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6.12 pmMr. Brian Donohoe (Cunninghame, South) : I am absolutely opposed to the Secretary of State for Scotland's proposal to reform Scottish local government, as outlined in "Shaping the Future--The New Councils." This is the latest episode in a systematic and concerted attack on the powers of Scottish local government which began when the Tories first came to power in 1979.
It must have been a surprise to anyone reading the document to find that the Secretary of State had committed himself to setting up effective and efficient local authorities. For any council to be effective and efficient, it requires, first, powers to initiate change that have not been emasculated by central Government. Secondly, it requires money so that it can provide efficient services to the public whom it is meant to serve. After 14 years of Tory Government, Scottish local authorities are neither effective nor efficient. Despite the Secretary of State's assurances in the White paper, Scottish councils will see their powers further eroded by any reform of local government that is initiated by a Tory document and presided over by a Tory Secretary of State with a hidden agenda which still, even after all his announcements, includes water privatisation and the extension of compulsory competitive tendering. The Tories' hidden agenda is still very much in being. Nothing that was said last week takes away from the fact that the Tories still intend to privatise Scottish Water.
The major criticism of the Government concerns the wholly undemocratic way in which the reorganisation has been carried out--not by a commission, as in England and Wales, but by the Secretary of State and his cronies on the Treasury Bench. He has ignored the repeatedly expressed demand of the Scottish people for an assembly. He has compounded that error by denying the Scottish people at least a quasi-independent commission to determine the structure of Scotland's local government. The only area of change allowed for in the document is to be found in paragraph 1.4 which states that the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland will be able to review the boundaries if an anomaly arises.
I urge the Government to look at Ayrshire, for a start. How is it possible, according to that document, to have a north Ayrshire and a south Ayrshire when Skelmorlie in the north is in the same authority as Loch Doon? It is utter nonsense. It is hardly surprising that my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) spoke as he did earlier.
The financial implications of the Secretary of State's reforms are so highly subjective as to be meaningless in any serious analysis of the proposed changes. Any reform of local government, even the abolition of Strathclyde regional council, which the Secretary of State has decided on, will result in the additional expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds of Scottish taxpayers' money in the midst of an economic recession.
In the House the other night, Tory Members of Parliament said that the Government are bankrupt. The White Paper makes it clear that the Scottish Office, too, is bankrupt of ideas.
The implications of the proposals are that there will be job losses in areas where jobs are already in short supply. It is wrong to use local authority employees as political footballs. Any reform of local government based on the Secretary of State's proposals will, by its very nature,
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create democratic deficits in the accountability of many existing local government functions. A reduction in the number of local authority units will result in decisions being taken further away from, not closer to, the people.That unaccountability will be made worse by the inevitable introduction of joint boards and quangos, whose members will be appointed by the Secretary of State, who has announced that the police, fire and water authorities in Strathclyde are to cover the same geographical area. Why does he not consider setting up a second tier of local government to cover those functions, which would then be the responsibility of directly elected representatives? What is wrong with that?
Those who are appointed will not be democratically elected councillors. They will be given only the power that the Secretary of State decides that they ought to have, according to his vision of Scottish local government. The proposals will further erode the already limited powers that Scottish local authorities have used to protect their people from the worst excesses of successive Tory Governments.
My reasons for opposing any change in structure of Scottish local government are clear. The cost and the disruption that will be caused cannot be justified. The face of local government in Scotland will be changed for ever.
To be more specific, what will happen to the wind-up programme for the new towns in the area that I represent? In my case, that factor is critical to the well-being of Irvine new town. When will the Secretary of State answer that important question? Why is that subject not addressed in the consultative document? It is not in the White Paper at all and that is wrong.
Any reforms will simply be perceived by the Scottish people as political navel-watching at a time when the real problems in the country should be addressed. There are 300,000 unemployed in Scotland and thousands of homeless, yet the Government have decided to review local authorities.
Mr. Gallie : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Donohoe : The hon. Gentleman had 20 minutes--I have only 10 minutes. Any review of Scottish local government must be undertaken in conjunction with the establishment of a local Scottish Parliament. Without that underlying principle, any reform of Scottish local government will certainly be temporary. The Secretary of State should understand that.
