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Mrs. Liddell: As my hon. Friend says, he is no relation. They must be very generous to allow Mr. John Love that opportunity. There is another fax to a Miss Jacqui Lowe, who may be known to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas- Hamilton), who is present on the Trsry Bench. It seeks a copy of the relevant section of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 and states:
"also advise on line to be pursued. I have no wish to be sidetracked into legal arguments. "
That suggests to me that the Secretary of State for Scotland, who maintains a close link with the Scottish Conservative and Unionist office, was aware of all those activities and colluded in them.
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I am worried that the Government will not act quickly in the section 211 inquiry. I am also worried that issues being raised with the Crown Office in Edinburgh will not be acted on expeditiously. A community of decent people is being used as a political football. I suspect that a Government who are as panicked as the present Government will seek to continue to use Monklands as a means of trying to smear a Labour party which has been determined to act, is now acting and will act with all haste.I ask Members of the House that before they attack the people of Monklands they should bear in mind the fact that that community has come through a lot. I also ask members of the Press Gallery who are covering this debate not to be drawn into the shorthand and slanging match of alleged religious discrimination, sectarianism and bigotry in Monklands as it is inflammatory in the extreme. We have worked for generations to bring about a healing in that community and outsiders who have sought to exploit that community for their own ends do my constituents no good at all.
I hope that the situation will be brought to an end, and I hope that lessons for the conduct of local government--not only in Scotland, but throughout the United Kingdom--will be learnt from what has happened to Monklands district council.
1.35 pm
Mr. David Shaw (Dover): It is important for us to be aware of the purposes of local councils. They are there to provide services efficiently to the electorate.
I often feel that, where there is a divide between the political parties, it exists because many Labour Members appear to suppose that the purpose of councils is to implement ideological ideas. They are there, in Labour's opinion, to implement political correctness; they are there, not to look after all the people but to look after its people. That is the difference between the Conservative approach and the Labour approach. The Labour approach is heavily orientated towards looking after its people, not all the people.
The Labour party has a record of looking after trade unions and councillors or relatives of councillors, as we have heard today. Lambeth, Islington and Monklands are all Labour councils; they all have serious problems, and there are examples in all of them of looking after their own people and not concentrating on looking after all the people.
Why do those councils go wrong? I cannot do any better than refer people to Leo McKinstrey, who used to be a Labour party bureaucrat. He is a former Labour party councillor who has been telling his story in the Spectator , The Sun and The Daily Telegraph . That story goes on and on. It draws attention to the way in which Labour has failed--and Mr. McKinstrey is an insider. It draws attention to the fact that Labour is obsessed with ideological methods of running councils, with political correctness and with looking after the trade union interest.
Mr. McKinstrey is a man who speaks from considerable experience. He has been active, not only in local Labour party work but in national Labour party work. The more one speaks to Labour councillors--or even, I am afraid, sometimes Labour MPs in the House of Commons--the more one discovers that many of them do not understand the concept of public service.
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Many Labour politicians are aware of nothing wrong in the corrupt practices that exist in places such as Monklands. Only yesterday, across the Floor of the House of Commons, I was told by a Labour Member below the Gangway that only 68 employees out of 1,500 were family members, and that that really was not too bad--that it was not wrong. Many Labour people simply do not understand what is wrong when it is drawn to their attention.I accept that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said earlier that those matters should have been stopped. We all agree that they should have been stopped. The question we have to raise is whether Labour has the methods to stop them.
My argument is that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, who refers to clowns, should stop chucking around the invective and should concentrate on the hard work involved in stopping wrongdoing--[ Laughter .] The hon. Gentleman may laugh and smile. At the end of the day, however, it is hard work that gets to the bottom of wrongdoing. I take on board the point made by the hon. Member for Monklands, East (Mrs. Liddell). Much has been made of the religious issue in Monklands and some of what has been said is excessive and over the top.
Mr. Shaw: I have never referred to the religious issue. If the hon. Gentleman looks at my speeches, he will see that I have expressed concern at the fact that there have been allegations within the community and that many people in the community have been unhappy on a religious basis. However, the matter goes much further than religion; it goes to the heart of the way in which Labour councillors conduct their affairs and the opportunities that that gives for crooked people to get into the Labour party and to rise within it. That is what Monklands is about. It is about crooked people who have risen to the very top of the Labour party in Monklands and about how the Labour party's rules and regulations cannot get rid of them and do not sift them out. It is only now, after 20 years of complaints in the Monklands area, that Labour has had to take action. We never got any action before.
