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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have two points to make, one more serious than the other. First, interventions should by their nature be brief, and that was far too long. Secondly, I cautioned the House earlier about intemperate use of language. I trust that the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) was not accusing the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) of lying. What he said was a little difficult to understand, and I am assuming that he was not making that accusation.
Mr. Hughes: I think that we can assume that now that we know some of the facts, the affair is no longer regarded as a smear campaign, as the early-day motion signed by the hon. Member for Motherwell, North suggested.
Hon. Members will be relieved to hear that I have now come to my last point. I strongly agreed with what was said by the hon. Member for Newham, North-East about the work being done by city challenge, especially now that the activities have been brought together under the single regeneration budget and people are competing for the money that the Government give out.
That is not an argument about the sums of money given out. Whatever the amount was, I would still want to see people bidding and competing for it. If we are honest, we will realise that under Governments of different colours, and probably councils of different colours too, some of the huge sums of money that have been poured out to pay for regeneration initiatives might as well have been poured down the drain. When one visits the areas concerned one asks, "Where was all the money spent? What did we achieve with it?"
Partnerships must be put together. This is not a party political point, but local councils are sometimes much too reluctant, and have to be forced into partnership with business, the community and the voluntary sector. The role of councils should be to bring people together and the single regeneration budget forces them to do that. There is much more that they can do.
We shall not improve services, give people better value for money or bring communities together by the vandalism that the Labour party threatens-- abolishing compulsory competitive tendering. People care about the output of services, not who performs them. They care not about who creates the service but about the service that they get. Since the privatisation of the rubbish collection service in Harrow, I have not had one single complaint. I used to get loads when it was done by the council. I will probably get loads now that I have said that. People care not about the name of the company but about how the service is done. Hon. Members should bear in mind that people want value for money; they want services and they want them done efficiently. We have injected that principle into local government. The Labour party could never have done that. It lags behind our agenda. It thinks that it can adopt some of it, but it cannot adopt what it does not understand or believe in.
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12.45 pmMr. David Rendel (Newbury): Now that Labour is the leading party in local authorities, the Liberal Democrats the second party and the Tory party also-rans, it is nice to have a chance to say a few words on local government.
The obvious way for all three parties to treat the debate is to describe the worst excesses of local authorities run by the other parties in a desperate and, for the most part, fruitless attempt to prove that authorities run by one party are much cleaner, more honest and less corrupt than authorities run by other parties. It is no surprise that that is more or less how the debate was treated, especially by the Minister Without Portfolio and the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). Other hon. Members have been a little wiser.
The subject of the debate lends itself to a good, old-fashioned verbal brawl of the sort that all too many hon. Members seem to love, but which the electorate whom we are all supposed to serve regard as pathetic, childish and utterly unworthy of the people who are expected to govern the country. As the Liberal Democrat spokesman, I would have no difficulty in going down that road if I wanted to. It is interesting that none of the councils that have been mentioned so far is Liberal Democrat controlled. Many of the examples that I would use would be those cited by other hon. Members. However, it would be more useful to the House and the country if hon. Members bore in the forefront of their minds the wise old proverb that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I am not suggesting only that members of one party who know that their party is prone to inefficiency and corruption in local government should not have a go at local authorities run by other parties. The fact is that in the eyes of electorate, none of us in the House has much right to look local councillors in the eye and complain about corruption. After all, the electorate have a higher regard for their local councillors than for their Members of Parliament. When one considers cash for questions, arms to Iran, the Pergau dam, salaries for lobbyists and the failure to ban tobacco advertising, hon. Members make themselves look like hypocritical idiots when they try to make out that corruption and malpractice is a scourge only of local government.
Be sure of this: we are all making ourselves a laughing stock in the eyes of local councillors who hear that we have spent today discussing corruption in their ranks, when they think that we ought to clean up our own back yard before we take it upon ourselves to criticise their behaviour.
Mr. Piers Merchant (Beckenham): Does the hon. Gentleman not see the distinction between illegal and corrupt acts of local government and an honest disagreement in the House on a political matter such as the advertising of tobacco products? If he does not, I have no hope for him.
Mr. Rendel: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has no hope for me, but the people out there--his electorate--certainly believe that when, for example, political parties take money and change their actions as a result, it is at least comparable with anything that goes on in local government.
