HL Deb 09 June 1981 vol 421 cc126-44
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (The Earl of Mansfield)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. In moving the Second Reading of this Bill some weeks ago, I acknowledged that its provisions covered a series of diverse matters affecting local authorities in Scotland, and the wide-ranging nature of our subsequent discussions has confirmed its character as a genuine miscellaneous provisions Bill. A considerable amount of time has been spent discussing Part II, which deals with rate support grant and the connected provisions relating to reduction of rate poundages and restrictions on borrowing. This reflects the great importance which your Lordships rightly attach to the provision of services to the public and the levels of public expenditure and taxation entailed in providing these services.

Your Lordships will recall that last week, during Report stage, I intimated my right honourable friend's intention to issue preliminary notices soon to certain local authorities in Scotland, indicating that the expenditure which they are planning to incur in 1981–82 appeared to him to be excessive and unreasonable within the terms specified in the Bill, and to inform them of his reasons for coming to that view. That notice was issued last week, shortly after my statement to the House, to seven local authorities which appeared to my right honourable friend to offer prima facie the most serious and urgent instances of excessive and unreasonable planned expenditure. As I made clear at the time, the Secretary of State may decide to exercise the powers in the Bill, if they are granted to him, in respect of other authorities later in the current financial year.

The overall effect of the provisions in Part II is that any authority for whom a reduction in rate support grant is proposed will have to choose between maintaining and reducing its planned expenditure for the current year. If it elects the former course it will, subject to the granting of the necessary powers by Parliament, and approval of the formal report to the House of Commons, suffer a substantial reduction in the income it had assumed would be forthcoming from rate support grant. A reduction in planned expenditure, on the other hand, could—if my right honourable friend were persuaded that the local authority's amended proposals were genuine and would be duly implemented—avoid such action. In that latter case, it would be considered firm evidence of interest if the authority were to exercise the discretionary power available in the Bill and reduce the rate fixed for the current year. This would, in effect, allow reimbursement to the ratepayers—domestic, commercial and industrial—in the course of the year 1981–82. My right honourable friend would also accept a reduction in actual expenditure without any reduction in the actual rate poundage, but this would result in the accumulation of balances to be taken into account for the benefit of ratepayers when next year's rate is fixed. But I must emphasise that, unless the authorities concerned proceed without delay to revise their budgets for the current year in a satisfactory manner, my right honourable friend will feel obliged to press for the approval by another place of his formal report and thereafter to proceed to reduce the amount of grant payable to the authority concerned. It is only fair that these authorities be given the maximum notice and, as appropriate, the maximum opportunity to make representations and reconsider spending plans. Fairness to the authorities concerned was a major consideration by my right honourable friend in issuing the notices I mentioned earlier.

Fairness to the authority is also a main consideration in assessing whether an authority's spending plans appear to be excessive and unreasonable and whether any reduction in grant should therefore be proposed. In criticising the Bill, noble Lords opposite have given some prominence in debate to the indicative guidelines issued by the Secretary of State. This may have tended to give a false impression of the degree to which these guidelines will be used as a measure of whether planned expenditure is excessive and unreasonable. My right honourable friend has assured the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—and similar assurances have been given in the course of discussion of earlier stages of the Bill—that, although regard will be had to guidelines, they will not be the sole criterion employed by the Secretary of State in assessing spending plans. The existing provisions in the 1966 Act require the Secretary of State to have regard to an authority's financial and other relevant circumstances. The Bill repeats this requirement and, in the interests of local authorities, adds other matters to which the Secretary of State may have regard.

I do not pretend that the measures in the Bill are palatable. But the Government have no reason to apologise for their introduction. My right honourable friend was most reluctant to bring the measures forward. Repeatedly he and other Ministers explained the need to reduce public spending and the important part local authorities have to play in the fight against inflation. In seeking to play his part in restoring the economy of the nation, the Secretary of State has done his utmost to be fair in his dealings with local authorities. He will continue to be fair. It is now up to local authorities to respond positively in a reasonable manner and, even at this stage, to do all they can to allow the Secretary of State to mitigate, if not obviate, use of the powers to reduce grant which he is seeking in this Bill.