Mr. Merchant: Does my hon. Friend agree that the essential problem is the nature of the Labour party's political machine in areas of the country where it has had dominance for decades? Does he agree that the Labour party leadership is reluctant to take on the essentially corrupt nature of that machine, although it knows that it exists? That machine exists to perpetuate control and power rather than to serve the people of those areas. I know all about that from my experience in the north-east of England.
Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend identifies the problem precisely. When I looked into aspects of Monklands, I found that there were Labour branches with small local memberships. Everyone questioned the records and where they were; no one knew where the membership records were. No one knew how people got elected to positions of power and influence which could enable them to select people to stand as councillors. We found that many of the local Labour party meetings were stuffed with people who came from the trade unions and that the trade unions were controlling how people got elected. There was very little
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democracy. The Labour party prides itself on democracy and openness, but the position in Monklands Labour party was completely the reverse.This 20-year history has involved at least three inquiries by the police, following complaints. Sadly, there has not yet been enough evidence to lead to police prosecutions. This 20-year history has involved a Labour investigation after which the Labour party has been accused, probably quite rightly, of covering up many of the aspects that went wrong in Monklands. It has involved serious and substantial complaints which have still not been published.
Like Ministers, I invite the Labour party to publish all the evidence behind its report and to open the files. Labour should let us all have a look at the evidence made available to it. All the paperwork and complaints which I was told were being submitted to the Labour party inquiry have never been published. The inquiry, having started from a wide base, rapidly narrowed to being concerned with just one small organisational problem.
Dr. Reid: The question that the hon. Gentleman must answer for the people of Monklands, where he spent a considerable time, is: how is it that the police were at least willing to undertake investigations on the basis of the evidence that was available, although it did not prove sufficient; that the Labour party, without any resources of power, status, administration, legal protection or finance, was able to undertake an investigation; that Monklands council itself could set up an investigation; but that hon. Members such as the hon. Gentleman, who repeated the fact that the people involved were definitely crooks, with all the resources of the power of the state at their disposal, have not deigned over three years to undertake their investigations? Why could everyone else do that, even when it cost us politically, yet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues could not? Can he answer that?
Mr. Shaw: I can answer it very precisely. The hon. Gentleman is someone of considerable experience of the world, politics and the environment outside the House, and he and I both know--certainly I, as a chartered accountant, know--that securing prosecutions requires a high level of evidence. That is the sad thing about Monklands-- [Hon. Members:-- "Answer the question."] I am about to answer it. Every so often when someone goes in to investigate Monklands, the files and the paperwork vanish. In many cases affecting Monklands councillors, the paperwork has vanished. The police have had difficulty in pursuing the three investigations of which I am aware. The Labour party is now telling us that not all its evidence is substantive enough to submit to the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, it felt able to criticise councillors in its report; at one point, it said that the council's personnel policies left the councillors open to criticism. So please submit the evidence behind that statement. If you made that statement, Labour party, let us have the evidence behind it. It would be incredibly valuable to the Secretary of State and would help the inquiry if the evidence that led you, the Labour party, to put that sentence in your report--
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is addressing me.
Mr. Shaw: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should be only too happy to say to you that if the Labour
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party made that evidence available to you and you submitted it to me or to the Secretary of State for Scotland, we would all be grateful.The fact is that the evidence submitted to the Labour party and assembled by it, which led it to criticise the council's personnel policies, has not been produced in public. All we have is a sentence in the Labour party report. No wonder the Secretary of State could not initiate an inquiry. The Labour party of Scotland refused to hand over the evidence substantiating that sentence.
After the Labour party inquiry personnel consultants were brought in and they criticised the council and its systems and procedures and recommended changes. About three industrial tribunals found against the council and its employment practices, too. There was also an ombudsman's report on the housing department, concerning housing allocations and the right to buy. But even the ombudsman could not get enough evidence together for the final criticism on the right-to-buy issue with which he was confronted; instead, he had to criticise the council and councillors because the files and paperwork had vanished. Why do so many people who go to investigate Monklands council find that the paperwork has vanished?