Nor is it only local councillors with whom we are making ourselves a laughing stock. Let us not forget that the average voter believes that local government is much
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less corrupt and less self-serving than national government. Apart from anything else, the general public can see that we lay down much more stringent rules for the conduct of local councillors than for ourselves.Mr. Hanley: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government have changed their policy because the Conservative party received money in the form of donations. That comment is not justified, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his accusation or provide proof.
Madam Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair because the arguments adduced were what one might call generalised. It may be a matter on which the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) might care to expand in response to the point made, but it is not a point of order for the Chair.
Mr. Rendel: I am perfectly happy to repeat my point, which is that the electorate believe that such matters reveal that the conduct of Members of Parliament does not live up to the standards of conduct of local councillors. They believe it, and they are largely right to do so.
As I was saying, the general public can see that we lay down much less stringent rules for ourselves. As Madam Speaker pointed out in response to the point of order that I raised just before the BMARC debate, the restrictions on hon. Members taking part in debates on subjects in which they have a declarable interest are far fewer than the restrictions that we have chosen to impose on local councillors. Are we really so sure that hon. Members are so much more honest and honourable than local councillors? If hon. Members tried telling that to the average member of the public, they would soon find out just how low politicians, especially national politicians, have sunk in the eyes of the electorate.
Instead of using this debate for yet another dull and frankly rather useless attempt at point scoring, I believe that the public would prefer us to use the time to investigate how we can enhance our democratic processes, especially at local level.
Mr. Stephen: Has not the hon. Gentleman in fact spent the last three minutes political point-scoring and doing precisely what he complained of as being pathetic and childish?
Mr. Rendel: I made it clear that I was not making a point about any particular political party. I was making a general point about the way in which national politicians--I did not mention a particular political party- -are viewed by the electorate at large.
If we are serious about cleaning up local government, we need to decide why corruption has arisen in the cases where it has come to light. What are the processes and procedures that have allowed corrupt behaviour to occur? What can we do to amend those procedures, so that we make it more difficult for corruption to arise and then go undetected?
In many cases--Monklands is an obvious example--corruption has been allowed to take hold because one political grouping has held the vast majority--in some cases, all--of the seats on a council and there has been no effective opposition. Of course, in a true democracy, we cannot legislate for the electorate always to choose its representatives from a mixture of parties. It may be that
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one party is so popular that it rightly wins every seat on the council but, let us face it, that is not the usual state of affairs in this country.Instead, all too often, one party wins all or almost all the seats on the council despite having the support of less than half the electorate. Why is that? The answer is that we still run an antiquated, dilapidated and unrepresentative electoral system. We do so even on councils where we already have multi-member wards, which lend themselves to a proportional system of election.
Nor is it simply one-party rotten boroughs that are liable to corruption because of our first-past-the-post electoral system. Why was it that the scandal of so-called stable communities arose in Westminster? It was for the same reason, that the first-past-the-post system made it possible for comparatively small changes in the make-up of the electorate to have an entirely disproportionate effect on the make-up of the council as a whole. What would be the point of shifting a few hundred Tory supporters into marginal wards in Westminster if the make-up of the council was determined on a purely proportional basis?
If we are serious about the battle against corruption in local authorities, we must first change the system by which councillors are elected. In the eyes of the electorate, it is a test of how genuine the other two parties are in their protestations about corruption in local government if they are prepared to admit today that a proportional system of election to local councils would remove at least one of the underlying reasons why corruption can all too often thrive unchecked in Britain's local authorities.
We can take other measures also. Corruption thrives on secrecy, so we should open up councils wherever we can and bring their workings closer to the people. Planning is one area where corruption is most often suspected in local authorities. If the proponents and the opponents of any planning application have the right to join in the discussion about that application, it will be if not impossible, then certainly much harder for anyone to make an unreasonable decision for corrupt purposes.
When such a proposal is first put to traditional and perhaps hide-bound authorities that are not used to working openly with people, the normal reaction is one of horror. But where such procedures are put in practice in local authorities, the procedures rapidly become so popular that no one would dare to change them back again. Today I tabled a parliamentary question to the Secretary of State, asking him to name the authorities that have opened up their planning procedures in that way. It will be interesting to see whether the Secretary of State can give me that information and whether he has recognised the importance of the new procedures in countering corruption. If he can, it will be even more instructive to learn which more forward-looking councils have introduced that bulwark against corruption.
