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4.59 pm
Mr. James Wray (Glasgow, Baillieston): This subject is dear to my heart. I have listened to the facts and figures that hon. Members from both sides of the House have given. I know how badly the previous Government did on housing. At the time, I was a councillor, and the houses in my area were rotten with damp, there were rats and, every day of the week, the council received claims for compensation due to the damage caused to household effects. People were living about 500 to the acre, although the number was subsequently reduced to 150.
When I speak of housing expenditure, I refer to Glasgow, but also to Scotland as a whole. It is a damn shame that, between 1991 and 1992, the housing support grant was cut from £101 million to nil in a city where those statistics have hardly ever changed. Under the last Government, some 7.1 per cent. of houses were empty, and 5.8 per cent. are still empty. Moreover, additional expenditure has been necessary because of the damp and the cuts--problems that arose under the last Government. In 1993, 1,300 houses were pulled down in Philadelphia; meanwhile, some 2,335 were demolished in Glasgow.
Hon. Members have read facts and figures from pieces of paper. They have mentioned housing expenditure of £643 million in 1995-96, and of £700 million-odd in 1996-97. In 1977, the figure was £464 million; and in 1978, it was about £498 million. That represents an increase of 6 per cent.--an increase of £30 million--but, when we examine the figures closely, we see that there is a shortfall of £479 million. The Minister says that £300 million will be invested over three years, but that falls short of what is needed.
Glasgow contains about 103,000 houses, and owes 90 per cent. of the debt to the Public Loans Board--£1.1 million. Given the need for repairs and renovations, an investment of some £1.7 million is needed. Glasgow is trying to offload houses on to anyone who will take them, and I am a little concerned about some of the organisations that are interested. I am particularly worried about the private finance initiative. If the Government write off the debt, as they should, they should not saddle the Scottish Parliament with that £1.1 million. If they want a successful Scottish Parliament, they should take that into account.
Mining--there are between 800 and 900 shafts--has caused Glasgow a number of problems over the years. Furthermore, because of the neglect for which Tory landlords were responsible, people were living five or 10 to a house in slums. When those houses began to decay and fall down, the landlords ran for their lives, offering the houses two a penny to whoever would buy them to avoid the responsibility of a demolition order. That is the problem that Glasgow has inherited. I have spent 15 years in Glasgow, and, every minute, landlords who had been charging extortionate rents were trying to give away their properties.
The last Government had plenty of time to do something about that. They certainly increased housing expenditure in Scotland and, indeed, in Great Britain,
but no one knows where the money went. Would the city of Glasgow still be in chaos if all those millions of pounds were invested in housing? In 1993, unemployment there was about 15.4 per cent.--the fourth highest in Britain. We had all those problems. There was not much money. How the hell could the previous Government cut the support grant and give those people nothing?
Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1966, claims could be made if household effects were damaged through no fault of the tenant. In one year, about 800 claims were made to Glasgow council. That cost it hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is still burdened with that, and with all the dampness problems. Unless a Government invest the money that is needed, nothing can be done about the problem. That is why Glasgow councillors are saying that they cannot cope. There is no money to cope.
For years, houses were demolished out of the housing revenue account. Under new rules, if people demolish houses and the land is then made available to the council for other purposes--Lothian, Edinburgh and Dundee councils have operated the system--the expenditure can be transferred to the general fund. That is how Glasgow will have a £22 million surplus this year, but, with that state of affairs, it was sad that the previous Government did not inform local authorities of the responsibilities, and what their entitlement was.
Therefore, I hope that, when we add up the figures, we do not try to hoodwink people. Expenditure was £749 million in 1995-96. It was £643 million in1996-97. In the current year, it is £464 million, which is the lowest expenditure of any Government over the years. Then they say that we have a 6 per cent. increase by raising that expenditure to £494 million. Obviously, people can add up. They can do their sums. Where I came from, we were taught to do our sums. I do not need to look at papers; I can add it all up in my head like a check machine. All I am saying is: be honest, be fair and get rid of that problem. For decades, people have suffered. A total of 23,700 houses are unfit for human habitation and should be repaired.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan):
I agreed with just about everything that was said by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie), so in the interests of helping other hon. Members to get into the debate, I will not repeat it all. However, I did not agree with his assessment of the speech by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths).
