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Mr. Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South): We have just heard a very poor analysis by the Opposition of the figures in the settlement. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), has the real story in front of him, and that reveals that on top of the comprehensive spending review settlement, which guarantees a real-terms increase of 6.8 per cent. over the next three years in spending on vital public services in Scotland, today's announcement is particularly welcome.
We welcome the Government-supported expenditure increase of £301 million, which increases spending by 4.8 per cent.--well above inflation--to £6.5 billion. We welcome the grant-aided expenditure increase of £265 million, which increases spending also by 4.8 per cent. to £5.8 billion. For the third pillar of local government finance which supports our council-run public services in Scotland, the aggregate external finance figure of £5.5 billion has also increased by £219 million, which is 4.1 per cent. Those are the important figures, but what the money does is more important still.
Last year, we spent over £500 million of public money in Scotland on housing. The comprehensive spending review provides an extra £300 million for housing and area regeneration. I want tenants to be given more say about their housing and more resources to carry out vital works because we have inherited a shameful legacy.
Shelter tells me that until 1995, we were spending far less on housing as a percentage of gross domestic product than comparable European countries. Our spending was well below the European Union average. Shelter says that that has condemned 362,000 Scottish children and 119,000 Scottish senior citizens to living in damp houses. My hon. Friends will visit them in their homes and hear their problems at their constituency advice sessions every week. Shelter estimates that nine out of 10 houses in Scotland fail to meet modern energy efficiency standards, which is an absolute disgrace. Since the election, it has been our priority to tackle those poor standards in 50,000 homes with £9 million of new money.
Before Christmas, I visited Shanter way in my constituency to find out how that money was being spent directly on cavity wall insulation, roof insulation and draft excluders on doors and windows, which transformed the life of a young family, one of whom was disabled.
Energy Action Scotland is doing a terrific job in co-ordinating that work throughout Scotland. None of it would have been possible without Energy Action Scotland and without the money made available by the Government, and the money that we levied from the utilities to fund the new deal, which was opposed root and branch by the Conservative party.
I spoke to one of the new dealers in Shanter way, a young man who had been unemployed and is now getting training. He praised the scheme. He is getting double the basic £70 and will be taken on permanently. He told me how that had transformed his life and the lives of 16 other youngsters working for the same firm.
I am pleased that the Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution is giving the rough sleepers initiative a boost of an extra £30 million to help people with no roof over their heads. We feel a great sympathy and compassion for their plight, and that initiative will make a real difference. As one of the founders of The Big Issue in Scotland, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work.
Education is, of course, the Government's priority. I welcome the real growth in spending of 15.3 per cent. over the period of the comprehensive spending review--an extra £1.3 billion, which is far more than the Liberals pledged. We got off to a flying start with an extra 5.1 per cent. in Labour's first year, which meant an extra £200 per pupil.
We are keeping our promise to provide nursery education for all three and four-year-olds with the extra £40 million. We welcome the increase of £112 million for pre-school education, which will allow many more three and four-year-olds in Scotland to attend nursery school. As a result of this settlement and other financial help given by the Government, 100,000 children will receive grant-funded pre-school education in the next school session.
It is vital that we honour our commitment to cut class sizes. That is being done for the crucial ages in primary 1, primary 2 and primary 3, to ensure that no pupil is taught in a class of more than 30. Of the 18 primary schools in my constituency, some have already achieved that and others--particularly Sciennes school and James Gillespie's primary, where there are pressures on numbers--will welcome that commitment and the extra resources made available today.
That money will be spent, in contrast to the shameful neglect of education by Lothian regional council when the Conservatives and Liberals ran it in coalition. At that time 1,000 teaching posts were axed from Edinburgh schools, including such vital extra teachers as specialist music teachers and drama therapists. Therefore we do not take lectures from other parties about how we are running education in Edinburgh, nor should my hon. Friend take any lectures from them on his spending plans and stewardship in Scotland.
As my hon. Friends know, I took an interest in social work before coming to the House of Commons. I welcome the 4.9 per cent. increase--the extra £51 million, with a significant extra component going to community care. During the Tory years, steps were taken to empty a hospital in my constituency without alternative provision having been made. Now, people's needs are realistically assessed and tangible support is offered when care in the community is provided. That is not cheap, so the extra money is vital.
The fire services are to get an extra £8 million--a welcome above-inflation increase--and there is an extra £24 million for the police services. Throughout the range of public services, a great start has been made. We can hold our heads high.
There is a clear message from the Labour Government: we value local government and local government services. We pay tribute to the many hard-working local councillors and dedicated council staff. We are providing an extra 4.9 per cent. in overall extra expenditure. This year, next year and the year after, the people of Scotland can look forward to getting value for money in a range of vital services, instead of what they experienced in the past decade--swingeing cuts, reduced services and, in many councils, the disappearance of vital services.
Dr. Fox:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will have been made aware that the Government are to make a statement on Kosovo at 7 pm. Have you been
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I am afraid that I have had no messages. It is entirely a matter for the Government when they decide to make statements to the House.
Mr. Donald Gorrie (Edinburgh, West):
We will give one feeble cheer for the local government settlement. It certainly does not deserve two cheers.
There is a real-terms increase of about £64 million this year, allowing for inflation. However, we must look further than one year. Last year, there was a cut of £83 million, and the year before there was a cut of £260 million. If we look back over five years and project the Labour Government's plans for the next five years, and compare the last five years of the Conservative Government with the first five years of the Labour Government, we find that the Labour Government will have supported local government to the extent of £460 million less per annum than the Tories.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths), whom I am happy to follow, deserves a job in the Labour party's spin department. I do not recognise the situation that he depicted. He referred several times to an alleged coalition in Lothian regional council, which never existed. The Liberal Democrats at that time helped to save a great many services that would have been cut. The Labour party did nothing to help. The hon. Gentleman is good at rewriting history and painting the present in false colours, so he deserves a job in the relevant part of the Government.
