§ 2.37 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what will be the difference between the Scottish Economic Planning Board which will be appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, as announced in the Parliamentary Statement of December 10 on regional planning, and the existing Scottish Development Group, and whether it is intended that the new planning board shall replace the Development Group.]
§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES)My Lords, the Scottish Economic Planning Board will take over the functions and work of the Scottish Development Group, but there will be much greater emphasis in future on economic planning. It will be the Board's task to ensure that Scotland makes its full contribution to the national economic plan and, at the same time, that (hat plan takes full account of Scotland's potential and, in particular, of its under-used resources.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. I put the Question down in the hope of getting clarification of two points. The noble Lord will realise, of course, that official reincarnation sometimes takes a little time and I am sure he will have no difficulty—I hope he will not—in assuring the House that the transmigration of "Development Board" into "Planning Board" will not delay the progress of the plans now being carried out under the White Paper Cmnd. 2188, which has been going on for the last two years.
The other question on which I should like his assurance is a little wider. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that this assimilation of nomen- 634 clature between the Scottish Development Group, which already exists, and half a dozen proposed English Planning Boards may give the impression to some people that administrative authority is going to be centralised in Whitehall, and I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can give a definite assurance that progress on administrative devolution which has been going forward, perhaps too slowly, for many years from London to Edinburgh will not now be reversed.
§ LORD HUGHESMy Lords, the answer, I think, to the first part of the supplementary question is that if Her Majesty's Government have been under any criticism recently, it has not been on the score that they have been moving too slowly. There is therefore no reason to anticipate any lack of speed at the Scottish Office. In regard to the second part of the supplementary question, anyone who knows my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will not have any fear that his sphere of operation will be illegitimately submerged by any other sphere.