I promised in the course of the Report stage debate to reflect on the question of the designation by local authorities of access officers to act as liaison officers and co-ordinators on matters relating to access to buildings by disabled people. Since then I have been able to establish that all but two of the authorities which exercise planning and building control functions have responded to the recommendation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities either by designating access officers or identifying a point of contact on access questions. In general those designated are staff of building control departments who are versed in the skills of reading plans and drawings and well qualified to take a view on questions relating to access for disabled people. The main value of this arrangement, it seems to me, lies in the fact that there is now in each of the authorities in question a single readily available source of advice on access problems. While the two authorities which have not agreed to make such an arrangement—Dumfries and Galloway Region and Gordon District—may well take the view that they already make adequate provision for the needs of disabled people to be considered, I think it important that there should be a clearly identified point of contact on questions of access for disabled people in all authorities which exercise planning and building control responsibilities. I propose, therefore, to have arrangements made for the question of the attitude adopted by these two authorities to be considered further with the Convention.

That said, it seems to me that it would have been both inappropriate and unnecessary, in the light of what has been achieved by voluntary means, for us to seek to impose a statutory duty on local authorities in Scotland to designate access officers, simply to oblige two authorities out of the 50 which exercise planning and building control functions to move into line. Quite apart from the fact that such a measure could not have been reconciled with the general policy of legislating to require local authorities to make particular appointments only where this is regarded as being absolutely essential, it would have been insulting to the many authorities which have made appropriate arrangements without any hint of pressure from the Government. I am very glad, therefore, that the amendment which sought to impose this statutory obligation was not pressed.

We propose to draw attention to the arrangements which have been made for designating access officers in the forthcoming circular to local authorities on the access provisions of the Bill. To cover the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), at Report stage, the circular will also make it clear that the provision of access around and between buildings—for example, access from a car park to a building—may be a material consideration to be taken into account by a planning authority in considering an application for planning permission. The circular will now be redrafted to take account of points made during the consideration of the Bill in your Lordships' House and will then be sent to COSLA and the Scottish Council on Disability for comment before being finalised. I should also be glad to send copies of the draft to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, should they wish to have the opportunity of contributing their wisdom on the matter.

Finally, your Lordships may wish me to say something about the Government's intentions as regards bringing into operation the new provisions on access which I moved at Report stage. The timing of the appointed day measure will depend on the speed with which progress is made on the consultations with interested parties which are a necessary preliminary to the making of the regulations to prescribe the procedure to be followed and the adjudicating body. However, we recognise the attraction of bringing this new measure into operation during the International Year of Disabled People and will make every effort to achieve this.

At the conclusion of this stage of the Bill I should like to express my personal thanks to Lord Lyell, for his assistance to me. I should like to express my thanks to all the members of your Lordships' House who have contributed to our debates. I include in this tribute the noble Lords, Lord Ross of Marnock and Lord Hughes, though there were perhaps relatively few points on which we managed to reach agreement with each other.

Lord Ross of Marnock

There was none, my Lords.

The Earl of Mansfield

Nevertheless, I am sure that the noble Lords deserve thanks from all sides of the House for their hard work in ensuring that the House gave the Bill a thorough examination. I should also like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, for the very constructive manner in which they assisted the Government in making this Bill something that I believe will be of very considerable help to the disabled in the future. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)

3.38 p.m.

Viscount Thurso

My Lords, as one who has not been thanked for his contribution, I should like to take this opportunity to say that we regretted the entry of this Bill into your Lordships' House and we regret even more its departure more or less unamended. I moved an amendment on at least two stages in the Bill, but unfortunately it was not incorporated, and therefore for some time to come the people of Scotland will still be at risk from burst water mains without any hope of compensation. However, what we really regret about this Bill is the way in which it illustrates a lack of feeling by the Government for the real efforts which have been made by local authorities throughout Scotland to economise in these difficult times. The difficulty local authorities face is in trying to economise in these times in both saving money and discharging their obligations. That is not easy to do, but it has been tackled with considerable vigour by most local authorities in Scotland.