At a superficial level, that speech might have been seen as a fawning attempt to get the hon. Gentleman's job back, but at a deeper level, it was profoundly subversive. As I listened to it, I suddenly realised that he was impersonating
Harry Enfield impersonating the Prime Minister as the Vicar of St. Albion. By wit and irony, he was exposing the fallacy behind new Labour's presentation of its economics.
Mr. Nigel Griffiths:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Salmond:
The hon. Gentleman might allow me to tease him without--
Mr. Griffiths:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Griffiths:
The hon. Gentleman should not be allowed to divert the House from the abysmal record of Scottish National party councils. The Scottish nationalists promised to give senior citizens a £10 Christmas bonus, then repudiated the promise. They increased concessionary fares for senior citizens by 2,000 per cent. when they took over one council. Those are the facts. That is why we have to take countermeasures against abysmal SNP councils.
Mr. Salmond:
Presumably that is why, in last year's survey of almost 30 local authorities in mainland Scotland, the three SNP councils came first, second and third--gold, silver and bronze--for the services that they provide to constituents. The three bottom places and three wooden spoons were taken by three Labour councils. I am sure that many Labour Members recognise the councils that fell down so badly in those ratings.
Perhaps I was crediting the hon. Gentleman with too much sophistication. As I listened to him, I believed that he was exposing the fallacy behind new Labour's presentation. The Tory Front Benchers are so incompetent that they did not compare the spending levels for Scottish local government during the Tory years with those for the five years covered by the comprehensive spending review. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West said, those figures show a sharp real-terms fall in local government expenditure in Scotland. The Tories were probably embarrassed to make that point, thinking that they would look profligate.
When the right hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Robertson) considered the 1994-95 settlement for Scottish local authorities from the Opposition Front Bench, he did not say that it was profligate, open-handed or generous. He said that it was niggardly and that the Conservatives should be ashamed of it. If that settlement were applied to the years covered by the comprehensive spending review, there would be more than £1 billion extra for Scottish local government to spend.
We should deal in realities. This settlement is certainly greater than last year's or that for the year before in real terms, but a comparison of the last five years of the Tory Government with the years covered by the comprehensive spending review shows, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West rightly said, that there is less money available for Scottish local government.
I am sure that the Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution is not too distressed that this is the last time that he will be responsible for taking us through the complexities of Scottish local government finance.
Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North)
rose--
Mr. Salmond:
Forgive me, but I want to help others to get into the debate.
I salute the unfailing courtesy of the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald). The local government Minister in the new Scottish Parliament, from whichever party, could do a lot worse than present his or her case with the same courtesy. I hope that that salute is not too embarrassing for the hon. Gentleman.
I should like to pursue one point that arose from our earlier exchanges. There was some debate about where the figures came from for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities' argument that convergence would reduce expenditure in Scottish local government by £300 million compared with Government-supported expenditure. The COSLA brief talks of
The strongest point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West was that even self-financing expenditure is counted on the public sector borrowing requirement and could be used to reduce the Scottish block. Even if Councillor David Begg found a method of extorting £10,000 from every motorist going into Edinburgh--who knows, that may not be beyond the bounds of possibility--such self-financing public expenditure that was invested by the council would hit the Scottish block under the current terms of the PSBR and the evaluation of public sector finance.
The dangers for the Scottish Parliament are all too clear. Unless the definition is changed, the Scottish Parliament will be driven to increasingly draconian measures on controlling expenditure levels, because it will be frightened of the implications to the Scottish block of even self-financing expenditure being run at local level. That is an important point and I hope that the Minister will respond to it in his reply to the debate.
I hope that the Minister is aware of the considerable concern about the structure of new housing partnerships. I doubt whether any hon. Member would not agree that in certain circumstances it would be a good thing if communities took over the running of estates. No one is against that. However, people are against the idea that people should be bludgeoned, blackmailed, bribed or disadvantaged if they choose to remain as council tenants. Of course some councils in Scotland have bad records of running council stock. However, other councils have very good records. Over the years, various ballots have shown council ownership to be a popular option.
"the move to use those guidelines as a means to constrain expenditure so that eventually overall expenditure reduces by £300 million to converge with Government Supported Expenditure. Accountability should rest with councils in terms of justifying, to their electorate, their expenditure decisions".
If central Government are controlling the revenue available to Scottish local authorities, at least the expenditure decisions should be for the councils to make, so that the electorate can judge them on those decisions.
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