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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Raymond S. Robertson): Tartan tax.
Mr. Chisholm: Wrong again. We shall raise the windfall tax, to deal with youth unemployment, which will be our priority when we come into government.
We shall have to attend to the building blocks of economic success as a priority after the election, because the underlying cause of the grant cuts and the crisis in local government is the Government's economic failure. We also plan in the first year of a Labour Government to deal with the problem of waste and to examine priorities. My right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party has said that his priorities are education, education and education. That is good news for local government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) pointed out.
Once again, Ministers have tried to act as if we were the Government and they the Opposition. That will soon be the case, but they are still the Government tonight and all their attempts to blame somebody else for their failures will not be believed by the people of Scotland. Anyone who had managed to sit through the Minister's 46 minutes would not have been persuaded by any of his arguments. His tactic was to try to confuse by putting up smokescreens and descending into absurdity. This will be the last local government settlement from this Government. If tonight's performance by the Minister is anything to go by, it is certainly time for a change of tack.
My main fire has been directed at the Government, who are responsible for the settlement, but I should point out that the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) was equally in a world of fantasy. He and his party made all kinds of promises about what they would do for local government, centring on the claim that they would put £1.4 billion into local government to deal with the crisis, but that is not a credible option and the people of Scotland will not believe it. The Scottish National party makes many spending promises, but never tells us where the money will come from. Labour is the party with a credible alternative.
Mr. Welsh:
The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that, and he will find exactly where the money is coming from if he cares to look at our detailed documents--something that his party has never produced. He offers Scottish local authorities no improvement, because he is dealing with a Scottish Office budget. We are promoting a Scottish national budget, and there is a massive difference between the two.
Mr. Chisholm:
My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mrs. Liddell) referred to Santa Claus when the hon. Gentleman was speaking. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Ms Cunningham) referred to the planet Zog the other night, and that is where the Scottish National party belongs, with its plans to magic away debt, its conjuring up of massive surpluses by the loading of one parliamentary question, the way in which it made Scotland leap up the international prosperity table from 22nd to eighth in two months and its confetti spending pledges that it scatters with no tax costs.
That point has to be made, because the real choice before the Scottish people at the next election is between the Government and the Labour party. Labour is the only party that can get rid of the Government and is the only party with credible alternatives to deal with the economic and local government crises that 18 years of Conservative government have delivered to Scotland.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse):
I call Mr. Kynoch.
Mr. Maxton:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has had 46 minutes in the debate already. May I ask why the Secretary of State, who is his boss and is sitting next to him, is not answering the debate? If he is too frightened to reply, perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson)--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have called the Minister and it is a matter for him to reply if he so wishes.
Mr. Kynoch:
We have had the usual local government debate, as I described in my introduction. All Opposition Members have used their usual ploy of calling for more funding and saying that local government is suffering cuts. Thankfully, that is not the case, and we have given extra funding to local government. Of course, that is not our money, but taxpayers' money--something the Labour party always seems to forget.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), and to my hon. Friends the Members for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) and for Ayr (Mr. Gallie), who made rational and realistic speeches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and my hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside referred to a review of grant-aided expenditure formulae with particular reference to rural areas. I can tell them that, with COSLA, we are carrying out a review of GAE formulae, but there has been agreement on both sides that it will be appropriate to do that only once proper financial information is available from the new local authorities. It is quite clear that many authorities have taken a long time this year to make financial information available, so that councils and councillors know what is going on in their areas.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries referred to the business rate and welcomed the fact that we had introduced the uniform business rate, which he rightly recognised has ensured that businesses north and south of the border can compete on a level playing field. In addition, we have ensured that business rates are frozen for businesses with a rateable value of less than £10,000. The Finance Bill proposes benefits for villages and village shops, and we believe that we are looking after small businesses.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood referred to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe), who said that the people of Bearsden and Kelvinside were all parasites feeding off Glasgow.
Mrs. Fyfe:
Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Kynoch:
I will let the hon. Lady correct the remark.
Mrs. Fyfe:
I asked the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) in a civil manner--and would appreciate a civil reply--whether he had calculated by how much the people of Eastwood benefit from services provided by Glasgow for which they do not pay.
Mr. Kynoch:
I am delighted to hear the hon. Lady rephrase that. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) is shouting from a sedentary position.
Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister has attributed to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) the word "parasite". That is clearly untrue, and I hope that even this Minister might have the decency to withdraw that remark under your guidance.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I heard nothing of that nature. [Interruption.] Order. It is a matter for the Minister if he feels that he ought to withdraw the remark.
Mr. Kynoch:
If I referred to anything that the hon. Lady did not actually say, I apologise.
Mrs. Fyfe:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Just for clarification, I did not utter the word "parasite", so the Minister is wrong to attribute the word to me.
Mr. Kynoch:
As I have just said, if I said anything that the hon. Lady did not say, I apologise and withdraw that statement. The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) has significant cheek in coming to the House at the tail end of the debate and with no intention of contributing to it, but--in his usual manner--raising irrelevant points of order.
Mr. Wilson:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I have just achieved the rare feat of drawing an apology from a Tory Minister, it was well worth coming in at any stage of the debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair. The House must settle down.
Mr. Kynoch:
I should like to continue in a positive vein. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood referred obliquely--as did the hon. Members for Maryhill and for Springburn--to the fact that people around Glasgow use facilities in Glasgow. As I explained to the hon. Members for Springburn and for Maryhill, the GAE formulae take account of commuter traffic and people visiting from outside Glasgow. However, there is no doubt that that matter will be looked at in the general review of GAE.
I can tell hon. Members who represent urban areas that I get as many complaints from hon. Members representing rural areas, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and my hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside complained that the GAE formulae do not benefit rural areas. I saw that the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) agreed with what they were saying, which shows that the same views are held on either side of the fence.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside also referred to increasing school numbers and their effect on the formulae for education GAE. I responded to that this year, by urging the distribution committee of COSLA and the Scottish Office to look at updating the information on school rolls within the GAE formulae. I am delighted to say that this year the most up-to-date information will be used, which is the school roll as at September this year. The formulae now take account of rising school numbers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr referred to nursery vouchers and said that Labour wants to snatch away those vouchers, which give choice to parents. Vouchers provide £1,100 of opportunity to choose where nursery education is obtained, and I do not think that parents--certainly not the parents in my constituency--will approve of what the Labour party wants to do. I am certain from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood that his experiences prove that point clearly.
6.50 pm
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