If the noble Earl the Minister found it in his heart to be sorry for those local authorities who had not got around to appointing access officers for the disabled, and to feel tender in his heart, not liking in any way to insult other local authorities who might have appointed access officers, it is a pity that this same tenderness was not shown towards the willing local authorities of Scotland who have been trying hard to grapple with the problem of delivering services to the ratepayers and to the people in their regions and districts, in the light of the difficult economic scene and the uncertainty of what help they are going to receive from the Government to do so.

It is a pity that it is thought necessary by Her Majesty's Government to take a Bill through Parliament and to put lead into the end of their big stick. However, they have thought it necessary to do so. They have brought it to Parliament. We on these Benches have tried at least to seek some easement of the attacks which are likely to be mounted upon local authorities. We have shown the difficulties which lie ahead. Now that the Bill is likely to be passed, I can only hope that Her Majesty's Government, and in particular the Scottish Office, will use the big stick with which they have now been provided with the utmost care and discrimination: that they will not lay about themselves but will seek to re-establish a rapport between central Government and local government. Only if there is a true rapport between central Government and local government will economies successfully be made, will the administration of services to the people be successfully carried out. I hope that any bitterness which may be felt over some of the measures which it has been thought necessary to introduce may not prove to be so justified as some of us feel it may be.

We are grateful for some of the additions which have been made to existing legislation by some of the miscellaneous provisions contained in the Bill. We are grateful that after pressure, very largely in your Lordships' House, the disabled in this International Year of Disabled People are to get a very useful piece of recognition. I am also pleased to hear the assurances which the noble Earl the Minister has given about the talks which are to take place over access officers and the implementation of the new clause which was added to the Bill at Report stage. When the dust has settled from the debate over this Bill, I hope that what will come out of it will be an understanding of the excellent job which local authorities throughout Scotland are doing, in difficult circumstances, for the people whom they seek to serve.

3.44 p.m.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend on his sturdy defence of the Bill and for the painstaking explanations which he has given as points have been raised. Most of the controvery related to the financial clauses, the bulk of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, showed great stamina in arguing vigorously the case against the Government's proposals. In doing so, he did not overlook or miss any point which could be made.

I welcome the additions which have been made to the Bill concerning access to public buildings for disabled people. A great advance has been made in this Bill. It is a breakthrough. The proceedings on this clause at both Committee stage and Report were very late at night, but in the International Year of Disabled People it is appropriate that the new clause, Clause 37, should have been added to the Bill. I am chairman for Scotland of the International Year. The other three chairmen are not in Parliament, but I meet from time to time the chairmen for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and I know that they also will welcome what is being done.

The Government eventually agreed to add a clause on the lines of one tabled by me at the Committee stage. It applies in this Bill to Scotland, but the Government have undertaken to do the same for the other three parts of the United Kingdom, in a Private Member's Bill before this House for England and Wales and in separate legislation for Northern Ireland. It is right that I should acknowledge that and thank the Government, and I am very glad to do so.

When I speak of access I am of course referring to public buildings, to the need for ramps or lifts rather than steps—even two or three steps can obstruct a wheelchair—for doors to be wide enough to let wheelchairs through, for handrails and other equipment both inside and outside buildings for other disabled people. We have been waiting 11 years for this advance and it has been recommended and pressed by the leading bodies representing disabled people. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 legislated for public buildings to have access arrangements but there was no way of enforcing this legislation. The person responsible could plead that it was not practicable or reasonable, and there was no way of testing that plea.

This new clause, Clause 37, enables the Secretary of State to identify a body, or bodies, which will have the task of determining whether it is both practicable and reasonable to incorporate proper access arrangements in new buildings to be used by the public. These new buildings can be privately owned, such as shops, as well as publicly owned buildings. In future, the test will have to be carried out.

