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Mr. Martin: I think I have hit a nerve.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows my views about seated interventions.
Mr. Walker: If the hon. Gentleman ever wants to make any comments or observations about me, just try it--that is my advice for him. I make many overseas visits that I pay for. I have no qualms about that. What is more important, I take my family with me--[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I trust that the House will remember my earlier guidance. Perhaps we could now return to the subject in hand.
Mr. Walker: Certainly, Madam Deputy Speaker. Innuendoes are made about the values and qualities of this place. The hon. Gentleman likes to give the impression that he is the only one who cares. I suggest that the vast majority of Members care, so he should be careful when he makes sweeping assertions.
I should like to know from Labour Front Benchers where the money will come from for the Scottish Parliament. I understood the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) to say that no more money will be available for local government, because this is the settlement that Labour will inherit, so where will the money come from? He could not tell us what the priorities were going to be either. The speech by the hon. Member
for Roxburgh and Berwickshire was important because it drew attention to the fact that people ought to know what the priorities are, which I agree with, and what they are voting for, which I also agree with.
Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde):
The hon. Gentleman will realise that we have had 18 years of Tory government and that, in my area of Renfrewshire, the Tories have been wiped out. There are only two left on the council, which the Tories used to control. They have been wiped out because of the bad Tory policies implemented by the Government. The people there want decent education, decent home help services and decent transport. That has all come under terrible attack by the Tories in the House.
Mr. Walker:
I have news for the hon. Gentleman: I am a democrat. I fully accept the wishes of the people as expressed at the ballot box. If anything I say or do gives offence, I pay for it and it is proper that I should. It is worth remembering that many Scots are what I call thrawn. They might not find any future Labour Government to their liking and the vote for the other parties in Scotland might suddenly and dramatically increase. That was the experience in the 1960s and 1970s.
The hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) rightly says that the Conservative party has been in government for 18 years. We are held accountable, as we should be. At the general election, we will face the electorate on the basis of having been in office for 18 years. I have watched the smiles on the faces of Opposition Members at previous general elections. At almost every election since 1979, they have assumed that somehow the Labour party would make a dramatic recovery. When it did not materialise, I had to look at the same faces again after the election and they got longer, gloomier and glummer.
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. Those are very interesting reflections, but I am not too sure how they relate to the business in hand.
Mr. Walker:
They relate to the debate in that it concerns 18 years of local government expenditure in Scotland. This evening we are debating the current settlement. When one compares local government expenditure, supported centrally and raised locally in Scotland, with that in the rest of the United Kingdom, particularly England, it is obvious that other areas are quite capable of providing services. I agree with the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire that we have to examine all the figures and compare like with like rather than extrapolating from a selected few, but it is clear that the problems do not stem from a lack of money, as substantial sums are being spent.
Perhaps local authorities should consider becoming enablers rather than providers. Some may say that that would lead to job losses, but it would be a diversion of jobs from one sector to another. If Marks and Spencer expanded a store and employed more people, but Woolworths closed part of a store and employed fewer people, there would be a transfer of employment between companies that provided the same service.
The same is true of local government. The inquiry into care in the community in Tayside supports the principle that I hope the House will accept--that, if possible,
the same quality of service should be maintained. Tayside achieved a saving of £200 per head per week. If the same saving were made in other sectors, many more people would gain. What matters is the advantage to those who require the service. After all, we are all in the business of providing services for individuals who need them. That applies equally to Marks and Spencer, local government or anyone else. The individuals who require the service are often forgotten.
I am particularly concerned that the increase in population in my constituency has stretched the education budget and that cuts in languages and music lessons are proposed. Naturally that is a cause of local concern, as people want the teaching of those subjects to be maintained.
I should like Ministers to say that COSLA's formula is not sacrosanct and that there are ways of reviewing and revising it. Population increases in large rural areas such as my constituency should lead to a review of the 85 per cent. of the settlement that comes from central Government.
