Localism Bill

My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, relates to the part of the Bill which defines a mayor as distinct from a councillor. I wonder whether that is particularly well advised. I cannot recall the precise clause or paragraph in the schedule that deals with the eligibility of people to stand for election as mayor. It lists a whole series of officers of an authority who may not stand. At the moment, a serving member or employee of a local authority is disbarred from standing as a councillor. If the mayoral position was to be treated for all purposes in the same way as a councillor, you would not need a provision in the Bill to identify all the authority officers who could not stand for that position. Indeed, it could be argued that if you do not treat the mayor as a councillor, you might find that some people are inadvertently omitted but who perhaps should be barred from seeking to be elected because they already hold a position within the authority. My understanding is that the bar will remain in place for some time after their period of service has concluded. Would it not be sensible for the Government to rethink this provision and simply state, unless there is a regulation the other way, as it were, that all provisions relating to councillors such as declarations of interest and all the rest of it should apply to elected mayors, rather than reverse the procedure and require regulations specifically for the elected mayor which could otherwise be avoided? In relation to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord True, there was a problem, and indeed there still is a problem, in the grouping of these amendments. As I read it, many of the noble Lord’s amendments tag on to provisions for the implementation of the mayoral system, with reference to a referendum having taken place on the basis of three possibilities. One is the decision of a local authority itself, but subject to a referendum. Another is a petition from the public generally, and the third, which is the problematic one for many of us, is the requirement to hold a referendum by the Secretary of State. As I understand it, the noble Lord’s amendments, along with those of his noble friends, assume for the purposes of their amendments that the compulsory referendum remains part of the Bill. Last night I endeavoured to turn the debate around the other way so that we could deal with that issue first. When we come to consider the Bill on Report, perhaps we might look at how to address the issue. The implementation points are perfectly valid and apply to the two non-compulsory forms of acquiring an elected mayor, but while I know that the Committee will not divide on them today, if the amendments were to be accepted on Report, it would be assumed that the compulsory referendum had been agreed. Some of us, perhaps many of us, have different views about that. In today’s groupings there are amendments which address that issue of principle, and I hope that the noble Lord understands where some of us are coming from in that respect.