Mr. Wilshire: This is riveting stuff, but perhaps I inhabit a different planet from the hon. Gentleman. I was chairman of a council planning committee more years ago than I care to admit to the House. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the committee did not discuss planning concerns with applicants and objectors? If that is what he is implying, he lives in a different world.
Mr. Rendel: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman heard what I said. I was talking about discussions in open council during consideration of planning applications.
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There are two simple changes that the Government could introduce at no cost to the Exchequer, which would help in the struggle against corruption. However, it is a struggle not just against corruption, but against inefficiency. Wherever corruption can thrive, inefficiency can thrive also.Lady Olga Maitland: As to the hon. Gentleman's point about inefficiency, will he join me in criticising the Liberal-controlled Sutton borough council, which has failed to collect £1 million in uncollected rents? Does he not agree that that is disgraceful mismanagement?
Mr. Rendel: I am sorry, I obviously earned that attack by not wolf- whistling at the hon. Lady earlier. I have said several times during my speech that we are not here to single out particular councils for criticism --that could be done on both sides about parties controlling all sorts of different councils. We must find ways of removing the circumstances in which corruption and inefficiency can flourish.
Many other measures could be taken, as well as those that I mentioned. However, I shall leave others to explain them in the hope--over-optimistic though it may prove to be--that other hon. Members, and particularly the Minister in his winding-up speech, may recognise the British people's yearning for the constitutional reforms that our country needs so desperately.
Mr. Stephen: I was intrigued to hear the hon. Gentleman's suggestion about open discussion of planning decisions. With respect, it seems to be the sort of hare-brained idea that is typical of the Liberal Democrats. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that Liberal Democrat councillors will not discuss planning applications behind the scenes among themselves and with their officers?
Mr. Rendel: I am not sure where that question came from or how to answer. It did not seem related to my point about the importance of opening up council meetings to those making a planning application and objectors. The several councils that have introduced that practice have found themselves in a much better position, with decisions being accepted much more readily by all sides.
Corruption is an evil that can afflict councillors of all parties and of none. It is silly to pursue futile point scoring, which serves only to diminish the standing of the House. Instead of each of us trying to pretend that our own party, and only our own party, is free of the scourge of corruption, it would be better to unite in ridding our country for ever of the conditions in which corruption can thrive--at national level even more importantly than at local level. Then, we might at last hope to regain for the politics of our country some of the respect that the hypocrisy of recent times has cost us. 1 pm
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): The debate--most of which, happily, you missed, Madam Deputy Speaker--is officially about local government conduct, but it is probably inevitable that it will focus mainly on misconduct. Local government is held in low esteem throughout the country. If the turnout at local elections is any guide, nor is local government cared about much.
You were well out of it, Madam Deputy Speaker, and for your sake and that of the House I will resist the temptation to join the party political kickabout, unless I
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am provoked. In case any Opposition Member is tempted to have a go, I remind the House that I was a councillor for 11 years and a council leader for six years. My borough council in Spelthorne is still one of the 13. If anybody still wants to have a go, he is welcome to try, but I do not want to cause difficulties for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, by mixing it if that can be avoided.If this debate is to make a positive contribution to the future of local government, we must look beyond specific examples of misconduct, however awful or partisan, and resist scoring points by apportioning blame, however much fun that might provide. We ought to consider why misconduct occurs and ask whether the House can do anything practical to minimise the risk of it recurring in future. I realise that such an approach will spoil the fun and may clear the Benches for the next 10 minutes. Hon. Members deserve a lunch break, so now is the time to take one and return to the theatre later.
The House can safely leave the formal investigation into allegations of partisan targeting of resources by Monklands district council, and into partisan cronyism when employing staff, to an independent inquiry. The House should consider what such allegations, true or false, tell us about the attitude of councillors to their roles and priorities.
Mr. Stephen: Does my hon. Friend agree that the same approach should be adopted in respect of Westminster city council, which awaits a legal determination of allegations against councillors and that it would be quite wrong to prejudge the outcome of that legal determination?
