Voluntary Code of Practice (Part I)

Part of Orders of the Day — Local Government and Housing Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:30 pm on 13 June 1989.

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Photo of Mr Tony Banks Mr Tony Banks , Newham North West 6:30, 13 June 1989

I did not say that I was unhappy; I said that I was not happy, which is not quite the same thing. Words are supposed to mean something in this place, and there is a difference there. I was not happy, but that unhappiness arose not because people were twin tracking but because the system of local government and remuneration of councillors is all wrong.

I would be much more in favour of seeing whether there was a problem if the Government were prepared to make some serious proposals for looking at the way in which we remunerate local councillors who do a good job. We are not looking at it in that root and branch fashion. We are looking at it at a superficial level, and this symbolises the Government's approach. It is superficial and layered with malice, venom and bigotry. That is the way in which the Government approach local government.

Coming now to the £13,500 cut-off, it is typical of this Government that they attach a price to everything; they set an economic point at which there will be a cut-off. That is not a qualitative argument; it is a quantitative argument based on money. The only thing that the Arthur Daleys on the Government Benches who now run this country understand a little bit about is money. That is their level. They know nothing about the qualitative arguments that the Opposition are addressing.

The figure of £13,500 relates back, I suppose, to Widdicombe's point about principal officers. But things have moved on since then. If the figure stays at £13,500, and assuming that the Government are around for a few years yet, in the end, logically, virtually every local government officer will come within the category. Clearly the Minister, when he replies, must tell us what he intends to do about uprating the £13,500 figure because things have moved on even while the Bill has been in Committee. It is difficult now to be precise about the number of officers in local government who will be caught, but it may be as many as 130,000. I urge the Minister to tell us because, although the Government said originally that the ban would affect a mere 3 per cent. of local government employees, that figure has gone up and I want the Minister to give precisely his estimate of the number of local government officers affected.

We also need to know from the Minister what he means by political activity. Will it be so ridiculous as to include canvassing or putting up a poster? That has nothing to do with the impartial advice that local officers are giving; it has to do with their own civil rights, I would have thought, and therefore cannot be seen as affecting them in terms of the advice they give.

The hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) mentioned his dear old dad, who was a local government officer. I am sure that he gave very good and impartial advice. It is a pity that some of it did not rub off on his son. I understand that the hon. Member used to be a member of the Labour party, so clearly his dad told him some good things. I only wish that his dad would carry on telling him those things because he has clearly gone all wrong since. His dad, being a sufficiently senior officer, would clearly have come within the terms of our clause. That shows that, as ever, we are being wholly reasonable.

We say that there are two good reasons why it is right that senior officers whose purpose is to give advice should not be involved in political activity, certainly of the twin-tracking sort. First, they do not have the time and, secondly, their advice is crucial. But it is nonsense to talk about £13,500 at those sorts of levels. That is the point at which it matters. The Government are not concerned with the sort of advice that they are giving; they are saying that because that is how much they earn they should not be in a position to give advice to elected members because that advice could be called into question. That is nonsense. First, the Minister must tell us how many local government officers will be included in his net and, secondly, what is the scope of political activity. How will he revise those salary levels or levels of political activity?

This is a crude attempt by the Government to smash local authorities into a shape that appeals to Conservative Members. That approach can be seen running through the Bill. There is no finesse about it; they are simply trying to smash local authorities. That is their philosophy and their approach and that is why we ask all reasonable Members —there are one or two, although I cannot see them at the moment, but no doubt they will be coming in soon—to support us in the Lobby when they realise the appalling nature of the Bill.