The Scottish people have repeatedly voted yes for reform and how we are governed. However, in voting yes, they reject the Tory philosophy completely. I reject the proposals, as do the majority of those who responded to the consultation. I reject the need for any reform in Scotland at present.
6.20 pm
Mr. Michael J. Martin (Glasgow, Springburn) : The Secretary of State for Scotland has attacked the Strathclyde region on several occasions. He should remember that there are many dedicated men and women who have served Strathclyde region since it was created by a Tory Government. He did not complain too much about Strathclyde regional council when he used it to gather the poll tax. He let that local authority take the brunt of the
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abusive attacks caused by the Government. At the end of the day, they had to do a U-turn.The Secretary of State should also remember that welfare rights officers were appointed in Strathclyde region to protect the poor and those who needed protection. Many men and women in my constituency got a great deal of benefit from the advice given by those officers. Some of them were former soldiers who gave six years of their lives and did not see their friends come back. They were denied their right to services of Government Departments until Strathclyde stepped in. [Interruption.]
I wish the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) would shut up. I listened to his speech--he said absolutely nothing. His constituents would be ashamed of what he said. The more he opens his mouth, the more he puts his big foot in it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley, North (Mrs. Adams) made a good point about Argyll. I was a full-time union officer in Argyll when Strathclyde took over. It was clear to me that the workers in Argyll had had to suffer at the hands of Argyll council, which was a penny-pinching authority and denied the workers their basic rights. Some of the workers had no protective clothing. The road men had no bothies in which to store their tools--they had to store them in their homes. Many of the workers said that they were glad that a Strathclyde union was coming in because they would at least get national wages and conditions and many were able to go on and be promoted. Under Strathclyde, people who worked in Dunoon were able to get promotions in places such as Greenock, Paisley and Glasgow. It is easy for me to have a go at Strathclyde region. But if--God forbid--these proposals get through the House, some people will say, "I wish that Strathclyde was back again".
Reference was made to Tories objecting to these proposals. I am proud that I served on Glasgow district council before I came here. John Young was a councillor on that council. He was a leading Tory--no one could say that he did not defend the Tory party on that council. Lo and behold--John Young is a Glaswegian who has a great love for the city of Glasgow and the Secretary of State cannot deny that as soon as the Tory proposals came out, John Young was one of the first to say that they are absolute rubbish.
Let us examine the accusation of gerrymandering. No matter what we call it, it is ludicrous when people who live in the Toryglen area will have to go to Hamilton for their services, although some of them live nearer the city chambers than I do. The Secretary of State will say that I am wrong about that because at one time Toryglen was not in the city of Glasgow.
Mr. Thomas McAvoy (Glasgow, Rutherglen) : Will my
Mr. Martin : I will not give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. McAvoy : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to give way to an hon. Member who has knowledge of his own constituency, of which the other hon. Member has no knowledge?
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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : The hon. Gentleman is well aware that it is for the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) to decide whether to give way.
Mr. Martin : This is not simply another hon. Member's constituency. The White Paper says that the proposal is for the city of Glasgow. I am entitled to comment on a proposal that will take a place that has been part of Glasgow for a long time--Toryglen--and put it into south Lanarkshire. The logic of the Minister's argument is that at one time Toryglen did not belong to Glasgow. Springburn, Keppochhill and Maryhill did not belong to Glasgow at one time. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Wray) does not belong to Glasgow--he stays outside it. Perhaps if he came in, we would get more population. We need a decent population in the city of Glasgow if we are to stay in a city that gives employment to most of the constituents of my hon. Friend.
6.26 pm
Mr. Andrew Welsh (Angus, East) : I well understand the strength of feeling of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) be empty Conservative Benches, there are few Tories because the Scottish electorate rejected them.
As we heard in an earlier ruling from the Speaker, at the end of the day the customs and conventions of the House and the English majority will force the proposals through against the wishes of the Scottish people. The Tories cannot get the democratic mandate of the Scottish people, so they use this manoeuvre to force through their policies, which the Scottish people vote against, and deny Scottish democracy. We should be trying to restore that democracy. Local government provides a wide range of essential daily services through its councillors and elected officials. It fulfils a highly democratic function in our society by allowing people to participate in local decisions. It also provides a vast pool of expertise and professional, trained, qualified and experienced staff giving a proven service to our local communities.