Mr. Wilshire: I am grateful to my hon. Friend as I can now tear up the next page of my speech, which dealt with precisely that point. The Monklands allegations, right or wrong, tell me that whether things were properly or improperly done, too many councillors in Monklands, as elsewhere, have an obsession with power and with service delivery. Westminster city council is another example. Formal investigations into partisan housing policies are sensibly left to independent experts. We can therefore usefully move on to consider what that example tells us about councillors' attitudes and priorities. It tells me, as does the Monklands example, that too many councillors are having love affairs with power and service delivery. What happens when local government focuses on the wrong things and gets its priorities wrong? What can we usefully do to get those involved back on to the strait and narrow? I suspect that any of us who have been practitioners in local government are only too well aware of how a love affair with power manifests itself. It is usually to be found in the form of special pleading for accountability. That reveals a blinkered understanding of what accountability really means.
It is true, as councillors claim, that accountability involves power over things. That can be described as accountability for something. It also involves duties to people, and all too often that is overlooked. If we have a fixation with what we are accountable for, we end up with a power complex. That leads to the making of ridiculous claims such as, "If we in local government do not continue to provide this service ourselves, our proper role will be undermined." Other councillors might say, "If
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somebody else provides this service, local government will lose control of it." We all know the language. The other side of the coin is that if a service has nothing to do with local government, then local government should not get involved in it. I am sure that what I am saying sounds horribly familiar to anyone who has examined local government and I hope that we all agree that the language to which I have referred is nonsensical.What happens when a power complex is taken to extreme? The result is power over things--for example, services--and an attempt to have power over people. That is extremely dangerous irrespective of which party is involved. The result is serious misconduct. Two examples come to mind. There is social engineering, which I think is dreadful, and party political fixing.
The best current examples of social engineering that I know anything about are the results of some people's fixation with political correctness. We have heard a few examples already and I shall toss in one or two of my own. There is the wondrous example of Humberside--shortly to be abolished, thank goodness. The authority spent £10,000 on black dolls for play groups. That is absurd. Lewisham set up a special committee to help develop local government skills in South Africa. That is nonsensical. Hillingdon produced a dictionary of politically correct phrases. It then spent £50,000 on training staff to use that wondrous dictionary. That is not what local government is about, whichever party is involved. If councils indulge in those activities, it is no wonder that local government is held in contempt.
Even worse than social engineering, and that is party political fixing--
Mr. Wilshire: I have examples involving several parties, and others none, becoming involved in attempts at party political fixing.
Mr. Dobson: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the district auditor is investigating allegations that Westminster city council spent £1.5 million of local taxpayers' money in furthering its electoral chances? Does he agree? If that is true, will he condemn it?
Mr. Wilshire: Of course. I can now tear up another page of my speech. The hon. Gentleman has made precisely the point that I was about to make. I was not intending to use the Westminster example, but I am happy to say that if that allegation is true and if the allegation that Birmingham city council was pushing money round the city in an attempt to woo the electorate to vote Labour--if either or both allegations are true--I condemn them both. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will condemn Birmingham as readily as he condemns Westminster. That is exactly the point that I am trying to make.
Mr. Dobson: Will the hon. Gentleman go back to his accusation against Humberside county council in relation to black dolls? How much did that council allegedly spend? The facts are that a play group at Hutton Cranswick applied to the council for help and was given a £300 grant towards the cost of repairing a water heater and the purchase of some toys, which included some black dolls.
Mr. Wilshire: We can have wonderful fun, as we have had before, tossing press releases, cuttings and other
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things about. All that I will say to the hon. Gentleman is, whether my figure or his figure is right, my point still stands: paying even 1p to put black dolls into playgroups in the name of political correctness and to make a political point is wrong. It does not matter how much is spent--it is the principle that I am concerned about.I shall return to the question of political fixing and try to resist further temptations to mix it with the hon. Gentleman. He provoked me and I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing myself to go down that track.
It is notoriously difficult to prove beyond all reasonable doubt allegations of party political fixing, but I will give just one example which does stand, and it will cheer Labour Members because it does not attack their party. The borough of Spelthorne, which is in my constituency, has just been referred to the Local Government Commission for a re-review because it still wants unitary status. We are passionately committed to securing that status, getting out of Surrey and returning to Middlesex, which is where we really belong, as a unitary council. Within days, however, of the announcement in this House that Spelthorne's status was again to be reviewed--and I hope that we shall succeed--Surrey county council launched a scurrilous campaign against it.