This year, for the first time in years, local government will have to stand up and be counted. Local authorities will have to tell the people of Scotland why they cannot maintain service provision although their budgets have increased in real terms. The answer is that certain assumptions and projections were made about the changeover, many of which have now proved to be flawed and to require attention. With that in mind, we have to accept that there will be increases in council tax, but the money should be directed at the services that most concern local people, such as education.
I have a question for my hon. Friend the Minister. As the Government have allocated a certain sum to police budgets, what happens if the local authority joint police boards decide not to spend it all? The police would not get the advantage of the increased funding which the Government want to provide and the public welcome, so what would happen to the money?
Mr. Kynoch:
To save time later, let me answer my hon. Friend. As the police receive a specific grant that is paid against claims from local authorities, if a local authority does not spend the grant, it loses the benefit.
Mr. Walker:
I expected that answer, for which I thank my hon. Friend. If the police grant is not demanded or taken up, the police and the local community lose out and the council gains nothing. We should press councils to make the police a priority. People in North Tayside will want to question the two local councils about the attitude that they have adopted.
Mr. Eric Clarke (Midlothian):
I am also disappointed by the debate. It is a bit like a poor-oot at a wedding--money which is flung out of the car when the bride leaves. It is a poor-oot in Edinburgh. There is a scramble for the money and if anyone does not grab enough, it is hard luck.
We are talking about people's jobs. Care in the community has become a joke. It has been foisted on to local authorities without the appropriate financial backing. At the end of the day the most vulnerable people suffer: the young, the old and disabled people.
A great deal of anger is directed at councillors in Midlothian. I was a councillor in Midlothian for 16 years and I agree with the right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro). In the days of county councils, councillors stood by the rate. They were elected or not by the rate. We provided facilities within a sensible budget. We did not have central Government dictating to us. I agree that there should be more accountability. When we have a Parliament in Edinburgh we shall work out a more democratic formula for local government.
There has to be proper reform, not the botched up reforms that we have had in the past that killed off and replaced regional authorities. That is the problem in Midlothian. The Minister agreed to meet a delegation from Midlothian and welcomed us in a formal and reasonable way. I cannot criticise him for that, but the result was a different story.
Midlothian made a case for more money, but was told that the formula was worked out along hard lines. We told the Minister that the formula that led to the mismatch and other problems was calculated on an unacceptable basis and he agreed, but when the case reached COSLA's steering committee, Midlothian lost out. The steering committee voted almost unanimously for the formula to continue although we had proved that Midlothian would lose out not just this year, but next year.
What does it mean? I shall read out two questions from Midlothian to the Minister:
Like the hon. Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker), I get rather angry with people who personalise their politics. I do not personalise mine. I do not make personal attacks; I try to be nice. There comes a time, however, when people have to be told the facts of life.
I get angry when people try to discredit Labour and to say that Labour-controlled local authorities are mismanaged, spendthrift, globe-trotting and all the rest of it--because it is just not true. One cannot argue--[Interruption.] I am talking about the people whom I represent in Midlothian, and I defy the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to say otherwise. I am talking about Midlothian, and I do not accept that, in one way or another, it is being mismanaged.
Council administrators and employees are very angry. The faulty formula by which councils are being deprived of money is a return to the poor-oot, and that is not good enough. Councils must ultimately face up to the realities. They are soul-searching and tearing out their hearts to try to make ends meet, and they are doing the best that they possibly can.
"Is the Minister aware that his settlement means a year on year reduction of £3 Million in the grant paid to Midlothian and that this factor alone means a £115 or 16 per cent. increase in Midlothian's council tax?
Midlothian and other authorities have statutory duties. They cannot walk away from them, so what should they do? They are currently giving notice to all their employees.
The formula based assessments have proven to be invalid in that three secondary indicators which remove £2.3 million of grant from Midlothian have failed the statistical test for the second successive year. Is the Minister suggesting that Midlothian Council should cut services to the residents of Midlothian to match up to the indicators which have been proven to be invalid and should have been dropped?"
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