As well as the investigations by the police, the Labour party, the personnel consultants, the industrial tribunals and the ombudsman, there was also an investigation by a local newspaper. A girl journalist desperately tried to push the stories in her newspaper and get the message across about how corrupt the council really was. There were attacks on that journalist, and she suffered intimidation and vilification. She found it difficult, but she courageously continued, and received a journalism award for doing so.
All that forced the Labour party to accept that there would have to be a report. I pay tribute to the methods by which Professor Black's report came into being. Sadly, even then attempts were made to cover up, because the report considered only the previous five years. He was limited by his terms of reference. There are many matters that still have not been covered by Professor Black's inquiry or any other. There is much wrongdoing in Monklands that still requires investigation. In fact, Professor Black is now under attack by the very councillors who authorised his report. It is incredible that they should initiate the report and attack its outcome, which is entirely consistent with the criticisms of other reports. The Labour councillors on Monklands district council have been suspended, but I have to apprise the House of the considerable anxiety in Monklands that seven of the Labour councillors are also magistrates. Seven of them are responsible for law and order in Monklands. I know that many people in Monklands are worried about whether law and order can be properly dispensed when seven local magistrates are councillors who have been criticised and suspended by the Scottish Labour party. That gives cause for real concern because those magistrates are involved in dealing with police work and all aspects of law and order in Monklands. Apparently, there has already been one problem with magistrates' expenses in Monklands.
Mr. Dobson: Does it involve one of them?
Mr. Shaw: It is also suggested that various people in the magistrates structure are jockeying for position. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman wish me to give way?
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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The House knows my views about seated interventions. I am especially concerned when they come from an hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, who should know better.Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman, as he said earlier, would like wrongdoing to be brought into the open. I am sure that he was not attempting another cover-up with his sedentary comment.
Mr. Dobson: It was not a comment; it was a question. I asked the hon. Gentleman whether there was any suggestion of fiddling expenses by any of the seven magistrates to whom he referred.
Mr. Shaw: If he wishes, I would be happy to give the hon. Gentleman full details. It is a matter of concern that the seven councillors who are magistrates and have been suspended by the Labour party are nevertheless able to fulfil their functions as magistrates.
When I told the House that there were some 20 relatives of councillors in the employ of the council, many Labour Members tried to rubbish what I was saying. I now accept that I could be regarded in some quarters as having erred slightly on the wrong side. The figure was not 20, or even the 40 that the evidence began to suggest. It turns out that there were 68 relatives of councillors employed on the council.
One newspaper in Scotland calculated that if people were employed by the council in the same proportion as councillors' relatives were employed, Monklands district council would have 328,000 employees. Such a state of affairs is unusual and incredible.
The practices that have been complained of have not stopped; they are still going on. In the past 12 months, concierge appointments that appear to involve bias as a result of Monklands councillors shifting things to their advantage or that of party members have been identified.
Page 16 of the Black report identifies many of the problems involving relatives of prominent Labour party members who are employed on the council. We find that there are gardeners who cannot use hoes but can sign application forms for Labour party membership. There are painters who will not climb ladders but can sign application forms for Labour party membership. There are corridor meetings at which councillors nodded approval and told officers to dismiss employees whom the councillors did not like because they were causing them problems in the local party.
Only last week, Monklands councillors made an obviously corrupt decision. They picked an ex-Labour councillor who was working for Strathclyde council and appointed him, at the age of 64, to a short-term post in a council that is being reorganised. The reason behind the appointment was clearly identified in an article on 24 June in the Daily Record . That reason is that he gets a promotion taking his salary from £40,000 a year to £71,000 a year. Not only does he get a £31,000 a year increase for his last year but he gets pension enhancements worth £500,000. That is a lot of money for a 64-year-old ex-Labour councillor.