Why was that? There are some perfectly good reasons why one could run a campaign, scurrilous or not. One could do so because staying in Surrey could be good for my constituents--I respect that, although I would disagree that that is true in this case--or because Surrey services could suffer if Spelthorne left it. Again, that is an honourable reason, but I do not agree with it and could demonstrate why I am right and Surrey county council would be wrong.
Those, however, are not the reasons why Surrey county council has launched its campaign. It has attacked the Government review simply because the Surrey Conservative group can ill afford to lose its five Spelthorne county councillors. All that I can say to such an attitude is, "Shame on you." It is not worthy of local government, whatever party one comes from.
Mr. Rendel: Is it not at least possible also to accuse the Government of political fixing in taking out of Surrey what the hon. Gentleman has already told us is one of their 13 remaining councils in the hope that at least one or two councils will remain under Conservative control if they become unitary authorities and separated from the county?
Mr. Wilshire: That is a fascinating point, but I suspect that the proposal owes more to the fact that the Liberal group on Surrey county council is not keen to lose its one Spelthorne councillor. However, I shall let that pass as I want to move on.
When local government is obsessed with services, a part of what it should be doing is ignored and then so-called experts come along behind and start devising wholly unsuitable boundaries and structures. As I read it, local government does not exist to deliver services. It is entirely right that it does deliver some, but that is not why it exists. Local government exists to speak up for the needs of all local people in their communities and then to play a part--I stress that it is only a part--in seeing that those needs are met. The fact that local government is
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best placed to meet some of the needs is not in dispute, but if councillors become totally obsessed with services that they deliver themselves, trouble invariably follows.Such trouble is all too familiar to all hon. Members. We discover that councillors of all political persuasions are adopting slogans such as, "Our services are ours--they are not central Government's and they are not the public's." They make silly comments such as, "Taking away our services will undermine local democracy," or "Altering boundaries will inevitably damage services." All of that is far too common and it is utter nonsense. If local government would just stop banging on endlessly about services, it would do a much better job and would be more respected by its communities. It would then become involved, in many different ways, in the totality of need and in all of people's aspirations, not just those in which they currently have a hand.
If hon. Members think that I am talking abstruse nonsense, I can tell them that councillors instinctively know that what I am saying is right. We have only to look at what happens when someone proposes the closure of a local hospital, for example. That sort of issue will always find its way on to a council agenda, yet the national health service has nothing to do with local government. Councillors instinctively understand that they should be involved in the totality of need.
Another point is that when councillors become obsessed with services, boundaries and structures are devised for the wrong reasons and then become wholly unloved by local people. I know that from first-hand experience. Unfortunately, I was a member of Avon county council. It was unloved when it was Conservative controlled, unloved when it was Labour controlled and unloved when no party controlled it. I and many others rejoice that it is to be abolished. I have a long list. However, I note that one or two hon. Members are making frantic eyes at me and I get the message. Nevertheless, I am not quite sure whether it would do me any good to sit down right now, so I shall just make one or two more points-- [Interruption.] The list is long enough for me to do so.
I want to discuss what we could usefully do about the list of problems. In a nutshell, we should end the obsession with service delivery. I shall confine myself to suggesting just one or two ways to do that. First, we should give local government a say in all local needs and services. I know that that runs counter to what is being said by the Department of the Environment, but I believe that we can switch the focus away from an obsession with local government services and towards the local community if we involve local government in everything that happens.
We should scrap the absurd system of two-tier local government, which is the ultimate example of local government based on service delivery. The sole justification for larger tiers is the need to create bigger areas for the delivery of certain services. That is rubbish.
We should overhaul local government finance. By giving grants to local councils we encourage the idea that somehow the services involved are local government services. The truth is very different. For example, education and the fire service are national, not local, services. The Government specify the standards for those two services; the pay for all staff is determined nationally and local variations are held to be wholly unacceptable to the public; and central, not local, Government get the blame when things go wrong. The reality is that the local government
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provider is only a provider when somebody else is a purchaser. If only we could get away from grants and move to purchasing services from local government, we could get rid of that obsession with service delivery. As a bonus, we would also get away from general formulae. Most of us would be pleased to see the back of standard spending assessments and other such formulae; they are a nonsense. I hope that the whole House will accept that the conduct of local government all too often leaves much to be desired. I hope that the whole House will also accept that misconduct happens and that it is not confined to one party. A wonderful time can be had--and was being had before you arrived in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker--shouting "Yah boo" at each other. It makes us feel better and it provides a little light relief, but it does absolutely nothing to help local government.The best way to help local government is to leave the formal inquiries to the experts, to work out what lies behind this conduct, to decide how to change things and then to put that into practice. I have tried to explain today how we might do that. I commend it to both the Government and the Labour Front-Bench teams, but I suspect that neither will have the courage to risk the aggravation that will follow if they try to put it into practice.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not in a position today to control the length of speeches, but I remind the House that many hon. Members wish to speak. If each one speaks for only 10 minutes, we still get through only six an hour.