Scottish local government has a proud record over the centuries for supplying services to our local communities and that is precisely what is at stake in the White Paper. The Secretary of State for Scotland has served his country well and, undoubtedly, England will be suitably pleased with him. However, Scotland has nothing to be pleased about.
This short debate is only one small protest in what will surely be an ongoing debate for days and years against the Government's political chicanery. I will be brief but my anger goes deeper than this debate will allow. From the poll tax fiasco to Rosyth and Ravenscraig, the Tory roll of shame in Scotland is long and the Government have the gall to add this political deceit to it. The Government's plans are irretrievably rushed. There has been no real consultation on these fundamental changes. [Interruption.] If this rabble would shut up, they might learn about the Labour party's record in Government. There is an obvious contrast between the royal commission in 1969, followed by legislation in 1973, and the condensed timetable offered by this Government. In fact, the previous review of local government started in
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1963. It took a total of 10 years from the commencement of the review to the final enactment of legislation. The Scottish Office published its present consultation paper in October 1992 and invited submissions up to January 1993.Wheatley undertook visits, held meetings and seminars with academics and experts, and placed public notices in the press inviting both oral and written evidence. He commissioned studies and even had an intelligence unit aiding the previous reform of local government. All that suggests that that remit was taken very seriously. If the previous reform took over 10 years to gestate and then failed, what serious chance has the present rushed reform of lasting anything like the 20 years of the previous reorganisation? There has been no attempt to match communities to the new local government units, which are merely political conveniences for the discredited Tory party. The English get a commission, the Scots get gerrymandering. Like the poll tax, Scotland once more will be the Government's guinea pig. There has been no attempt truly to involve local government officials or the public or councillors before the structure of the proposed change was decided by central Government. The Government's proposals are fundamentally flawed. There has been no community of interest locally between Kincardine and Angus, or between Perthshire and Angus. There has been no community of interest through employment or through local government practice. The proposals have been introduced irrespective of past and present work, or social and historical patterns. That approach is being mirrored throughout the country ; the proposals are for the pure political convenience of the Tory party and not the result of the will or wish of the people.
The previous Scottish local government reform, which was given all the promises that we have heard from the Government tonight, lasted less than 20 years. Before that, reforms lasted for 50 or even 100 years. The new reform looks as though it will last even less time than the 1973 reform, because of the way in which it has been introduced and because of its substance.
The rush to legislate simply guarantees a period of instability, unemployment and the disruption of daily services. The Government have clearly forgotten the cost of chaos and the reality of running parallel authorities from the past local government reform. Why should the reform occur through silly gerrymandering and an effort to govern by deceit?
The Scottish people clearly rejected the Tories at previous elections, yet the Government are now inflicting those rejected policies and philosophy through a series of unelected and publicly unaccountable quangos. There has been an attempt to bypass the democratic process in Scotland. The boundaries have not been agreed and discussed with local communities, but are simply a civil service solution produced under the direction of the Tory party.
The local service proposals are the ultimate sell-out. They represent privatisation through the back door with stealth, through the creation of an unelected, unaccountable quango. The Tories who were rejected by the electorate are now ruling Scotland by a whole series of such unelected and unaccountable quangos--the opposite of democracy.
The process by which the Government issue a consultative document, only then promptly to ignore the
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results, is also the opposite of democracy. They prefer proposals that are overwhelmingly rejected by the Scottish people. Public pressure has forced a retreat from outright privatisation of water, as the Government originally wanted, but that has resulted in privatisation by two sips rather than one gulp. Scots want local-government -run water services, not the quango-controlled system nominated by and under the direction of the Secretary of State. I noticed that the Secretary of State was careful to give us absolutely no details of what the legislation will entail. I hope that he changes that by telling us what was in the Quayle-Munro report and exactly what the Government have in mind.Every customer in Scotland will await price rises, existing staff can expect disruption and redundancies, and we shall get all that is unnecessary and unwanted in both local government and water services.