Dr. Reid: I shall not correct everything that is wrong in the hon. Gentleman's speech-- [Hon. Members:-- "You cannot."] I can. Monklands council did not employ that person--that is the first substantial mistake in the hon. Gentleman's speech. Secondly, that person ceased to be a
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member of the Labour party 26 years ago, and he was a councillor 33 years ago. I challenge the hon. Gentleman to repeat outside the House that it was a corrupt appointment. I happen to have investigated why the appointment was made and on what grounds, and I am satisfied. I challenge him to repeat outside the House that the appointment of Mr. David McKendrick was corrupt--we shall see whether the hon. Gentleman has the courage of his convictions.Mr. Shaw: Can the hon. Gentleman claim that any legal action has been instituted as a result of the article in the Daily Record of 24 June? I am not aware of any such action, but he will tell me if I am wrong. As far as I can see, everyone has accepted the strange state of affairs whereby someone who, only a year before he retires, goes from a £40,000 a year salary to a £71,000 a year salary. Clearly, he suddenly developed a remarkable ability that was not recognised by Strathclyde regional council. In fact, his ability is so great that he has moved from a post below someone else to one above that person. Indeed, the person in the higher post applied for the £71,000 a year job but was turned down.
Mr. Livingstone: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Shaw: I shall give way one last time, but I have to watch the time.
Mr. Livingstone: Many hon. Members will be surprised that the hon. Gentleman takes such an interest in what happens so far away when there are nearer councils that deserve his attention. I am thinking especially of Brent, where a council officer who was managing a department was having an affair with the chair of the relevant council committee. Her department lost £600,000, but she has received very generous redundancy payments instead of being disciplined.
Mr. Shaw: The Conservatives have now taken control of Brent council, but many corrupt practices were started during the many years of Labour control.
I shall curtail my remarks. Many aspects of the Monklands case still need to be investigated. Although Professor Black started to examine the planning department, he has looked at only the final five years, whereas there are complaints and questions going back 15 years or more. There are in that planning department many allegations of a criminal nature that need to be investigated. For example, there are strange relationships with some property developers.
I have spoken before in the House about the £37,000 loan from a property development company to a company connected with the leader of the council's family. The loan was not from a bank or a solvent property company but from a property development company that was virtually insolvent and had never made a similar loan before. I believe that that special loan of £37,000 was for special services connected with planning on Monklands district council.
The leader of the council's business relationships should be investigated, and I challenge the Labour party to do that. The records are available at Companies House and the Labour party could investigate the matter if it would get off its backside and do so. KS Construction Ltd.--a company controlled by the council leader and his family--was wound up because it did not pay its creditors. Yet, although he failed to pay creditors and to
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repay a Government loan of £100,000, the Labour party re-elected that man to stand for Monklands district council. Why did the Labour party reselect a man who did that?More information has recently come into my hands about KS Asbestos Removal Ltd., a company which has performed work for Edinburgh district council, Hamilton district council, Glasgow district council, Strathclyde regional council and Motherwell district council. KS Asbestos Removal Ltd. is controlled by the leader of Monklands district council. In a written document that has been sent to me, he claims that his company has 166 small contracts with Strathclyde regional council. We must ask: how can the Labour leader of Monklands district council be so successful in obtaining contracts with Labour councils when his other business interests constantly fail? For some reason, he is always successful with contracts with Labour councils but he is not successful in other circumstances.
I could go on. Evidence has been sent to me about problems with Motherwell district council and many other Labour councils in Scotland. Unfortunately, I do not have sufficient time to do that. I hope that there will be an opportunity to return to the problems of other Labour councils in due course.
2.1 pm
Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton): From the farcical start of the debate, when Conservative Back Benchers tried to exclude the public and the press from the Chamber, to the end of the debate, when Conservative Members contrived to keep my hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Ms Hodge) and for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) out of the debate, we have seen the Tory party on display.
This was never intended to be a debate about the conduct of local government because the chairman of the Conservative party opened the debate. There was no sign of the Secretary of State for the Environment; he did not even put his nose around the door. The Secretary of State came into the Chamber during the Division and spoke to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), who is presumably wavering about how to vote in the Conservative party leadership election, which now takes up all the Secretary of State's time. It is not as if he is not in London. The Secretary of State for Scotland, who is a key player in today's drama, is close by in Westminster. I watched him on the green.
Mr. Hanley: He is on his way to Scotland at this minute.
