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Local Government Finance

8. Mr. Ernie Ross : To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss local government finance.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang) : My right hon. and learned Friend last met the president and senior office bearers of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on 6 July.

Mr. Ross : When the Minister met the president and office bearers, did he discuss with them the increasing difficulty that they and their members are encountering in encouraging people to pay their poll tax? Does he not realise that the inability of local government to draw blood from a stone by asking people living on poverty wages to pay a minimum of 20 per cent. is seriously challenging its ability to deliver services? Is it not time that he and his colleagues did away with the poll tax and started to deal with the serious underfunding from which local authorities have suffered for a number of years?

Mr. Lang : Part of the problem that local authorities have faced in collecting the community charge is the fact that so many Members of Parliament and councillors--in the Labour party and in other parties--have discouraged people from paying, thus leading them into considerable personal difficulty. In my view, they are embarking on a course of the highest irresponsibility. Despite that, however, authorities in Scotland now expect, on average, to collect some 95 per cent. of their budgeted targets. As the community charge accounts for only about one fifth of the total expenditure of local authorities, they will have about 99 per cent. of their total spend. In those circumstances, they should be able to meet the problem through prudent management of their spending.

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Mr. Harris : Has my hon. Friend noticed that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) has moved from the Labour Benches to the Scottish National Benches? However, it does not matter--

Mr. Speaker : Order. Has this something to do with Scottish questions? The hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to the question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Harris : It does not matter where an Opposition Member sits if that hon. Member engages in the irresponsible and reprehensible action of encouraging people not pay their community charge. That hits-- [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House, and he knows that he must ask a question and not make statements.

Mr. Lang : I had noticed that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) had moved from the Labour Benches to those of the Scottish National party. As he has moved from one socialist party to another, however, it is hard to tell the difference.

As for the attitude to the community charge, the most unfair and irresponsible posture for any party to adopt is to encourage people not to pay their fair share. The most unfair feature of all would be for those who have contributed to the cost of local services to be asked to pay the cost of those who have not. That is something that local authorities should not be asked to do.

Several Hon. Members rose--

Mr. Speaker : I think that I should call Mr. Dick Douglas.

Mr. Douglas : When the Secretary of State met COSLA, did he not say that local authorities in Scotland had fallen into the trap that he had laid for them? They are caught between a rock and a hard place. In the beginning, COSLA said that the tax was unworkable so why is it now trying to make it work by the most draconian means? I myself--and I have already been referred to--have been the subject of warrants of a dubious nature. Is it really in the mind of the Secretary of State to tell local authorities that to make the tax work they must get into the barbarous atmosphere and attitude of poinding and warrant sales? Should not the Minister go back to COSLA and say that he will review the scheme and take it away completely?

Mr. Lang : The vast majority of community charge payers have paid and are paying their community charge. The system of recovery available to local authorities is broadly the same as it was under the previous rating system. Those who are willing to ignore the irresponsible advice of politicians who tell people not to pay taxes, and are willing to pay their due to local authorities, will not have to fear the processes of recovery.

Mr. Maxton : When will the Minister stop using the rather foolish non-payment campaign being run by the Scottish National party as a shield behind which to hide and pretend that the poll tax is working? Does he not recognise that research shows that the vast majority of those who have not paid their poll tax simply cannot afford to pay it? The simple fact is that he could end the crisis tomorrow by abolishing the 20 per cent. rule, allowing a moratorium on rebates back to 1 April 1989 and improving the rebate system to make it much more

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generous. He must recognise that Scottish local authorities are facing a financial crisis as a result of the poll tax itself and not because a few people are foolishly not paying it.

Mr. Lang : If the hon. Gentleman is trying to tell me that Labour Members of Parliament and Labour councillors are refusing to pay their community charges because they cannot afford to do so, I have to tell him that I do not believe it. The vast majority of people have paid their community charge, and more than 1 million are eligible for a rebate, so account is taken of ability to pay. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's irresponsible position explains why his party has inconceivably decided to go back to the even more unfair and most unacceptable payment of all, with a return to the old rating system.

National Health Service

9. Mr. Ingram : To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met Scottish health board chairmen to discuss the national health service in Scotland.

Mr. Michael Forsyth : I met the chairmen of health boards on 29 June.

Mr. Ingram : It is unlikely that the Minister would have had an opportunity to discuss with them the report produced recently by the Institute of Manpower Studies, commissioned by the Scottish Office, which showed a worrying wastage rate among nurses because of the lack of opportunity to involve themselves in patient care and because of cuts in wage rates. Will the Minister discuss that report at his next meeting with board chairmen, which I hope will be in the not-too-distant future? Is not that report a damning indictment of 11 years of Tory policy and of the Government's attitude to the health service, which nurses are leaving in droves?

Mr. Forsyth : We are anxious to improve the opportunities for recruiting nurses and other staff to the health service. The hon. Gentleman will recognise, if he is fair, that since 1979 the number of nurses in the health service has increased substantially, as has their pay--by about one quarter in real terms. I confess that I have not read the report to which he refers, but I will do so and respond to the points that he made.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith : Will my hon. Friend confirm that one of the objectives of health service reform is to encourage greater public involvement and interest? In relation to the reform of local health councils, is my hon. Friend satisfied that in large areas such as Grampian there will be adequate representation of both rural and urban interests? Even rural interests can be very disparate. Will he re-examine local health council reorganisation to ensure that it will provide genuine local involvement?

Mr. Forsyth : My view, which is shared by Opposition spokesmen, is that in general it will be better to have one health council per health board, with the resources to operate as a strong organisation and on an equal footing. I shall be answering today a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about the possibility, as suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), of having more than one health council per board.

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There is nothing to prevent boards from proposing schemes which involve more than one health council, although our preference is for only one such council.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : I was right. Withdraw the circular.

Mr. Forsyth : If the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) will allow me to answer my right hon. Friend's question, he may then catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.

Our preference is for health councils that are strong enough to represent the voice of the consumer effectively, but health boards may suggest schemes that provide for more than one health council, and they will be considered on their merits.

Mr. Galbraith : When the Minister next meets the chairmen of the health boards, will he discuss with the chairman of Greater Glasgow health board the continuing public utterances of his general manager, who only yesterday said that the national health service in Glasgow is "second class"? That same general manager recently issued a warning to his staff that if any of them publicly criticise the NHS in Glasgow, they will be summarily dismissed. In that, he included comments to Members of

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Parliament. Yet only yesterday, in the surroundings of the luxurious Gleneagles hotel, the same general manager deprecated the Greater Glasgow health board and its services, for which he personally is responsible. Why do we have such double standards, whereby the general manager can criticise the health service but the rest of the staff cannot? If the general manager can criticise, so can the rest of the staff.

Mr. Forsyth : It is the general manager's job to identify deficiencies in the health service and to put them right. I pay tribute to what Laurence Peterken has done in the health service. In Greater Glasgow health board, Lennox Castle, in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, was identified as a hospital in need of improvement by the general manager, and it has been transformed. In that speech, Lawrence Peterken was saying that it was no part of the business of the health service to continue with inadequate Victorian buildings and that we wanted an efficient service providing the highest standards of care. That is the Government's belief. Only a fool would argue that there are no problems in the health service. There are problems. The Government are the first to have tackled them for a very long time and have delivered a higher standard of patient care.

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