Orders of the Day — Local Government and Planning (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:05 pm on 7 December 1981.

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Photo of Donald Dewar Donald Dewar , Glasgow Garscadden 9:05, 7 December 1981

As my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) knows, I, too, am interested in British Leyland, as in my constituency I have the Albion truck plant. The points that my hon. Friend made in his characteristically persistent fashion are extremely relevant to the state of West Central Scotland, to the local authorities there and to everyone else who lives in the area. He need make no apology for raising the matter.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for Scotland, who took the problem seriously and said that he would reply in writing soon. I look forward to seeing the answer. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman believes that it is a major issue, whatever may be the attitude of the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay) and of some of his hon. Friends.

I recognise that in a way this has been an anti-climatic day for members of the Stodart committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] When the sheep have stopped baaing, I shall explain exactly what I mean.

The members of the committee have laboured long and hard to produce a worthwhile report full of interesting and relevant recommendations, but inevitably those recommendations have to some extent been swept away by the pressure of argument about the first part of the Bill, which has roused justified anger throughout Scotland, particularly among those connected with or knowledgeable about local government. The anger has been heightened by the disastrous financial prospects for local government which have become all too clear in the past few days. A grim and dreary winter lies ahead, and the responsibility for that lies squarely on the desk of the Secretary of State.

We shall not have time in this debate to deal with all the Stodart recommendations in detail, although I hope that there will be time to do justice to them in Committee. I wish to mention only one or two, even if in somewhat shorthand form. My right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) referred to clause 18, which deals with the transfer to district authorities of certain powers under the Food and Drugs (Scotland) Act 1956. From the lobbying and the meetings the Minister will be aware that there is already a lively debate on the issue and that a broad alliance, if I can call it such, of the Scottish Consumer Council, the Retail Consortium and the Institute of Trading Standards Administration, has come together to persuade hon. Members—on what is not really a party issue—that the proposals in the Bill do not make sense.

I accept the prima facie case against splitting weights and measures, trade description and food labelling, which are to remain with the region, from food and drugs matters. Despite the fact that Stodart recommended it, it is not clear that the realignment makes sense and will lead to improved efficiency and economy. I give notice that we shall look at the matter in considerable detail in Committee.

Clause 45 deals with a fag-end from the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act. Again, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Craigton made clear, in Committee we shall vigorously oppose the suggestion that there should be a transfer of discretion from local government to the Lands Tribunal. We do not like the machinery and we do not like the concept in the Act, but leaving that aside for the moment—if we accept that it is on the statute book—the job of the Lands Tribunal is to expedite conveyancing or to arbitrate if there are disputes. It should not be invited, as a judicial body, to take on board the discretion allowed to local authorities under the Act to vary the amount of discount in special cases. That is another departure from the powers that should lie with local government. We shall want to examine that matter in great detail.

The points about the rating of outside plant, provided for in clause 3, have been well made. I expect that the Minister will think about them. No doubt the Under-Secretary also will have something to say. We do not object in principle to the idea that the apparent anomaly between England and Scotland should be eradicated and that rating of outside plant should be put on the same basis as it is south of the border. Paragraph 9 of the explanatory and financial memorandum states: The provisions relating to the valuation of plant and machinery (Clause 3), and any orders made thereunder, will not lead to any increase in public expenditure, although orders may be made which will lead to a redistribution of the rates burden. In plain English, that appears to mean that the Government intend that the shortfall—in some areas it will be a considerable shortfall—from the derating of outside plant and machinery will fall upon the remainder of the ratepaying community, whether industrial or domestic. That is wholly and universally unacceptable to every area that will be affected. The Government must reconsider, or they will create—yet again—a genuine financial crisis in local government.

I wish to raise a matter that is not included in the Bill, although I had hoped that it would be. As far back as 13 January this year, the Minister said that he was considering whether the quinquennial revaluation should take place in 1983 and whether he should use his powers under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1981. He said that he would let us know in a matter of weeks or, at most, months. We have now reached a farcical stage. The staff in the assessor's department have no idea whether they should be doing the essential work that should be in hand if the quinquennial revaluation is to take place. The Minister coyly shelters behind silence and refuses to explain the position.

I understand that the Conservative Party may have made pledges about rating reform that it will find hard to implement. However, the Minister must tell us what is happening with the quinquennial revaluation, and he must do so this year. I would like him to tell us now. Otherwise, the assessor's department will be left in a hopeless state of confusion through no fault of its own.

I wish to deal with one or two of the points made in the debate. Obviously, there will be a series of debates in Committee on the proposals for attracting industry and the intention that that should be left to regional councils. I recognise the caveat about the building of advance factories and the advertising of factories of which regional councils are the landlords. The provisions as drawn are restrictive and will lead to a great deal of annoyance, irritation and frustration, especially in the larger district councils in Scotland. It is a persistent theme of the Government's local government legislation that there is a far too restrictive concept. Even the regions, if they wish to be active in that area, must ask the Secretary of State for his permission. That is a "Big Brother" attitude that we can do without. The Secretary of State, in one of his unhappy lapses into phrase-making, said that he hoped that local authorities would reap the harvest fruits of promotional activities. We all wish them to reap the harvest fruits, but their chances of doing so will be limited if we put them into the straitjacket that is presently envisaged.

