I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue of particular concern to my constituent—I shall shortly explain his circumstances—that extends to a much wider constituency of opinion. Many people both inside and outside the House think that the time to take action to try to remedy some of the difficulties in the case is overdue.

I am grateful to the Minister for Local Government for agreeing to reply to our debate on the model code of conduct for councillors. I accept that it would be inappropriate for him to refer to the specific case of Councillor Alex Riley, but I am grateful that he will deal with the wider issues. It might be helpful if I describe the circumstances of Councillor Riley's case. For some time, he has chaired the parish council in the village of Longstanton, which is several miles north-west of Cambridge.

As a result of the last regional structure plan and the subsequent county structure plan, a large new town is to be built to the north of Longstanton and Oakington comprising 8,000 to 10,000 homes—subsequently, the local development framework settled on 8,000 homes. That large development is very close to Longstanton, and it will envelop parts of the village. It extends to the north, west and east of the village, and in the original plans it was no more than the distance of a football field from some points of the village.

As chairman of the parish council, Alex Riley was closely and actively involved in the debate about the structure plans. When it became clear that active planning on the local development framework would begin, he decided to stand for election to represent Longstanton on those issues. In June 2004, he was elected with 70 per cent. of the vote in Longstanton as an independent councillor—the House will observe that this is not a party political matter. From June 2004, he sought to represent the village's views on a range of issues in the local development framework before an outline planning application was made. However, the ethical standards officer alleged that 15 breaches of the code of conduct took place in the space of just five months. I accept that the Minister will not want to comment, but the hearing of that case took place today. It concluded that Councillor Riley was responsible for breaches of the code of conduct but a penalty was not imposed, apart from the fact that he was instructed to receive training in the code. That is ironic, given that he has become insufferably familiar with it to the point of contempt. None the less, in my view—I do not propose to speak for anyone else—those were technical breaches of the code. That is one of the main reasons no penalty has been applied.

The issue is the extent to which councillors legitimately sent to their council chamber by constituents are able to represent those constituents. The Local Government Act 2000 set out an ethical framework for councillors, including in section 30 a model code of conduct, which South Cambridgeshire district council adopted in 2002. The code identifies two interests—first, personal interests, which can be defined as anything that might be held to affect a councillor's well-being or financial position, or that of their relatives or friends, to a greater extent than it would affect the local population generally. Secondly, there are prejudicial interests—interests that are so significant that a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard those interests as likely to prejudice the councillor's judgment of the public interest.

Those definitions are not at issue. Individually, Councillor Riley and all the other residents of Longstanton have personal and, in almost all cases, a prejudicial interest in relation to these matters. Planning decisions must, of course, be made in the public interest, but local residents have a legitimate expectation that that public interest includes and fully takes account of their views as the people most affected by a planning decision. We must ensure that that interest is properly and accurately reflected.

There is confusion in South Cambridge district council about how the code of conduct should be applied. Without going into detail, it was clear in 2004 that Councillor Riley received conflicting advice about what his personal and prejudicial interests should mean in relation to his participation in the council's discussions. In October 2005 South Cambridgeshire district council took counsel's opinion. That was necessitated by the fact that the council was coming on to examine the local development framework and an outline planning application from Gallagher, which is the promoter of the large scheme. The Minister need not declare an interest, but English Partnerships, which is part of the Department, owns much of the land on which the town is to be built.

Counsel's opinion pointed out how the district council should, in accordance with the current law, deal with the councillor. First, a councillor with a prejudicial interest would be required to withdraw whenever a meeting was held. A meeting, for these purposes, included any meeting of the authority—not just meetings that formed part of any decision-making process, but informal meetings, briefing meetings or any meeting whatsoever. Secondly, the further requirement that under the code councillors should not seek improperly to influence a matter should be interpreted to include lobbying or making any written representations to members.

The code allows dispensations, but counsel's advice to the district council was clear. The standards committee of the council could not use those dispensations to avoid adherence to the code. Counsel instanced some of the very limited circumstances to which dispensations might be applied.

