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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 112:
- Page 47, line 28, at end insert--
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 69 [Interpretation of Part III]:
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendments Nos. 113 to 117:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 118:
("( ) In its application to Wales, subsection (4) has effect as if for the reference to the Secretary of State there were substituted a reference to the National Assembly for Wales.").
Page 48, line 24, leave out ("or (8)(a)").
Page 48, line 29, at end insert--
(""Local Commissioner in Wales" has the meaning given by section (Local Commissioner and Commission for Local Administration in Wales)(5),"").
Page 48, line 34, leave out ("of the Standards Board for England").
Page 48, line 36, leave out ("an ethical standards officer of the Standards Board for Wales") and insert ("a Local Commissioner in Wales").
Page 49, line 2, at end insert--
("( ) In relation to a community council, the functions of a monitoring officer under any provisions of this Part are to be discharged by the monitoring officer of the county council or county borough council in whose area the community council is situated; and any reference in this Part to the monitoring officer of a relevant authority which is a community council is to be construed accordingly.").
After Clause 75, insert the following new clause--
(" .--(1) The Representation of the People Act 1983 shall be amended as follows.
(2) After section 36(2B) there shall be inserted--
"(2C) Section 91 shall apply to elections under the Local Government Act 2000 with such modifications as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State."").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall not spend long on the amendment, but it takes us to the topic of freepost for candidates for elected office and in particular elected mayors. I thought that it might be inflammatory to raise the issue in the context of the Bill while the situation in London is still being negotiated. Nevertheless, I believe that there is an issue to be addressed.
I have tabled an amendment to permit the Secretary of State to make regulations to allow the provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to apply to elections for executive mayors not least because colleagues in another place may want to consider the matter. I hope that the passage of the Bill can be eased if we can hear the Government's view now. At least we shall have done our job to that extent. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Baroness has refrained from being inflammatory. The amendment is a nice try, but we are discussing elections in a different context. There is a long tradition of local government rules which do not include free mail shots. The elections of mayors under the Bill will be local government elections. Admittedly they will be of a special and novel kind and we expect that special electoral rules will need to apply. That is why we are preparing a further consultation paper in the regulation of mayoral elections.
As I stand at the Dispatch Box, I am not convinced of the need to prescribe free mail shots within those regulations, but the consultation will proceed. Of course, the House having accepted the provisions within the Representation of the People Bill, which allows for the experiment on free mail shots for local elections that is being conducted in Watford, we have the ability legislatively to provide for that in certain circumstances.
Rather than put anything on the face of the Bill which I must strongly oppose, I believe that we should leave the matter to consultation and to the possibility that at some future date we might move down that road. However, I suspect that were we to do so, the view would not be that we should provide the full parliamentary mail shot. We might have to have a more compromise position of the kind referred to, if not the actual outcome, in our discussions on the provisions of the GLA Act.
I am straying too far into that territory and I hope that the noble Baroness will not pursue the amendment tonight.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, before the Minister sits down and with the leave of the House,
Lord Whitty: My Lords, at this point I cannot give a closing date for that consultation, but I understand that it would be some time in the summer and therefore beyond the likely passage of the Bill.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I do not wish to be inflammatory and I realise that there is another important piece of business to deal with tonight. Therefore I shall not pursue the matter now, but I note the Minister's reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 80 [Allowances and pensions for certain local authority members]:
Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 119:
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is grouped with Amendment No. 20 standing in the name of the Minister. The fact that my amendment comes first allows me to thank him for taking up the matter of allowances for cycles and other non-motorised forms of transport, referred to in his amendment. We are pleased to have achieved a little during the Bill's passage through this House.
I want to ask the Minister a question about his new clause and the regulation-making provision dealing with allowances. Subsection (4) states:
Having made that point, I thank the Minister for taking on board our concerns about cycle allowances. If the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, were here I am sure that he would be making points about payment to members of parish councils. However, for the record I repeat that we remain concerned about the distinction between members of the executive and
Lord Whitty: My Lords, my Amendment No. 120 introduces a new clause enabling the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales to make regulations regarding parish councils for only general allowances. The point was raised by my noble friend Lord Graham and others during the Report stage of the Bill. The regulations also relate to all councils as regards travel and subsistence allowances, including cycle allowances, allowances for attending conferences or meetings and the reimbursement of expenses. The reason the provision is not as definitive as the noble Baroness may have liked is that we are currently conducting a review. We have sympathy with the objectives referred to by the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh.
The outcome of the review is unlikely to be known by the time the Bill has completed its parliamentary stages. Therefore, the new clause allows the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales to make provisions--perhaps regrettably from the noble Baroness's purist point of view of how we change primary legislation. It might mean changing the appropriate clauses of the Local Government Act. This is the only way we can make the change without coming back to yet another piece of local government legislation. I hope that in that context the noble Baroness understands why we have done it that way and that my amendment can be agreed.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I am a purist, but not so much as to insist on my amendment or to oppose the Minister's. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 119.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 120:
Page 56, line 10, at end insert (", and
(b) the insertion of the following new paragraph after paragraph (c)--
"(d) a cycle allowance to be payable at a rate to be determined by the local authority".").
"The provision which may be made under this section includes provision which amends or repeals any provisions of sections 173 to 178 of the Local Government Act 1972".
While I welcome the provision and understand the pressures on parliamentary counsel, I believe it is a pity that we seem to be drifting into a position in which perhaps because of pressures of time a short-cut is being taken. We have in primary legislation a power for the repeal or modification of other primary legislation by regulation. Ideally, if matters are important they should be in primary legislation so that one can follow them. The Government are ambitious about the amount of legislation they are going to get through Parliament and I deplore what I regard to be a short-cut, although I have no doubt that pressure of time brought it about.
After Clause 80, insert the following new clause--
(".--(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision with respect to--
(a) allowances payable to members of a parish council,
(b) travelling and subsistence allowances payable to members of such relevant authorities as may be prescribed,
(c) allowances payable to members of such relevant authorities as may be prescribed for attending conferences or meetings,
(d) the reimbursement of expenses incurred by members of such relevant authorities as may be prescribed.
(2) For the purposes of this section a member of a committee or sub-committee of a relevant authority is to be treated as a member of the authority.
(3) The provision which may be made under subsection (1)(b) includes provision with respect to allowances in respect of travel by bicycle or by any other non-motorised form of transport.
(4) The provision which may be made under this section includes provision which amends or repeals any provisions of sections 173 to 178 of the Local Government Act 1972.
(5) Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult such representatives of local government and such other persons (if any) as he considers appropriate.
(6) In this section--
"prescribed" means prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State,
"relevant authority" means--
(a) a body specified in section 21(1) of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989,
(b) a body on which a body falling within paragraph (a) is represented,
(c) a parish council.
(7) In its application to Wales this section has effect as if--
(a) for any reference to the Secretary of State there were substituted a reference to the National Assembly for Wales,
(b) for any reference to a parish council there were substituted a reference to a community council.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
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