The local government restructuring is different in kind and nature. There has been no real consultation, no royal commission, and no cross-party consensus, except among the people who opposed it. I reject with disgust the gerrymandered boundary reorganisation and the theft of Scotland's water resources. I seek in its place a strong, autonomous local government system, based on true local communities and founded after close consultation with those communities. Any review must meet three important criteria. Scotland must receive equal treatment. If there is a commission in England, there must be something similar in Scotland. There must be maximum consultation that reflects the views of the Scottish people, and there must be democratic control over education, police and fire which must not be switched to central Government quangos.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Welsh : No. The hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench spokesman wishes to wind up.
Mr. Robertson : The hon. Gentleman is winding us all up.
Mr. Welsh : It is a pity that the hon. Member is not wound up by what I am saying.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am finding great difficulty in hearing the hon. Member for Angus, East.
Mr. Welsh : May I say to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) who is trying to intervene, and to all the hon. Members making a racket behind me, that it is no use going through the motions of having photo calls outside 10 Downing street. Scotland expects more than that. That technique failed for Rosyth, it failed for Ravenscraig, and it will fail again because of the nature of the House. It is time that the Labour party joined others to ensure that Scottish views prevail.
Scotland has every right to feel betrayed by the Government's botched, unfair and undemocratic proposals. It is time that Scots united to ensure that the proposals are defeated.
6.38 pm
Mr. Henry McLeish (Fife, Central) : We do not need any lectures from the Scottish National party about defending Scotland's interest in the Chamber. May I
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remind the hon. Gentleman that the Labour party has 49 Scottish seats and the SNP has a miserable three seats, and its work rate is nothing to commend it ?The Secretary of State today treated local government in Scotland with maximum contempt. It was a disgraceful speech that did not address the key issues. It was a knockabout speech, at a time when we deserve to know why some of the decisions in the White Paper were made. More importantly, why is the Secretary of State willing to ride on the back of the rantings of his Back Benchers over Monklands ? He knows that he has the power to set up an inquiry. He should either put up or shut up on that issue.
The debate has exposed the organised hypocrisy masquerading as government in Scotland, and it has explained why the Conservatives are so deeply unpopular there. Only a rump of Tory Members, led by a ragbag of Tory Ministers, could have produced such a dog's breakfast and called it a reform. The reform of local government is irrelevant to the needs of Scottish people, damaging to the people who depend on its services and dismissive of democracy.
The Secretary of State must shoulder much of the responsibility for the mess. Why is he plumbing new depths of political dishonesty ? Why is he unwilling to distinguish between the interests of the Conservative party and the interests of the country ? The democratic credentials of the Secretary of State now lie in tatters. He failed in Rosyth, he has failed in local government and he has failed on the issue of water. How many failures does he need to have before he reconsiders his position ?
Much of the debate has concentrated on the Tories and their gerrymandering of boundaries. We have heard pathetic excuses that the proposed action is not gerrymandering, but good government. We know that, if there is an Operation Safe Haven and the only real people who are consulted are Tory Members, one ends up with a gerrymandered map of Scotland, which carries with it all the responsibility of the governing party.
The key question is what criteria were used to gerrymander the boundaries of East Renfrewshire, Berwickshire, East Lothian and Stirling. Did they use history, geography, culture or a bit of economics ? The criterion was simply the vested interests of the crew on the Government Benches, who could not care about the wishes of Scottish people and who will now do everything from that base position of 16 per cent. to win any credibility they can. We hear the Government lecture us about the vested interests in local government. They mean the 300,000 employees who, every day of the week, provide some of the best services in Europe. If that is a vested interest, I and my colleagues will speak up for them. If our councillors, who do such sterling work, are another vested interest, I have no doubt that I and my colleagues will be willing to stand up and be counted. What is utterly disgraceful is that the Tory party stands up for its own vested interest and is unconcerned about what is happening around it.
This debate is a watershed in Scottish politics since 1929, because we have never in that period had a major reform of local government which has smacked of contempt and of a lack of concern for those who are the beneficiaries of the service. We know that there is no case.