When counsel was advising the planning authority about what Councillor Riley could do, he came up with three options. The first was that Councillor Riley should no longer be regarded as the route through which representations could be made by villagers, so representations could be made direct to the planning director. The second was that villagers should use another councillor who had no disqualifying interest. The third option was that Councillor Riley should resign. He would then be able to make representations as chairman of the parish council or as a private citizen.

It is curious that the use of another councillor has been the route through which the district council has proceeded. The necessity for Councillor Riley not to apply improper influence has even extended to the point where he is not allowed to discuss matters in his village with the councillor who has been nominated to be the route through which such representations are to be made. Another councillor on the parish council has been so nominated and the deadening hand of the code seems almost to be extending to the point where Councillor Riley cannot even talk to Councillor Grace, who subsequently talks to Councillor Kindersley, who is the councillor through whom their representations might come. Such is the effect of the way in which the model code has been interpreted.

You will not be surprised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have raised the issue with the Standards Board for England. It responded helpfully in November by saying:

"The Board shares your view that the current rules can be over-restrictive...and may exclude members from discussing certain matters which their community would expect them to be addressing or even, in certain cases, where they have been elected to represent specific views. Given the changing role of most councillors, the code needs to be seen to be supporting such local advocacy and the democratic right of a community to be represented when key matters which affect that community are under discussion."

David Prince, the chief executive, went on to say:

"The Board has also further recommended that the Government should also give local authorities broader powers to grant exemptions to members with prejudicial interests who nevertheless are speaking on behalf of their constituents."

The board went on to make recommendations to Ministers that flowed from exactly the same points that were made in their letter to me. The Committee on Standards in Public Life separately has made its own recommendations to Government, and I shall quote one of them. It said:

"In planning decisions the ability of elected members to represent constituents' interests where they have personal and prejudicial interests has been unnecessarily diminished. This should be changed to give any elected member the right to speak (but not vote) for their constituents at a planning committee meeting or any other quasi-regulatory meeting."

In that sense, we are clear about the direction in which both the board and the committee see we need to go.

I wrote, of course, to the Minister. He responded helpfully in January, to making it clear that the Standards Boards had made the recommendations, which he was minded to accept. I suppose that I could have rested on that and not exposed the issue to further gaze in the House, but I wanted to use this opportunity to say that I think that the current situation is untenable. In the case of South Cambridgeshire district council, there has been the benefit of counsel's opinion. It is not an arbitrary opinion. We have arrived at the point where, not seeking improper influence, Councillor Riley can barely speak to any of his fellow councillors without it being thought to be an improper influence. He cannot even go to informal meetings, briefing meetings or information meetings in the same way as members of the public attend to ascertain what is happening. He cannot ask questions and he cannot make representations.

Across the country, I have no doubt that this is not the only example. Steve Webb raised an instance not dissimilar to it on 8 November last year. Throughout the country either councillors are unknowingly breaching the code, as Councillor Riley did in 2004, by speaking on matters where they have an interest, even if they know that they do not have to vote—many cases they have no concept of the extent to which the moral code of conduct can be interpreted as constraining them—or we have councillors throughout the country who are being excluded from discussion of the very issues that they know best and about which they have been elected to represent their constituents.

Councillor Riley and I do not expect that he should be able to vote on issues where he has a personal or prejudicial interest. He does expect to make a full declaration of interests. He expects also that his representations should be made only openly and transparently. He does not expect to undertake private lobbying or to participate in discussions after he has made his representations. He does, however, expect to have access to briefings, and to be able to ask questions and make representations in cases where his council colleagues will be making decisions. He said to me plainly that if he cannot persuade them of the merits of the argument, he will understand and accept that he has failed in his task. It is his responsibility to make the arguments.

The issue is not settled; Ministers need to make progress. The outline application for the Northstowe development, which encompasses Longstanton, has yet to be considered and determined. Circumstances such as Councillor Riley's will arise elsewhere in the country. It is important that changes to the code be made as a matter of urgency. If the code is not changed under the secondary legislation that local government legislation permits, this negation of democracy will carry on and, far from inspiring confidence in local government, the code of conduct's application will bring local government into disrepute.