Exactly the same point about restrictions arises on clause 8, which deals with tourism. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) said that he understood that we could not go as far as Stodart suggested and that it would be impossible to give more Scottish voice to the promotion of the tourist industry abroad. In Committee, we shall ask exactly why we cannot give impetus to the selling of Scotland in the tourist area. The same point arises in relation to the Locate in Scotland Bureau. I hope that I am right in assuming that the Secretary of State is currently fighting hard to ensure that the Scottish Development Agency's offices in North America will survive in coming years.

These are issues which will arise and to which we shall wish to return. I say right away—I make no apologies for doing so—that part I of the Bill worries the Opposition most. It is another example of the Government's overwhelming enthusiasm and ability to restrict, curtail, cabin and confine local government in Scotland. Local government will be pushed into a position where its room to manoeuvere and independence will be radically restricted.

I can remember—perhaps it is a sign of increasing age—the themes of yesteryear when Conservatives were the great champions of local democracy and independence. Sometimes we heard rather pompous speeches about local councils being peopled with sturdy Hampdens and independents. While Conservative Members recognised an unfortunate insistence by people to vote Labour in Scotland, at least they had the courage of their convictions to say that people had a right to elect local representatives to control local affairs. That is rhetoric that, understandably, we seldom hear from the Conservative Benches today. There was just a whisper of it from the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West—a faint echo in the distance—when he spoke of the "freedom of the people" It is extremely difficult to deal in that type of rhetoric in view of the provisions of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1981 and the Bill before the House today. There is no more important area of democracy than local government.

Attempts were made—the Secretary of State was at it again tonight—to suggest that the 1981 Act dealt with relaxations of control. That is an empty farce, brass neck of the most perverse sort. Local authorities have been told that they will have greater freedom to allow the sale of methylated spirits and to charge more for cremations. There are a few minor and archaic matters of that type. On the other side, the local authorities have been stripped of all the essential financial powers that mark local democracy if local democracy is to mean anything. Despite the laughter and frivolity of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), I believe that part I of the Bill is a further example of the arbitrary, damaging and essentially unnecessary legislation that has been foisted on local government by this set of Ministers.

I shall examine the origins of part I of the Bill, because that is relevant to what we are considering. It has, of course, its typically amending legislation. It is an opaque piece of legislation in which complexity has been piled upon complexity. Its origins are in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act and the power which the Secretary of State took to claw back, at his whim, from the rate support grant of any local authority during the course of the financial year. The trouble was that the grand design unveiled in that legislation was unworkable.

At a very late stage in the Bill—on Report—the Minister came hurrying forward with two important provisions which he had forgotten in his confusion when the Bill was originally cobbled together. It was only on Report that the power to reduce the rate poundage and a block on borrowing powers to make up a shortfall were introduced. If it has worked at all—and in a sense the Minister is right in saying that it has—it has been at enormous cost to the fabric of local government and to trust between central and local government and to the great disadvantage of the ratepayers. It worked only because of the late patching by the Minister on Report.

Having got it together in a kind of way, the Secretary of State and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State the hon. Member for Pentlands were not satisfied. The great machismo exercise of being beastly to local government demanded more. We had the flirtation with the referendum. The Secretary of State will recall that he told COSLA that he had made up his mind to go ahead with the referendum in Scottish legislation, presumably as some kind of back-up power for the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act. Then, as we all recall, the universal opposition throughout the Scottish community drove him from that position. He turned, he scuttled and he ran—and the referendum died the death. Conservative Members may laugh, but that is exactly what happened.

Having scuttled from the referendum, the Secretary of State then came up with the mechanism included in part I of the Bill. This has been presented to us as a technical change, a tidying-up mechanism about which we should not get too excited—merely a matter of forcing a repayment to the ratepayers. That is how it is presented, but the Secretary of State is taking power directly to set the rate poundage for an individual local authority despite the opposition of elected local councillors who wish a different rate policy to be followed.

One may argue about individual cases and whether councillors are right or wrong. One may argue that if you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or any other hon. Member had been a councillor on a specific local authority, a different decision would have been reached. That is a legitimate area for dispute. But if I or anyone else in the position of a local councillor would have done something different, it is no excuse—indeed, it is a total non sequitur—to say that local government should therefore be overridden by the central Government and that, merely because the Government disagree with what local councillors are doing, they should destroy the power of local councillors to act responsibly in the name of the electors to whom they are responsible. Yet that is what we are invited to contemplate in this legislation.

I find it almost impossible to understand how some of the speeches that we have heard in the course of this long debate could possible have been made. Early in the debate, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) told us that part I of the Bill was a measure to protect ratepayers, and that theme has been constantly reiterated by other Conservative Members. Let us consider the protection involved and what the results of its operation have been and are likely to be.