To incorporate this clause in the Bill was, I know, thoroughly inconvenient for the Government and also for the various departments concerned. Indeed, it has made the Bill even more miscellaneous. There have been numerous difficulties about this, in particular about dealing, as this Bill does, with one part of the United Kingdom. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Mansfield for the amount of work he must have done in order to enable this aspect to be brought in under this Bill. In 1981 we can applaud the fact that this is being carried out. It is one of the most important pieces of legislation which could be passed for disabled people in the International Year of Disabled People.

3.49 p.m.

Viscount Ingleby

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who has just spoken, I too would like to join in thanking the noble Earl the Minister for New Clause 37 which we all hope will, in the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, put some teeth into the access provisions of the 1970 Act. Recently an article in the Sunday Times described a certain Private Member's Bill concerning disabled people as having lost its gums and its teeth. I should like to congratulate the noble Earl on putting back some of the teeth into this Bill. I hope that as it proceeds through your Lordships' House further holes will be filled so that by the time it leaves us it will be a presentable Bill.

So far as access officers are concerned, each local authority will in any case have to designate someone to oversee the enforcement of New Clause 37. If there are to be improvements to existing buildings, then this person who is to be designated could be of tremendous help. I did not press my amendment on this point because all but two local authorities in Scotland already have these people, but England and Wales are lagging behind and I hope to return to this point before long. Again, I thank the noble Earl.

Lord Wilson of Langside

My Lords, as one whose principal overt concern with this Bill was to see strengthened the provisions of the original Clause 36, I should simply like to express my appreciation of the noble Earl's willingness to accept the need for this and most wholeheartedly to add my appreciation of his efforts in that direction to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.

The Earl of Minto

My Lords, I should like to apologise to the House for not being present during the Report stage. Four years ago I accepted an invitation to be present and to speak at a gathering in Scotland which occurred on 2nd June and I really felt that after four years only a fortnight's notice of absence would be a little too short. Therefore, I am afraid that I am going to take up one or two minutes of your Lordships' time because I still have one or two points that I should like to make.

At Second Reading I explained my reasons for believing that Part II of this Bill, if enacted, would kill the purposes of local government as we have been proud to know it until the present time. Since expressing that view I have listened to the arguments put forward in support of my belief by other noble Lords and to the explanations and counter-arguments of the noble Earl the Minister of State, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. I listened very carefully throughout the Second Reading and throughout the Committee stage, and I have read with the very greatest care of the progress of the Bill at Report stage. I have also read and re-read on several different occasions the Official Report of the proceedings throughout the whole of each of the three stages of the Bill. I have finally and sadly come to the conclusion that I dislike Part II of this Bill even more now than I have done previously.

If the answers given to the matters raised by the noble Lords, Lord Ross of Marnock and Lord Hughes, by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and indeed by myself, are the best answers available to the Government, then I think one can reasonably submit that the ghost of local government irresponsibility has been well and truly laid within the pages of the Official Report, while the charge from our quarter of a lack of control of central Government spending has not even begun to be answered.

If it is not over-presumptuous for a Member of your Lordships' House who has never held office, let alone high office, to thank one who has and who has done so with distinction, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, for using so forcefully the contents of my very humble notes when addressing himself to the evils of Clause 14 at Report stage. I have read that the noble Lord appears to have been chided by the noble Earl the Minister of State for taking 21 minutes to move his amendment. Speaking for myself—and, I know for certain, for many others who still give service in local government in Scotland—I do not believe that 21 minutes was a moment too long in which to point out to the Government the areas in which central Government have placed enormous additional burdens and duties upon local government since reorganisation: burdens and duties which necessarily cost money to implement, which we are now told is excessive and unreasonable expenditure. Indeed, it is perhaps just as well for the noble Earl that I had to be in Scotland at Report, for although it may have seemed a very long list to him and a very long 21 minutes, in fact the noble Lord, Lord Ross, used only a small part of the total number of additional duties with which I furnished him to aid his case.

