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Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Amendment made: 88, page 8, line 11, leave out ‘financial interests rules’ and insert
‘code of conduct relating to financial interests’.— (Mr. Blizzard.)Clause 12, as amend ed, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Amendments made: 89, page 8, line 35, leave out ‘contained in rules under section 5(7)’ and insert
‘included by virtue of section 5(7) in the MPs’ code of conduct relating to financial interests’.Amendment 90, page 8, line 37, leave out ‘contained in rules under section 5(8)’ and insert
‘included by virtue of section 5(8) in the MPs’ code of conduct relating to financial interests’.Amendment 91, page 8, line 39, leave out ‘contained in rules under that section’ and insert
‘included by virtue of section 5(10) in the MPs’ code of conduct relating to financial interests’.— (Mr. Watts.)Clause 13, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
To report progress and ask leave to sit again.— (Mr. Watts.)
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.
Business without Debate
delegated legislation
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 3 to 5 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
That the draft Companies Act 2006 (Part 35) (Consequential Amendments, Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 14 May, be approved.
That the draft Registrar of Companies and Applications for Striking Off Regulations 2009, which were laid before this House on 14 May, be approved.
That the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2009 (S.I., 2009, No. 1389), dated 10 June 2009, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10 June, be approved.— (Mr. Watts.)
Regulatory Reform
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 18(1)),
That the draft Legislative Reform (Dangerous Wild Animals) (Licensing) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 17 June, be approved.— (Mr. Watts.)
European Union Documents
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119(11),
That this House takes note of European Union Documents No. 7084/09 and Addendum 1, Commission Communication for the Spring European Council on Driving European Recovery, and No. 10511/09 and Addenda 1 and 2, Commission Communication on European financial supervision; and endorses the Government’s approach to the next stages of discussions on how to restore and maintain a stable and reliable financial system.— ( Mr. Watts .)
Adjournment (Summer)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 25),
That this House, at its rising on Tuesday 21 July 2009, do adjourn till Monday 12 October 2009.— (Mr. Watts.)
The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 1 July (Standing Order No. 41A).
Notices of Questions Etc During September 2009
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 22B(2)),
That the days appointed for the tabling and answering of written questions and for written ministerial statements under Standing Order No. 22B (Notices of questions etc. during September) shall be as follows:
Tabling days
Wednesday 2, Monday 7 and Wednesday 9 September 2009.
Answering days
Wednesday 9, Monday 14 and Wednesday 16 September 2009.— (Mr. Watts.)
The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 1 July (Standing Order No. 41A).
Estimates
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 145),
That this House agrees with the Report [25 June] of the Liaison Committee.— (Mr. Watts.)
Petition
Taxation (Bingo Clubs)
10.33 pm
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): I wish to present a petition from 451 residents of Llanelli and others who use Argos bingo club there. The petition
Declares that the imposition of Gross Profits Tax of 22 per cent. on bingo clubs, compared with a gaming industry average of 15 per cent., is unreasonable and will be damaging to the continued viability of small bingo clubs, which play an important part as centres of the community as well as places of entertainment.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons approves a Gross Profits Tax maximum rate of 15 per cent. for bingo clubs.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
Standards Board for England
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —(Mr. Watts.)
10.34 pm
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater) (Con): I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to debate the Standards Board for England. For those hon. Members who have never come across it, let me say with great sincerity, “Lucky you!” The board is supposed to promote high ethical standards for local government, but in my experience it is an inefficient, expensive and woefully unfair outfit that should be confined to the history books as quickly as possible.
The Standards Board was established on a whim of political correctness. The driving force behind it was that master of oratory, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). He wanted local councillors to behave properly. That is a perfectly worthy goal, but the right hon. Gentleman could be clumsy; he loved to interfere in the natural order of things—and I suspect he still does. So instead of leaving it to the common sense of voters not to elect lunatics, or the common sense of the police to get involved when they had to, the right hon. Gentleman decided to reinvent the wheel. It was a triumph; the wheel was completely square. That is the sad story of the birth of the Standards Board.
It was guaranteed to malfunction because it was designed by idiots. It has turned the act of complaining about councillors into a fabulous spectator sport. Imagine the centre court at Wimbledon where anyone can take a pot shot. That is the system the right hon. Gentleman created: “Complaints are free; why not make one now?”
Several councillors from Bideford in north Devon are still under investigation because they want to scrap prayers before meetings to save time—hallelujah! Do we need to learn the lesson? Even in this place, where one would think we would all know better, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) recently reported a Lib Dem councillor to the Standards Board for the appalling act of removing a petition from a local post office.
Last year, there were 3,500 different complaints—one for every waking hour of every single day. We are getting this wrong. If there are too many complaints, the staff cannot handle them, which means more people have to be hired and everything slows down. There is only one thing worse than slow justice, and that is no justice. The Standards Board offers both in heaps. It has become an overblown, bureaucratic kangaroo court. It pretends to operate like the Old Bailey, but people should not expect a fair trial, or any help in defending themselves.
The Standards Board has set new standards, and they come in at gutter height. I could illustrate this argument with any number of high profile cases, but I prefer to stick to the one I know best. It concerns a former Somerset county councillor called Paul Buchanan. Adjournment debate groupies may recognise his name—I am sure the Minister does. The case of Paul Buchanan has dragged on for more than two painful years. I have raised it in this House on several occasions. Paul Buchanan was deputy leader of Somerset council’s Liberal Democrats. What happened to him speaks volumes about what is wrong with the Standards Board.
