens policy, which applies in this area. That is an important commitment to give.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

The Minister mentioned two ways: the conservative and the radical. I think that he might be following a third way, which is the cock-up way. Many Opposition Members feel that the proposals fall into that category.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am not going to repeat my conspiracy and cock-up theory. The approach taken in the Bill provides real substance to the idea that local people can hold local health and social care services to account. Hon. Members should be honest and ask themselves this question: if, when they get back to their constituencies tonight or in the morning, they were to carry out a random survey of how people could be involved in influencing the services of their local hospital and social care services, what is the most common answer that they would get? I guess that it would be, “I’d ask my councillor”. The provisions allow for the role of the councillor and the specialisms and knowledge of the LINKs forums.

I shall give an example of what is best about patient involvement from my own research. There was a survey of people in the north-west who used wheelchairs provided by local health services. They were asked what type of wheelchairs they would like, where they would like them, how long they should have them for and how the process should operate. The health service responded positively to the suggestions the wheelchair users made, so we were able to make a huge saving in the expenditure on wheelchairs because fewer were damaged, lost or not returned, and there was a huge increase in the satisfaction of the wheelchair users. We had our cake and ate it. Through LINKs and the changes we are making, we are trying to provide a model that is much more likely to facilitate that process.

I make one other point, which is very important, before I come to the specifics. The model of involvement and participation that has been described in the architecture carries great optimism for the future in other service delivery areas. What I have said about public participation in shaping services and advocating them apply equally to not only health and social care, but transport, education and other services. I am suggesting quite radical policy to the Committee.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

The Minister is right to say that LINKs have an additional power that patients forums did not have, which is that of mandatory referral to the overview and scrutiny committee, but I do not think that there will be dancing in the streets as a result of the concession of the new power. Essentially, there are many examples throughout the country of patients forums voicing strong views about, for example, hospital reconfiguration; they have referred the matter to the overview and scrutiny committee, which has thoroughly agreed with the forum and endorsed its criticisms; the views have then gone to the Minister and that was the end of it. In other words, the process has not stopped frustration. It is just conned people into thinking that they could do something.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I note the point made by the hon. Gentleman, as well as the passion with which he spoke on Second Reading when the issue was raised. No form of participative democracy can replace the fact that a decision must be taken. We can certainly improve services and we can change decisions, but a decision has to be taken. There is an analogy with petitions, but I shall not go down that railway line because time is running out, and my Whip and the Chairman are frowning at me.

I shall answer the specific point. We believe that the new organisations will enable genuine involvement ofa greater number of people than is currently the case. They will ensure that there is a stronger voice in commissioning, and the provision of health and social care in the local area. They will take a crucial step beyond the existing powers defined in legislation of the patients forums by enabling people to have a greater say over social care as well as health services. I understand the points that have been made, but we see the provision as a development of the work of forums in a much wider range of ways than is currently available to ensure that people have the stronger voice to which I have referred.

The explicit relationship between LINKs and overview and scrutiny joins up the processes and the local authority will have a duty to make contractual arrangements, with the involvement of people in commissioning, in provision and in scrutiny of health services and social care services. The amendment relates to subsection (2) and monitoring and

“promoting, and supporting, the involvement of people in commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local care services”

covers the point made in the amendment.

The arrangement that follows allows the funding stream—the money that is currently made available and will be transferred over—to go straight to the local level. It will ensure that as much money as possible is available to fund the front-line activity, the local activity. The abolition of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health is one element of the drive to reduce the arm’s length nature of the sector and release centralised funding.

Part 11 clarifies and strengthens the current legislation on health service consultation, which gives NHS organisations a requirement to involve and consult. That is a similar point to that made by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. We intend to give PCTs a new statutory duty to respond to local people by explaining the activities that they are undertaking as a result of what people have said throughout the year. There will be a structured process whereby commissioners publish regular reports about what they have done differently as a result of what they have heard and why they might not have been able to take forward some suggestions. The process relates to the point that the hon. Member for Southport made, and to his fear that one might lead somebody up the hill, and then take them straight back down again.