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What is the justification for this massive upheaval? There is no consensus. How on earth can the reforms endure? My hon. Friends have made the point that one cannot sustain the reforms without a consensus in which every political party and every section of Scotland is committed to them. No one will be committed to the proposals. They will not endure, because the Government have ignored the basic tenet of democratic politics, which is to arrive at a consensus. If there is no consensus, my hon. Friends will not be committed to the proposals. The proposals will have no credibility, and the people of Scotland will have little confidence in proposals that do not have that consensus.My hon. Friends have raised the question of a commission. Even the English have a commission. Why has the Secretary of State declined to give the Scots a commission? Why will the Government not put the matter to an independent test--to an independent commission? We should be happy to contribute proposals to such a commission. Why does the Secretary of State not do the same? We know the reason. The proposals will introduce a corrupted map of local government. The proposals are all about the Conservative party, and if they were exposed to the light of an independent commission, they would simply be shown up for what they are.
The other key issue raised by the proposals is constitutional change. If we had a Scottish Parliament sitting in Scotland--
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson : You will not have.
If we had a Scottish Parliament, Scots would be allowed to look at their own boundaries sensibly and sensitively, and they would be able to draw up a future that they wanted--not a future that satisfied the Conservative party, but a future that would take local government into the next century and would carry on the proud tradition of the previous 100 years.
If there is one part of the proposals that smacks not only of gerrymandering but of manipulation, it is the section dealing with costs. The Government have brought comic farce to financial accounting in the proposals. The Government took on Touche Ross. The National Audit Office in Scotland is now interested in carrying out a study into why £50,000 of taxpayers' money was spent on such a flawed exercise. The first exercise came up with transitional costs and on-going costs over five years, but the Government did not allow that. It was suggested that there might not be any savings, but that there would be substantial costs.
What did the Government do? They went back to Touche Ross and the civil servants, and came up not with a five-year period, but with a 15-year period. They paraded around at the weekend saying that they would save £1 billion up to the year 2010. Why not 3010, in which case the figure would be £6 billion? Why not 4010, in which case the figure would be £12 billion? What an utter absurdity. The fact that we have been asked to participate in discussions on the White Paper on the basis of those bogus figures is a scandal of massive proportions. We dispute the figures for savings, because there will be none.
There is no disguising the fact that, in the next three years, £200 million of costs will be incurred. Where will the money come from? It will not come from the Treasury. The money will come from services being cut and from the
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council tax being increased. Will the Minister tell Scotland that our present council tax levels will be safe in Tory hands when the reforms take place? They will not be, because the council tax and cuts in service will pay for this collective madness.A lobby is here today. We want the Secretary of State and his Ministers to reassure the 300,000 Scots who work in the service about their future. We want those workers to know, unlike the workers at Rosyth, that they have a future, that they will not simply be disregarded. Who on earth believes that only 2,200 people will leave the service over the next few years? Again I ask the Secretary of State for a reassurance for servants who have made a valuable contribution to the quality of life in Scotland. All the proposals add up to no case at all.
What about services? We have heard much talk about all-purpose authorities. Those all-purpose authorities will be multi-purpose authorities, because there will be a degree of centralisation unprecedented in Scottish politics. There will be commercialisation and then joint committees. Struggling beneath that will be the so-called "all-purpose" authorities. That is astonishing. They certainly will not be all-purpose authorities as the Government pretend.
If there is one issue above all others on which contempt has been heaped, it is the discussion about water. Many of my hon. Friends have made the point that we are at a halfway house towards ultimate privatisation. That is clear. We shall have three boards. Why three? No one has given us a reason why there should be three. Why not have six, or one? No details are given in the three paragraphs out of the 30 pages.
We are being softened up for the privatisation of water. The first step is centralisation, which will be followed by privatisation. No Conservative Member will mention the F-word--franchising. The word does not appear in the White Paper. Why not? There is no escaping the conclusion that the Government are moving surely and steadily towards the sell-off of Scottish water. It may not happen next year, but that is their intention. Scotland will not be fooled by the utterances and bogus reassurances it has received from Ministers.
If all of that was not bad enough, there is the point, which many of my hon. Friends have made, about the democratic deficit. Deep down in the debate is the question of costs and the question of consensus, but there is also the fundamental question of democracy. Democracy is being undermined by services being transferred to the marketplace and to the Scottish Office.