Mr. Robertson: The Minister should check his facts. At 12.30 pm I saw the Secretary of State for Scotland on the green doing a live television interview. I bet it was not about Monklands district council or the conduct of local government; I bet the Minister anything that it was about the Tory leadership election. Today's debate was designed to divert attention from the turmoil inside the Conservative party.
Mr. Hanley: It was arranged before, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.
Mr. Robertson: Who knows when the conspiracy started. Who knows when the decision was taken on Thursday last week--
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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I made a point about interventions from one Front Bench, and I now must make the same point about interventions from the other Front Bench.Mr. Stephen: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is not the debate about local government and not about the Conservative party leadership?
Madam Deputy Speaker: A passing reference to it may be permissible, but expansion on the point at great length is not.
Mr. Robertson: Last Thursday the Government knew that the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland would be winding up the debate for the Opposition, but the Secretary of State, who is responsible for local government north of the border, chose to play around with the Tory leadership campaign rather than make an appearance to listen to a debate about matters that are within his specific remit, and for which he has heavy and onerous responsibilities. Instead, the chairman of the Conservative party opened the debate. I wonder what he thought when he read Andrew Neil's comments in The Sunday Times :
"Only George Bush's choice of Dan Quayle as Vice-President ranks in stupidity with Mr. Major's choice of Jeremy Hanley as the Tory Party Chairman."
I thought that that was a bit nasty and unfair--to Dan Quayle, who otherwise was a perfectly decent and honourable individual. Why was not this debate on local government about the poll tax fiasco and its cost to the country or about council tax, which is constantly rising above the rate of inflation? Why was not the debate about the gerrymandering of council boundaries north and south of the border, with an arrogant display of partisan brass neck about which the Government never feel a moment of shame?
This debate was a purely partisan attempt to rubbish Labour's record in local government, which is why the Government fielded their third reserves on the Treasury Bench. The two Secretaries of State involved had the sense to desert this smelly and odious battlefield. Many hon. Members referred to Monklands district council, and the chairman of the Conservative party did so with apparent authority. Recently, he even held a press conference on the subject. I wonder whether his knowledge is a matter of convenience or whether he has a deeper insight into the affairs of the council. Monklands includes the two large boroughs of Airdrie and Coatbridge. My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mrs. Liddell) has nine substantial villages in her constituency. If the Conservative party chairman, unprompted, can name three of those villages, I shall give him a bottle of finest Scotch whisky. No? Can he name two?
Mr. Hanley: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would get on with it.
Mr. Robertson: Can the right hon. Gentleman name just one of those villages? The Government claim that Monklands is the key, exemplar council that illustrates everything about Labour local government, yet the right hon. Gentleman cannot name one village out of nine in Monklands, East. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), might manage to scrabble together a couple of names, but the opening speaker in
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this debate--who is chairman of the Conservative party and Minister Without Portfolio in the Cabinet, and who is supposed to be authoritative about Monklands--cannot name one. That tells us something.Mr. Hanley: Will the hon. Gentleman, instead of trying to make a cheap game of the debate, answer my accusations about the six police inquiries into Labour councils and about the 13 councils that are the subject of Labour internal investigations? Will he provide answers to my points, rather than play games?
Mr. Robertson: What point is the Minister making? My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) clearly stated that where there is wrongdoing, we condemn it--and that where there are suspicions, we demand investigation. We have taken action, so perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can say what the Government are doing about Westminster city council. We have heard not one word, apology or reprimand, or seen a slap on the wrist--yet the Minister goes on about Labour authorities that are actually doing something. He has exposed his ignorance of Monklands, with which the Government are so obsessed, and of the standards that should even -handedly apply to local government as a whole.
We greatly welcome Professor Black's report and view its conclusions most seriously. We are determined to act decisively and firmly, which is why we decided to suspend the whole Monklands district council Labour group within 24 hours of the report's publication. That decision was endorsed by our national executive committee on Wednesday, and the further decision was taken to suspend the Monklands district councillors who serve on the new North Lanarkshire council Labour group.