1.19 pm
Mrs. Helen Liddell (Monklands, East): This is an extremely important debate and I am sorry that the farce which began this morning's proceedings has substantially eaten into the time available for debate on a subject of considerable importance. I will go so far as to congratulate the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), the chairman of the Conservative party, on giving us an opportunity to have this debate as it allows me, as one of the Members of Parliament for Monklands, to put on record a number of facts which have been missing from the debate about the conduct of local government in Monklands.
Before I start, I draw attention to the fact that, despite the brouhaha at the beginning of the debate, the Government Benches are now almost empty. That depresses me as it leads me to believe that Conservative Members do not necessarily take this subject as seriously as they should. I have one particularly significant point to make. I notice that there are no Scottish National party Members present in the Chamber today. They made great sport a year ago of the conduct of local government in Monklands. The SNP has three councillors in Monklands, but I have yet to hear a statement from the Leader of the SNP as to what action he will take in relation to his party's councillors. It is not clear from Professor Black's report to which party the councillors guilty particularly of staffing irregularities belonged. Nevertheless, that situation is most regrettable.
I have been critical of my party, as the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) mentioned, because immediately following the by-election it should have acted as quickly as possible. However, I put on record my
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thanks for the support that I have received from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). Immediately following the publication of the Black report, I received a response from the leadership of my party and action is now being taken. That is important.I also take this opportunity to thank Professor Black. In this context, it is appropriate to recount the circumstances which led to the Black report. I mentioned in my intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Tayside, North that during the by-election in which I was elected to the House the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) made some damaging and hurtful allegations about the performance of people in Monklands district council in relation to religious discrimination. I shall refer later to sectarianism and the damage that has been done to my communities by the charges of sectarianism. I regret that the hon. Member for Eastwood is not here. I had expected that he would be. As a Minister of the Crown, he claimed that there had been sectarianism in appointments. Immediately after my election, I asked him to use that opinion as grounds for calling for an inquiry under section 211 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, but he turned me down, as I expected he would.
With the assistance of colleagues who are more senior and experienced parliamentarians than I am, I sought the legal advice of Scotland's premier lawyer, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, as to what steps could legitimately be taken. As the council--together with my distinguished predecessor the late John Smith--had called for an inquiry into the activities of Monklands district council, I knew that the council would be anxious to see matters resolved. As a result of the legal advice given to me by the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and I met Monklands district council. I provided the council with the Dean of the Faculty's opinion as to whether it could proceed with an inquiry without fear of surcharge and remain within the law, and the council agreed that it could. It was therefore from the activities of Labour Members of Parliament and the council itself that the Black inquiry came into being.
I am grateful that we now see some belated movement on the part of the Government on a section 211 inquiry. Regrettably, the inquiry is not so far -reaching as I would wish. One of the main criticisms of Monklands district council during the by-election was about the imbalance of spending in relation to the eastern and western parts of the area. A number of sets of figures were put about relating to expenditure, but I was concerned that we were trying at that point to compare apples with oranges. The district council's figures took into account housing allocation and the figures from the four rebel councillors gave extracted council housing expenditure.
I asked the council to provide evidence as to its spending over a period. It produced evidence showing that £22 million had been spent in the western part of Monklands district, but that only £2 million had been spent in the town of Airdrie, which I now represent and--deplorably, in my view--less than £1 million had been spent in the nine villages that I represent. I was angered by that, and I remain angry. In his report, Professor Black vindicates the stand that I have taken.
I do not say that all the charges that have been made against the district council have been proven. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) for
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stating that, during the by-election, I referred to"tittle-tattle". The Minister, as well as the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) and--from a sedentary position--the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) have all referred to the fact that allegations must be substantiated.
