Jeremy Rowe

The Localism Bill and Standards 13 December, 2010

The Department of Communities and Local Government is due to publish its Localism Bill today. As I write this I haven’t yet had a chance to see what Eric Pickles is proposing, but what we do know is that the current Standards regime, the mechanism by which elected representatives can be called to account for impropriety, is likely to bite the dust.

The essence of the Coalition Government’s rationale behind this, as I understand it, is that it is a costly mechanism which leaves itself open to abuse by people with personal vendettas. There is an element of truth to this but it’s also worth remembering why the Code of Conduct and the accompanying measures came into being in the first place.

In the mid-1990s parliament was awash with allegations of sleaze, a situation exacerbated by the then Prime Minister, John Major, and his ill-fated ‘Back To Basics’ campaign. Aside from all the tittle-tattle around the personal peccadilloes of a seemingly endless stream of government ministers there were also serious cases of bribery, corruption and perjury. The cases of Neil Hamilton and Jonathan ‘Simple Sword of Truth’ Aitken were the headline-grabbing examples, but everything at the time pointed to an old fashioned system where politicians were simply trusted on their word and could essentially adopt a cavalier attitude to basic principles of public life which should have been obvious to everyone.

The Standards regime came in as a response to that and the effects have filtered through the British political system. An example would be Planning Committees. Any councillor who sits on such a body has to publicly make it clear if they have an interest in any of the items they are voting on, and if that interest is deemed ‘prejudicial’ (i.e. they or someone close to them stands to benefit or lose out) then they may not take part in the decision-making process. This may seem blindingly obvious but anyone who remembers the previous arrangements will tell you that this has been a giant leap forward.

Of course the system isn’t perfect, and there are still far too many instances of abuse of position, but the point is that there currently exists a mechanism which – for all its flaws – can call politicians to account, whether they are Parish Councillors or Government Ministers. If Eric Pickles wants to tear that system up I would very much hope that he will come up with some sensible answers as to what to replace it with.