Over the past two years, there has been a net cut in local government funding--a slight increase this year and a bigger decrease last year. The councils that have suffered most are, in order of severity, Aberdeen, Inverclyde, Shetland, Argyll and Bute, Dundee, Moray, West Dunbartonshire, Stirling, Glasgow and Falkirk.
Mrs. McKenna:
How does the hon. Gentleman square that with the comment of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) that Stirling was one of the areas that was gaining because it was a Labour marginal at the general election?
Mr. Gorrie:
I am not questioning any motives. I have not checked, but I suspect that Stirling may have done well this year, but particularly badly the previous year. I think that my figures are correct over the two years.
I should like the Minister to answer several questions. First, will the Government guarantee the finance for councils to fund their programme for modernising education, which involves related teachers' pay increases? The Government, COSLA and the councils are keen to improve and modernise education. Will the Government be sufficiently flexible and allow finance to enable any necessary pay increases and other improvements to be made?
Secondly, when will the Government remove local authority self-financed expenditure from the public sector borrowing requirement? That is the single biggest constraint, and it could be a constraint on the Scottish Parliament, depending on what are the rules. It is essential
that that constraint is removed. The current position is ludicrous. The British are out of step with the continental countries, and we should change the rules smartly.
Thirdly, why did the Scottish Office remove community care as a line in the Budget? In recent years, there has been a line for community care, but, this year, it comes under social work. The figures may be a bit damning; when I asked for figures on community care I was given figures on social work, less youth activities. That shows that, despite councils being asked to do much more, they were receiving an increase of only 0.25 per cent. two years ago and last year. They are receiving no increase this year, so the money for community care is simply not there.
I should have thought, with respect, that if the Government are serious about joined-up budgeting and joined-up government, community care should involve social work, housing and health. Pre-eminently, the budget should stand alone and draw on those three, rather than be lost in a morass of social work funding.
Fourthly, will the Government make best value less bureaucratic? Most people would sign on to the concept of best value, but others will have had an experience similar to mine when I visited the chief executive of the council of the area that I have the honour to serve. He produced a huge wodge of papers, which related to one little bit of best value. The initiative is hugely bureaucratic and takes up enormous amounts of the time of council senior management. The idea is good, but surely we can carry it out in a more humane, sensible and less bureaucratic way.
Fifthly, the Under-Secretary, who spoke in his usual charming style, said that the Government were keen to keep the council tax down. Actions speak louder than words. This year, continuing from previous years, the Government have made aggregate external finance diverge further from grant-aided expenditure. The aggregate external finance of GAE was 84.7 per cent., but it is down to 84.2 per cent and they have diverged more and more year by year. The more that they diverge, the more that has to be cut, or the council tax has to go up disproportionately, to make up the difference.
Contrary to that divergence, the issue of convergence concerns COSLA, and the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), greatly. The councils are afraid that the Government are forcing them gradually to bring their budgets in line with the Government's estimates rather than the reality and what the councils, in past years, have determined.
The next issue is funding of pay increases, which does not happen. The Government, like the previous Government, pretend that pay increases can be paid for through efficiency, which is a complete falsehood. That is just not possible and there is merely a hidden cut. It would be more honest of the Government to fund the pay increases in full. If a budget is not enough to pay for everything, the Government say that there has to be a cut in something, but if affairs are being run in an honourable manner, people do not pretend that pay increases can be funded without increased moneys. The figures provided by COSLA show that the councils have had to produce at least an extra £550 million over the past six years.
One of the issues that we have been asked to cover this afternoon is housing. The Minister spoke warmly of the amount of money that the Government will put into housing under partnerships and regeneration. He did not stress, however, that this is a "pistol to the head" approach. Councils are being told that they must transfer their stock or they will not get the money. When challenged on that policy by councillors, the Minister said, "It's a free country. You can either agree to go along with this or not." If councils do not go along with it, they get no money. Surely it is possible to put money into councils without having the compulsion to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir R. Smith) referred. If councils run things well and tenants are happy with what they are doing, they should be given the money without having a pistol at their head.
There has been a steep decline in housing repairs funded from the public purse, particularly repairs to our city tenements. Last year, Glasgow spent about one sixth of what it had spent on average in the previous nine years on repairs and grants for repairs to tenements, with the aid of grants from the Government. In Edinburgh, the decline is to one thirteenth of the average in the previous nine years. There is almost a total standstill in the repairs to tenements. The Government should deal with that huge problem.
The Government may claim, quite fairly, that they removed the ring fence around this money, and that it is now up to the councils. If councils are tightly squeezed on all financial fronts, they will take money from wherever they can get it, and they have taken money from that source. If the Government are serious, they must either ring-fence those funds again or do something to ensure that cities continue to repair their tenements.
The result of the Government focusing their modest increases on particular spheres is that other spheres of activity have continuing cuts. Although the cuts may seem quite small, they come after many years of Tory cuts. There are cuts in councils' care for the environment, and severe cuts in their support for sport. The Sports Council has estimated that the support that councils give to sport has decreased by half over the past five years. There is a huge decrease in the support of voluntary organisations, many of which have collapsed or have had to make severe cuts. Citizens advice bureaux have had to reduce or lay off staff, or open less. There has been a reduction in funding for social work, road repairs, community education and help for young people and youth activity, which would prevent many of the problems in our communities.
The Government are perpetuating that death by a thousand cuts in the fabric of our society. They are dismantling our communities. It is a gradual rather than a dramatic decline each year. Our communities are in much worse shape than they used to be, and it is disappointing that the Government have not put in more money to help them.
4.46 pm
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