Conservative councillors at Hackney LBC have withdrawn from the borough's standards committee amid protests of political bias.

The Tory group has complained that since the last elections in 2010 - and the introduction last year of new lighter touch standards regime under the Localism Act – only Conservative elected members have been put under the committee's spotlight.

Cllr Michael Levy, who was found in breach of Hackney's standards code, said last week the panel was not made up of ‘even handed' and independent people.

In light of the move, which means Hackney's Conservative members would no longer acknowledge the committee's decisions or participate in its deliberations, fellow Tory member Cllr Bernard Aussenberg labelled the committee ‘nakedly partisan'.

The withdrawal from the standards committee mirrors the resignation en masse earlier this week by Conservative councillors in Hinckley and Bosworth.

Four Tory members left the local standards committee saying they lacked faith that the ruling Liberal Democrat group was acting impartially.

Cllr Chris Ladkin, group leader of Hinckley and Bosworth's Conservative group said his members, who had ‘lost all confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the council's ethical standards regime, are no longer prepared to participate as members of the council's ethical standards committee'.

He said Tory members of the standards panel had ‘felt for some time that the ethical standards function is being abused by the administration for political advantage and, therefore, is no longer fit for purpose'.

A meeting of the full council this week ruled to keep the four seats on the standards committee open for nomination.  But Hinckley and Bosworth's Conservatives have vowed to ask the district auditor to investigate the complaints.