The board was bamboozled and brow-beaten into investigating Paul Buchanan, and all because of one unscrupulous public official: the chief executive of Somerset county council, Mr. Alan Jones. On 4 April 2007, Alan Jones composed a six-page letter of complaint about Paul Buchanan and sent it to the Standards Board for England. It was the work of a deliberate assassin. Paul Buchanan was accused of secretiveness, undermining staff, aggression, threatening behaviour, rudeness, intimidation, anger, disrespect, fraud, sexism, racism, homophobia, and abuse of his office as an elected councillor; not bad for one man—he is almost unique. There is barely concealed hatred of the man in every sentence. Jones did not just want the Standards Board to investigate; he wanted an instant political execution. He asked for then Councillor Paul Buchanan to be suspended there and then, but he did not get that.
The jobsworths at the Standards Board might have been forgiven for thinking that Paul Buchanan was an unstable nutcase with homicidal tendencies. In fact, the really unstable and unsavoury character was, and is, the complainant: Somerset county council’s most senior officer. However, wrongly—inexcusably—the Standards Board does not investigate complaints against officers; it cannot. That is another ridiculous gaping hole in its half-baked interpretation of justice.
If anyone’s local chief executive is caught bullying staff or paying off his mistress from public funds, the Standards Board will rightly say it is none of its business; it can only investigate councillors, and it was obliged, because of the rules, to launch a full-blown inquiry into Mr. Buchanan. Hundreds of interviews were conducted and thousands of pages of transcripts were churned off the printers, and when it rejected Alan Jones’s first batch of complaints, he wasted extra time querying its decision. It was dealing with a deranged obsessive. The first investigator retired, exhausted, halfway through and lawyers came and went. Heaven knows what the cost is—we certainly do not. What was the result? Eventually, 16 of the original complaints were chucked out, four others were referred to a higher court, not a proper court, but another quango; a panel with the pomp of the legal system, but—I say this in this place—none of the fairness. That meant even more uncertainty for Paul Buchanan.
The panel— with a new bench of barristers—finally met in Somerset, and I went along to watch this gladiatorial sport. Key witnesses were called, but few, if any, turned up—most, understandably, did not want to have anything to do with it. The panel upheld one tiny charge: the heinous charge for which Paul Buchanan should have been dragged out and hung was that he had been overheard swearing under his breath. Is that pathetic or was it the crime of the century? I shall let you decide that one, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
What was really behind all this? Why on earth did a chief executive who was earning £160,000 year and who had 17,000 staff and huge responsibilities go to so much trouble to make complaints about what was seen as an ambitious councillor? Mr. Jones’s explanation to the Standards Board was beyond belief; he said that Paul Buchanan’s behaviour was
“capable of damaging the council’s continued improvement and external reputation”.
That statement would stack up only if the charges against Mr. Buchanan were proved, but they were not and he was acquitted of everything serious, other than the crime of the century of swearing under his breath. We should recall what he was accused of: secretiveness, undermining staff, aggression, threatening behaviour, rudeness, intimidation, anger, disrespect, fraud, sexism, racism, and homophobia. He was probably accused of leaving the loo seat up too. This was simply a personal vendetta.
So why did Jones want to “get” Buchanan and what had Buchanan “got” on Jones? I am sorry if that sounds conspiratorial, but there is a big hint of conspiracy in all this. Mr. Buchanan knew too much. Back in 2005, there was gossip about Alan Jones having an affair with a member of staff called Jenny Hastings. Everybody at county hall knew about this—it was no secret. What Buchanan did not know was that when the affair came to an end Ms Hastings made a serious complaint of sexual harassment against Alan Jones. That is, of course, a sackable offence, and rightly so. The complaint had to be dealt with by a confidential panel of elected members, including the lady who led the council at the time. Halfway through she was taken ill—legitimately so—and Paul Buchanan, the acting leader, took over but he was never told about the inquiry. It was Alan Jones who let the cat out of the bag and he came to plead with Mr. Buchanan to help, but Mr. Buchanan rightly told Mr. Jones that he would not and could not help—big mistake. Unfortunately, Alan Jones has a long memory and he bears grudges.
By the time the leader returned to work it was deemed too dangerous to punish Jones by sacking him—that is perhaps just one of those quirks. Unfortunately, Jenny Hastings was threatening an industrial tribunal, which is a very public way of exposing the antics of her lover, and the Audit Commission was due to inspect the council. There is nothing like a five-star sex scandal to scupper one’s chances of an excellent four-star rating, as they say in the best adverts. So, behind closed doors, and with the help of ACAS, a deal was signed to buy Ms Hastings off—that cost £140,000, which is slightly less than the annual pay cheque of the chief executive. Some very large extra payments indeed were made, and in the next couple of years millions of pounds were spent on mysterious “staff restructuring” at Somerset county council.
I do not know the answer to this and I know that the Minister does not either, but I wonder, and we must speculate, whether any of that money helped to buy the silence of those who knew the gory details. Were they given a golden goodbye when they retired?
Paul Buchanan continued as deputy leader, taking a particular interest in the projects that were close to the chief executive’s heart, but Mr. Buchanan is no fool. He was apt to ask too many difficult and complicated questions.
The Minister will know of my interest in the development of a joint venture company between Somerset county council, Avon and Somerset Police and IBM—it is well known. The outfit is called Southwest One and I am afraid that it has made a complete hash of things in the county. The computer system does not work, and it cannot place orders or pay bills, let alone—and most importantly—save money for the county. Southwest One is a nightmare, and is the product of Alan Jones’s dream of radically improving services.
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