We are seeing an attack on the balance between local and central Government which is essential to the constitution. We are seeing a system being corrupted, and being made more unstable and more vulnerable to commercialisation and privatisation. We in Scotland are proud of our deep sense of security and our deep sense of collective provision, which are in danger of being abandoned irreversibly by the Government.
The proposals are unwanted, unnecessary, undemocratic and uniquely irrelevant to the people of Scotland. They deserve no support in the House, and we will certainly not support them. We will oppose them at every opportunity.
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6.47 pmThe Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart) : We have had a most enjoyable debate. The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish)--I shall come to his more serious points later- -continued his customary rant and scaremongering. I shall deal at the outset with his point about local authority staff. We estimate that reorganisation could lead to a reduction in total staff numbers of 1 per cent. That is against a background in which local authority staff in Scotland last year increased by 2 per cent., which puts the matter into context.
A number of positive points have been made in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson) pointed out that every group leader in the city wanted a single-tier system and wanted the city of Aberdeen to be a single-tier authority. My hon. Friend asked the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) for an apology to the city of Aberdeen ; an apology has not been received.
Mr. McLeish : Will the Minister accept the challenge that I offered the Secretary of State? He keeps referring to Monklands. He has the power to set up an independent inquiry. Will he put up or shut up?
Mr. Stewart : I thought I was talking about Aberdeen, but I can express some hope for the hon. Member's interest in Monklands. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) is interested in serving on the Standing Committee, and no doubt his extensive researches on Scottish local government will be available to hon. Members.
Several hon. Members : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Stewart : Not at the moment.
My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that the accusation of gerrymandering in relation to--
Mr. Wilson : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It seems to me that the Minister has sought to pre-empt the work of the Committee of Selection, and has done so by referring to matters that are clearly extraneous to the contents of any Bill. I hope that you will draw the matter to the attention of the Committee of Selection.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : The Minister is responsible for his own speech, and no Standing Committee is involved in this debate.
[Interruption.] Order. So far, I have had great difficulty hearing what the Minister has had to say.
Mr. Stewart : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that Opposition Members will give me the chance to develop my speech. I repeat that I said that I understood that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover might be interested in serving on the Committee. That does not pre-empt any decision of the Committee of Selection or of anyone else. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South rightly answered the charge that the Government are somehow gerrymandering through the proposal to bring Westhill into the city of Aberdeen. He rightly pointed out that Westhill does not have a single Conservative councillor at either regional or district level, so that accusation cannot be sustained.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) reminded us of the importance of
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rural areas. He underlined the common sense of the proposals in the White Paper that city authorities should be surrounded by strong rural authorities where the interests were quite different. My hon. Friend expressed his concern about particular boundaries, as did a number of Opposition Members. Frankly, it would be surprising if the Government produced a set of proposals on boundaries which received immediate and universal acclaim, because people differ.Mr. Wallace : I think the Minister accepted that there has not been exactly total acclaim for all the boundaries that he has proposed. What level of opposition will he take account of in amending boundaries? What size of petition and what kind of opposition will he take as evidence that what he is proposing is unacceptable to a local community?
Mr. Stewart : First, we have had a period of consultation. Secondly, that will be a matter for Parliament to decide. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there can be legitimate differences of view on boundaries, but my right hon. Friend and I will take seriously the points that are made to us in the Committee.
Mr. McAvoy : I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Does he accept that the regional ward of Kings Park Toryglen, which it is recommended should be included in south Lanarkshire, is more than 50 per cent. Rutherglen and Lanarkshire area and more than 50 per cent. Rutherglen and Lanarkshire population? Bearing in mind his last statement, will the Minister also assure me that he will accept it from me, as the Member of Parliament for Toryglen, that I want that area to remain part of the city of Glasgow, where it has always been and should stay?
Mr. Stewart : I am grateful to the hon. Member. I assure him that we shall listen to people such as himself when there is a constituency question. Then we will consider whether appropriate changes need to be made during the passage of the Bill--
Mr. David Marshall (Glasgow, Shettleston) : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Stewart : No. I have given way a number of times, and I have to sit down in a few minutes.
I welcome the excellent speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) made on behalf of his constituents, in which he pointed out the importance and relevance of the Government's proposals for the best interests of his constituents. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) would pay a tribute to the council that he represents, which is generally recognised to be--
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