Let us be brutally clear. Professor Black's inquiry happened only because Labour persuaded the council to agree to the inquiry in the first place. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, East, who today has been a Member of this place for a year and a day. My hon. Friend tenaciously took on the many inactive Conservative Members who would make allegations but go no further, and those who said that there were no allegations to be made and that those that had been made should be spirited away. My hon. Friend took on both those forces. She deserves commendation and congratulation. The inquiry was necessary only because the Secretary of State for Scotland refused to use his powers to order a local inquiry under section 211 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. He had been exhorted to use those powers for years by Labour Members, including myself and the late John Smith.
The Secretary of State demeans his office when he pretends that he could not have ordered an inquiry because the Labour party had failed to pass on evidence from its own internal inquiry. That is, first, as we have repeatedly stated, because the allegation that we have any information that remains unpublished or suppressed is completely untrue. Secondly, the Secretary of State has powers under section 211 that are so sweeping that they would have easily allowed him to order an inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman does not have to have evidence. A complaint would suffice. If the Secretary of State or the appropriate Minister is of the opinion that an investigation should be made, he can have an inquiry.
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The Minister tells us that there were no complaints. The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw), who has left the Chamber, tells us that he made complaints. Why did the Secretary of State not act? What about the matters that we directed from our inquiry in 1992-93? The Labour party had no power to make investigations. Why were those complaints not made available to the Secretary of State? Complaints were made, some in the House and some even by Ministers. Why was it only yesterday that section 211 was triggered in the House? As I said, the statute states that a specific complaint is not needed. The Secretary of State merely needs to be of an opinion. Why was it that when the Government had an opinion, which they manufactured, paraded and were happy to repeat and exaggerate, it still took them 18 months to order an inquiry? The House deserves an explanation, but I doubt whether we shall get it from the Government Front Bench today.All that was missing was the integrity and commitment to put truth before party point scoring. The Secretary of State for Scotland chose the low road in dealing with Monklands. That makes his announcement of an inquiry so feeble and unconvincing. We welcome the inquiry, because we want to get at the truth. The people of the locality deserve to know what the truth is. They deserve to have their faith in their local government restored as quickly as possible. Ministers were willing--enthusiastic even--to ride the political tiger of the Monklands issue. They were completely craven, however, when it came to tackling it with the powers that they alone possessed. They hid behind calls for evidence that they knew we did not have, when that evidence was not necessary. They scored political debating points when the people of Monklands merely wanted the truth. They toyed and played with people's concerns and fears while turning a blind eye to sorting out the problem. But we--
Lady Olga Maitland: In the very short time that is left for the debate, may I have the hon. Gentleman's assurance that he will not turn a blind eye to the grotesque events in Islington? Twenty-six children were betrayed and the then leader of the council was the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge). The hon. Gentleman has ignored those events. Is he trying to engage in a cover-up?
Mr. Robertson: I shall tell the hon. Lady who is covering up. There was a conspiracy on the Conservative Benches to keep out my hon. Friend, who had been promised an opportunity to speak in the debate. She was kept out by a variety of privileged smears.
Ms Margaret Hodge (Barking): I had hoped to be able to speak in the debate, to respond to the allegations that have been made. In point of fact, I have made a number of statements both in the press and on television and radio and did not need the cloak of privilege, which a number of Conservative Members have chosen, to defend myself. Furthermore, unlike members of the Cabinet--the Secretary of State for Health, who refuses to take responsibility for what is happening to the London ambulance service, the Secretary of State for Education, who refuses to take responsibility for rising class sizes, and the Home Secretary, who refuses to take responsibility for the running of prisons--I have accepted responsibility for many of the things that happened in Islington council, the bad and the good--
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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Lady is now making what is virtually a speech rather than an intervention.Mr. Robertson: I welcome my hon. Friend's intervention. The opportunity to make her point was going to be clearly and deliberately denied to her by the way in which the configuration of hon. Members went. I am glad that she made her point, which she did with great authority.
The Government were willing to play around and toy with the fears and concerns of people in Monklands. We are determined to act against anyone who has betrayed the public's faith in local government or in them. It is this sad, cynical Scottish Office team that will be condemned for its refusal to act sooner. In the absence of Government action, the Labour party set up the Black inquiry and, when it had reported, we acted. People outside the House will see that that is in stark contrast to the lack of action by the Tories on Westminster city council.
