New Rules for Standing

An interesting proposal working through the system is to tighten up the rules for local councillors to serve.  Currently, any Councillor with a prison record of more than three months is ineligible. The proposal currently under consideration is for any councillor "any person who is subject to an Anti-Social Behaviour Injunction, a Criminal Behaviour Order, a Sexual Risk Order or who is on the Sex Offenders’ Register, would no longer be able to stand for elected office in their community".

This would presumably affect serving councillors at the time that such a rule came into force, possibly leading to by elections.  It is unclear how far back these restrictions would go. In the case of Police Commissioners there is no limit, as Bob Ashford of Somerset discovered.  I thought he was given a hard time, so I do hope that whatever emerges from this proposal is carefully considered.

I always think it notable that people on other public authorities are often subject to greater restrictions than Members of Parliament invent for themselves.