I take one example. It is not the only one. If the present Ministers continue in office, there will probably be more. Let us assume that a local authority has not paid back to the ratepayers money forced from them due to a threatened clawback in rate support grant. We have been told that the failure to pay back to the ratepayers is morally indefensible and politically reprehensible. Indeed, in a recent debate, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram), the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, described it rather picturesquely as "robbery". In a sense, I am prepared to accept that term, because the proceeds of robbery, if such it be, are now in the hands of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

During the debates on the miscellaneous provisions legislation and subsequently, the local authorities were told that they had the choice of paying or not paying back to the ratepayers. That was specifically defended as part of the Government's plans. They then made the great mistake of exercising that choice in a way that Ministers did not like, and it was promptly taken from them.

But it was not a choice. The choice was represented by the hon. Member for Argyll, who sometimes seems not to know the meaning of the English language, as paying back to the ratepayers or to the Chancellor. There was no choice about paying the Chancellor. The Chancellor viciously clawed the money from them. He removed it forcibly from the local authority and has kept it in his Treasury. It has not been left with the local authority at all. Our contention is that if it is morally reprehensible that the £30 million has not been paid back, it is for Ministers to ensure that it is repaid, perhaps in terms of next year's rate support grant, to Lothian or to any other authority in that position. It is nothing less than hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.

I have listened carefully to the arguments advanced by the Government. The real reason, it seems, why the Government will not pay back the money in their possession is that the wicked and irresponsible councillors of the Lothian region would promptly spend it on services in the interests of the ratepayers. The Government may dispute that that is wise. They may disapprove of such action by the Lothian region. I should have thought that there were ways round the problem if they were so worried. To take things at their worst, from the Government's view, what would happen if the £30 million was wasted on keeping nursery schools open, keeping bus fares low or improving social work services?

The "unfortunate" Lothian ratepayers are told that they would be forced to have better services for £30 million. The offer by the Government, as a means of protection for the ratepayers, is that they will not get the payment in their pockets or the services for which they have paid. They will be left with nothing. Yet the Government have the cheek to say that they are protecting the ratepayers. The Government have the money. They should make it available, perhaps for lower rates next year or for better services. In either respect, the ratepayers of Lothian or any other authority would then be getting something. As it is, they are being robbed by the Government.

I wish to deal with one other definition of the term protection of the ratepayers. The cry is heard that during the last two years rates have spiralled by amounts above 30 per cent. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Craigton made that basic point self-evident, a piping cry was heard from the Secretary of State for Scotland "Whose fault was that?" I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman. It was the right hon. Gentleman's own fault. Those high rates have been forced on Labour, Conservative, and independent authorities by his unreasonable guidelines and by the fact that he has been constantly cutting, in a manner that cannot be justified, the level of support for local authority services in Scotland.

Looking at the signs and portents for the year ahead, there is nothing to be complacent about. It is difficult to compare figures because of the difference in the accounting base. It is, however, known that no proper provision has been made for inflation. It is known that local authorities will face clawbacks from last year and the previous year for times when the books are closed and the money has been spent. It is known that the rate support grant is coming down by 21½ per cent.

I know of no responsible or impartial person who does not accept that, due to Government policies, a third year of very substantial rate rises will be forced upon local authorities by the Government, whose supporters have the cheek to prate about the protection of the ratepayers. The hon. Member for Pentlands comes forward with bland and sometimes, I am afraid, weasel words. He was reported in the Glasgow Herald as saying that if local authorities moderate their expenditure, guidelines can be achieved without any problems. I stress the words "moderate" and "without any problems". No one believes that. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman, to be fair to him, believes it either.

I notice, for example, that Mr. Fitzgerald, the chairman of COSLA and a well-known member of the Conservative Party, drew attention in the same newspaper to the situation in Tayside—a Conservative-controlled authority. Mr. Fitzgerald rightly said that Tayside had tried hard to obey the Government's dictates and guidelines. Looking at the news that is now known, he had to say, sadly, that Tayside will find things very difficult indeed. Mr. Fitzgerald is to be congratulated on his mastery of the understatement. It will be very, very difficult indeed.

I refer to the Edinburgh district council because it has already been referred to by more than one hon. Member. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West said that he was glad that the district council would get responsibility for more recreation facilities under the Stodart provisions. Why should he be glad? On Saturday The Scotsman stated that a private agreement had been reached among Conservative councillors and that £7½ million would have to be cut next year in order to meet the targets forced on the Secretary of State by the Treasury. According to The Scotsman, which is probably well informed, the cuts will be found "in leisure and recreation". For example, the shopping list includes the almost complete closure of the King's theatre, cutting 33 per cent. of the festival grant, closure of the Commonwealth pool except for afternoons, the virtual ending of all putting and tennis, the closing of half a dozen libraries and the loss of about 400 jobs.

We hear that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South is worried about his home town's capital city status. The hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Mr. Corrie) told us that leisure and recreation would be the biggest growth industry. Under Tory control of the Edinburgh district council, which is whipped on by the financial prejudices of the Secretary of State, leisure and recreation will be almost killed if the propositions are put into effect.