We are determined to see that action through. There will be no hiding place for any who fall woefully short of the standards that Labour expects from its councillors in local government. I should like to express a concern that I hope will not in any way seem partisan. I am told that the Crown Office is now saying that action on the cases referred to it by Professor Black, where the allegation involves criminal conduct, will take months and not weeks to deal with. That is not good enough. Concern is so great, interest is so high and the implications of some of those allegations are so grave that they must be dealt with with utmost urgency. Any delay will heighten public concern. After such a long delay, the people of Monklands deserve to have early answers.
I find it puzzling, confusing, but perhaps, not entirely surprising that the Prime Minister, who last Tuesday said something that was clearly untruthful about me in relation to the first Monklands inquiry, who has admitted that he was wrong and who must, therefore, have misled the House, has not had the integrity, the honour, the guts or the simple decency to come to the House or to me and to say that he was sorry for saying something that he now acknowledges and has clearly said. He may scrape through a leadership election next week, but he will not scrape through the boundaries of credibility in the country.
I make a point here with passion and emphasis. Labour believes in the highest standards in local and national Government and we are prepared to ensure that high standards are the common standard. In Scotland, where the whole system was changed this year, every single aspirant Labour candidate had to sign up to the most detailed code of conduct ever put in place by a modern political party.
We instituted a new tough selection procedure for candidates and, indeed, the number of independent rebel deselected candidates was proof of how tough that process had been. We now control 20 of the 29 councils in Scotland. We have embarked on the biggest ever consultation exercise with the public and we have introduced new guidelines on openness of procedure, fair allocation of committee places and representation on outside organisations.
That is not all. We will give, south of the border, to the Audit Commission, and north of the border, to the Accounts Commission, new powers to ensure that the high standards that we expect and aim for in local government are maintained and monitored. No Labour
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Secretary of State for Scotland will stand by and not use section 211 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act while there are allegations of malpractice and while local communities are bothered and worried by what is being said, especially by Ministers and senior politicians. No Labour Secretary of State for Scotland will ever trade in rumour and innuendo as some self-indulgent party propaganda exercise.This debate has been a synthetic party propaganda stunt, which might have seemed a bright wheeze last week, but has dissipated as it has gone on. Now, it looks like what it is--a shabby, partisan own goal. We should have heard from the Government about the £700 million lost in an unwanted reorganisation of Scottish local government. We should have had an apology for the £14 billion lost in the poll tax debacle. We should have had humility from a Government who have gerrymandered local government north and south of the border, but who cannot gain control of even one of those gerrymandered councils. The verdict on the Government and their local government policy came in April and May when they were virtually wiped out in England and destroyed in Scotland and Wales. That was the ultimate political test. There is another one coming and it will be just as devastating.
Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Throughout the debate, several allegations have been made against my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge). In normal circumstances, it would be possible for her to contribute to the debate and make her point. May I draw to your attention the fact that in a debate lasting five hours, Back-Bench Opposition Members have spoken for just 42 minutes, while four Conservative Back-Bench Members spoke for 104 minutes. That is grossly unequal. May I ask through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Government now waive their remaining 10 minutes to allow time for my hon. Friend the Member for Barking to reply to the allegations made against her? Several hon. Members rose --
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already told the House--I do not know whether the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) was in the Chamber--that today the Chair has no control over the length of speeches. However, I specifically asked those hon. Members still waiting to speak to remember that there was great interest in the debate and to allow as many hon. Members as possible to take part.
Ms Hodge: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It concerns me that I have not had the opportunity to respond to allegations from Conservative Members, who are playing politics with the welfare of vulnerable children in the care of local authorities. It is an onerous duty on local authorities. That sort of playing politics is not worthy of any hon. Member and needs to be dealt with.
Madam Deputy Speaker: I have already explained that that is not a matter for the Chair. However, there are a number of other ways in which those matters can be raised. I have no doubt that the hon. Lady will take various initiatives to ensure that they are.
Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Is it the same point of order?Mr. Barnes: You have already said, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you have no power to limit the length of speeches today. That is unfortunate on occasions such as this. It might become an even greater problem because there are now fewer Friday debates, so greater pressure might be put on those debates. Of seven Back-Bench speeches today, three from the Opposition Benches have averaged 14 minutes while four from the Conservative Benches--
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