As your Lordships are only too well aware, Part II is the main plank of this Bill and I can only assume that since no noble Lords spoke in favour of it the deafening silence from behind and beside the Minister and his two noble colleagues is a better indication of the feelings of your Lordships' House than the dragooned votes that supported it. So before leaving this particular area of the field I will repeat, quite simply, my earnest contention that when 59 out of 65 of Scotland's local authorities are unable to meet the guidelines by many percentage points it is a sure indication that the Government are blind to the real cost of providing the services encouraged by themselves and expected by the people. There may be a temptation for the noble Earl to reply that these duties are not all encouraged by the Government, to which I should have to answer that while they remain within the law the Government, by implication, maintain an attitude of encouragement.

During the Committee stage when I pointed this out to the Minister on a point of interjection, and said that councils were acting within the law, the noble Earl replied, "And we are going to change the law". But, my Lords, the effect of this Bill is not to alter the law one iota with regard to the responsibilities in law of local government. To suggest that it did would be thoroughly dishonest and I know the noble Earl far too well to suspect him of being even remotely associated with anything dishonest.

So what we are being asked to do here today is not to change any of the laws of requirement but to add a law which in effect changes the house rules. It is becoming like a game of cards in which the rules are well known to all the players until the host, on a whim—and to his advantage—suddenly introduces a house rule to suit his own convenience. This would be totally unacceptable within your Lordships' homes, and to my mind therefore it should be totally unacceptable to your Lordships' House. It is indeed not at all a pleasant thought.

It is also not a very pleasant thought because at this moment we are as a nation struggling to regain our economic base, and anybody who has, unselfishly, the interests of our nation at heart, should therefore be wishing the Government well. The Government should be wished well, irrespective of political persuasion.

No persons in local government, or indeed outside it, can possibly challenge the Government's inalienable right to control expenditure. That is part of the democratic process, and long may it last. But the democratic process is part and parcel of our unwritten constitution, and that constitution is based upon two elected authorities within the United Kingdom, central Government and local government. Up until this moment, this has been recognised as a precious relationship; it is certainly a brittle relationship and it has always been a delicate relationship. That is why successive Governments have striven to treasure it and to nurture it.

To this end, central Government has in the past, rightly, had a deep concern for overall general points of expenditure, which includes the expenditure of local government in general terms, while local government, being equally answerable to the electorate, has within the powers vested in it had an equal concern over the implementation of its independent authority. The lifeblood of local government is its independence. That independence creates that sense of responsibility which, in partnership with central Government, is the crux of our unwritten constitution. But now central Government, within this Bill, is moving from the general to the particular spending of particular authorities, and I am saying to your Lordships with all the sincerity at my command that this move is dangerous. The move will challenge the pride, and it will erode, not strengthen, the responsibility, of local government.

If central Government are to execute this course of action, I must humbly warn that the reaction of the local authorities to direct control will be a growing sense of instability, leading quite possibly to an irresponsibility hitherto unimagined and on such a scale that we shall lose for all time our constitution, which, as I have already said, is very dear and precious to us. The message from each local authority north of the Border is both loud and clear, and it can be taken directly from those words which surround the thistle as the emblem of Scotland, "Nemo me impune lacessit"; and when that message is the cry of Scotland is it ever, ever, too late for a Government at Westminster to think again? I think it is not, and I find it impossible to support this Bill.

4.5 p.m.

Lord Ross of Marnock

My Lords, there must be very few Bills of this importance, of this complexity, and so open to the amendment of so many facets, that have gone through this House without amendment. Well, one amendment. I am the first to praise the organising ability and the stamina of those who, at very considerable inconvenience to themselves, stayed until about a quarter to one one morning; they were able to impress upon the Government that if they did not at least make a promise and hold to that promise they would be defeated, as they would have been that night. That is the only thing that has been done on this Bill. There must be very few Bills in respect of which that kind of thing has ever happened, even in this House.