The requirement to respond facilitates the solution to that problem. It recognises that of course not everybody will be happy all the time. That is an unachievable objective. I am trying to remember who coined that phrase, but it was not a Liberal Democrat. It was Abraham Lincoln, was it not? I think that Committee members are falling asleep, so I shall get on with it. We intend to provide the primary care trust with the new statutory duty to respond and the structured process to show, through reports, what has been done as a result of the process under discussion.

Part 11 is also an important step towardsrealising the ambition to empower local people. The requirement on local authorities to make contractual arrangements to ensure that there are means by which local involvement network functions can be carried out, defines those functions. Clause 153(2)(a) describes

“promoting, and supporting, the involvement of people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local care services”.

The subsection also defines the functions as,

“obtaining the views of people about their needs for, and their experiences of”

health and social care services; making those views known to people

“responsible for commissioning, providing, managing or scrutinising”

those services; and making

“reports and recommendations about how”

health and social care services might be improved for those same people. The Bill includes a regulation-making power, which will allow the Secretary of State to amend, add to or delete the activities to which I have just referred. That provision will be subject to a later amendment.

The Government believe that it is vital to promote user involvement in health and social care, because only by seeking out the views and experiences of those who use the services will we improve them and make them more focused on the individual. That is why the clause requires local authorities with social services responsibility in England to make those contractual arrangements to ensure that there are means by which LINKs can be set out. In a two-tier area, it is an obligation not on the district council, but on theupper tier.

LINKs will provide a flexible vehicle for individuals and groups, including the voluntary and community sectors—an important point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford referred. They will promote public accountability through open communication with the commissioners and providers.

Amendment No. 196 is unnecessary. I support the idea of monitoring the quality and delivery of care services, but subsections (1) and (2) already cover it.

Mr. Benton, I am very grateful to you for giving me such latitude. It is important that the Committee is aware of the Government’s intentions.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

Does the Minister intend to cover my points about governance in these discussions or later?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

It may be better if we cover the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry about governance in later discussions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford may have something to say about it in relation to his amendment. I am pretty confident that he has, and I should be grateful if he would nod.

Patrick Hall (Bedford) (Lab) indicated assent.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

He is nodding.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

It puts Bedfordshire on the map again.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Yes, it gives us an opportunity to talk about Bedfordshire, about which my bleeper has been going off during the Committee. If that is satisfactory, in my opinion it would be better to do it that way. On that point, I ask the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire to consider withdrawing his amendment.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

We will return to a number of the issues to which the Minister has referred, and which you have generously allowed us to debate, Mr. Benton, during the course of the Committee and on Report. I am not sure that I accept that monitoring quality is covered specifically, and I think that those involved in the forums will be disappointed that the Government cannot make that concession.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I take the point about monitoring. There is a technical problem with lines 26 and 27 of the amendment. I do not want to be pernickety. We support the point about monitoring, and maybe there is a way for us to incorporate it.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

That is a generous way to end the afternoon’s sitting. If there is a way to honour that specifically—

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

A champagne moment?

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

A concession from the Minister on such a matter certainly qualifies as a champagne moment. We will note that accordingly, and enter it into the collection of champagne moments, for which there will be a prize at the end of the Committee.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

That is very generous of the hon. Gentleman.

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

My experience of such matters when we were in Government was that the Minister came forward at this stage, not the Opposition.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I shall be grateful if the officials from the Department of Health note that point. [ Laughter.]

Alistair Burt (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

In view of what the Minister has already suffered and what he will suffer next week on his colleague’s behalf, I too think that that matter should be referred to her. In supplying him with champagne for his activities, she might also consider the rest of us.

The Minister made a point that he did not make before about a technical difficulty with the amendment. Perhaps we could return to monitoring as further discussion would be helpful, but in any case we will return to it on Report if need be. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.