I am grateful that the hon. Member for Harrow, West has allowed me to address this matter, as I can now give the full quotation of what I said during the by-election campaign. The quotation was reproduced this week by the political correspondent of The Economist in Scotland, Mr. Peter Jones, who was present throughout the by-election. The actual quotation was:
"I am not interested in tittle-tattle or gossip about the council, but give me solid evidence and I will act."
I like to think that I have done so.
The issue of fraud has been raised by Members on both sides of the House, and there has been a fair amount of batting to and fro. It is extremely important to put on the record of the House that the Public Accounts Commission--which is respected by people of all political persuasions in Scotland--has given Monklands district council a clean bill of health. There were repeated allegations about Monklands district council in respect of planning applications, and that is one area in which we can hear charges against councillors. The planning department of Monklands has been vindicated, and I am glad of that. Some of the allegations were amusing and absurd. Airdrie is an ancient royal borough, and a gentleman drew to my attention the husbandry in relation to paving stones in Airdrie. Over time, he said, the people of Airdrie had been proud of their paving stones and had made sure that they were not broken. The man had come across council workmen digging up paving stones, and had rushed to my office to allege that paving stones from Airdrie were being taken to Coatbridge, so that broken paving stones from Coatbridge could be installed in Airdrie. That was the level of some of the allegations. Some were substantial, but we must bear in mind that some of the allegations from small and close-knit communities can be bizarre. There is to be a section 211 inquiry-- regrettably, not so far-reaching as I would have wanted--and we have now an opportunity to proceed.
I am anxious not to take up too much of the time of the House, but I must make a point on behalf of my constituents who have been besmirched by allegations of religious discrimination. It has been claimed that Catholic Coatbridge is being favoured over Protestant Airdrie. That is an appalling charge. It is also totally untrue. The right reverend Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, said only this week that the religious breakdown in the two towns is roughly fifty-fifty. People who are ill informed about Monklands and who make damning charges fail to take into account that I represent nine villages in which the substantial majority of people are Roman Catholics.
I have been critical of Monklands district council. The charge has been laid against its members that they favour Roman Catholics. I am a Roman Catholic, and the four rebel councillors who raised the charges initially against Monklands district council are Roman Catholics. There is a high proportion of Roman Catholics in the Labour party in the Monklands area, for the simple reason that there was considerable Irish immigration there throughout the 19th century. One of my reasons for being so angry about the charges of religious discrimination is that in our past
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there has been such discrimination and bigotry and much work has been done to try to get rid of them. Much of that has now been set aside by the charges unjustly levelled against people in my community.I come from a community with a strong record of social service. My hon. Friends the Members for Hamilton and for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and my distinguished predecessor John Smith often boasted that their alma mater, Dunoon grammar school, provided three leading Labour Members of Parliament. Argyll, which contains Dunoon, covers many thousands of square miles. The school that I attended has provided three current hon. Members-- myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) and for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). Five hon. Members come from Monklands. In addition to those that I have mentioned, there are my hon. Friends the Members for Monklands, West and for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham). People in the area have genuine and passionate social concerns, and they have been drawn down into an argument about religious discrimination that is uncalled for and unjust.
I am critical of the Government and of Conservative Members who have used the people of my community as a political football. For two years we asked for a section 211 inquiry but could not get one. The Government repeatedly said that there was no evidence that would allow them to have such an inquiry. I have evidence that there was a concerted plot by the Conservative party to concentrate on Monklands because it contained John Smith's seat. I have a number of faxes headed:
"William Reid and Sons, Wireworkers Ltd, 162 Glenpark Street, Glasgow."
When they first came to my attention, I wondered why a wireworking firm in Glasgow was interested in the affairs of my constituency. Reading on, however, I found a fax from Mr. John Love--a failed Conservative councillor in Monklands--to Miss Aileen McAuley of the Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser . It is dated 4 February 1994 and it is clear from its terms that there was an orchestrated campaign against Mr. John Smith. It states:
"Do you know if Smith has a surgery this weekend? I intend lobbying him on Sunday as he attends the Labour meeting at the Concert Hall, Glasgow but I would also have liked to attend his surgery for a confrontation."
That fax intrigued me and I found another one from the same company, William Reid and Sons. I assume that Mr. I. W. Reid and Mr. A. R. Cameron are extremely generous directors.
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