As a relative newcomer to this place, what staggered me was that we have three or four ex-Secretaries of State for Scotland sitting on the other side of the House. We have Ministers of State, we have people who represent or come from territorial parts of Scotland. What was the contribution they made to the ongoing of this Bill? On Second Reading, not one of them spoke; on Committee stage, the only speeches that were made were made almost by accident. I think there was one noble Lord who did not like the rates he was paying, and the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said a word or two, not to the credit of the Government, about valuation.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will give way; it is very kind of him. I think I am included among the former Secretaries of State for Scotland. I must record that I did speak on Second Reading, and I did also speak at the Committee stage.

Lord Ross of Marnock

My Lords, my recollection is that when we came to that part of the Committee stage, the noble Lord was not here. If he spoke, I will gladly withdraw. My memory is fairly good, and I was here during the whole proceedings. The only contribution we got at Report stage was, I think, from the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene, who spoke about Strathclyde and must be very disappointed that Strathclyde is one of the good authorities and not one of the bad authorities, as he expected.

This Bill opened up, or could have opened up, every single facet of local government—police, education, everything was there—and the amount of interest on that side of the House was nil. If Lord Campbell of Croy spoke, he spoke only about the disabled part, which was not in the Bill at all at the start; it was a Labour Member in the other place who brought it into the Bill, and he would have gone further, but the Government said no. So far as the Minister of State is concerned, he has let his side down, because he was only given the simple instruction, "no amendments". It is the same kind of instruction which has been given on the Forestry Bill, although the pressures here have changed his mind about that, too, but we shall come to that later in the day.

Why no amendments? Because they are taking action now in respect of rate support grant for the year 1981–82; that year will probably be about a third of the way through when they get the Bill, because now, thanks to the disabled lobby, it has to go to another place and come back. I think they hope to do that fairly quickly this week. Then they have to go through the procedures of Clause 14, which means informing local authorities against whom action is going to be taken, and remember that the Government have already given them until the end of July to reply in respect of a preliminary action. I do not know what date in July it will be, but I hope that it will not be the 29th. It is a nice wedding present for the local authorities in Scotland, is it not? After the reply comes back they must draw up a report and include in that report the representations of the local authorities. Then they must bring a report and move a resolution asking the House of Commons to agree with what they are going to do.

That will bring us to about the month of October. If only they could have got this done in about six or seven weeks! But in October they will tell the local authorities in Scotland whom they select. And they will have the support eventually of the House of Commons, because this is the last "say" that we shall have about it. It is the Commons who will approve the report or otherwise. They will expect the Lothian Authority—and I hold no brief for them to save £53 million during the rest of the year between November and April. They have denied them the right to borrow to tide themselves over. They have tied them up. The noble Lord says that he hopes for co-operation. You cannot have proper government in Scotland without co-operation. What chance have you of co-operation when you tie somebody up, knock them down and kick them in the teeth? That is not exactly the recipe for getting co-operation.

What will the timetable be? I consider that this is the worst Bill that I have ever known from the point of view of practicability as well as fairness. Local government in Scotland will get into the most awful mess. None of the local authorities know where they are at present. We had a Statement from the Secretary of State the other day to the effect that he will take action in respect of all the local authorities. I think he said that he was going to cut off £200 million and that he was going to do that by means of the rate support grant formula—that is the only way he can do it touching them all. However, that can only be reduced if he gets at them selectively with the powers in the Bill that we are now asked to pass, and he says that he might need the two. So every local authority in Scotland has doubts as to what will happen to them and what monies they will have. It does not finish there. He is now going to use powers that have never been there.

I want to apologise—I see that he is not here—to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside. His party showed only a passing interest and that was in the matter of disablement and access. I think that at one point I said that the 1966 Act was a consolidation Act: it was not a consolidation Act at all, it was the Act that introduced the new rate support grant formula of needs, resources, et cetera. But the power that was used to build up Clause 14 has been in statutes since before the war and has never been used. The Government imply that they will use it now in respect of expenditures, not for the current year but for last year, and suggest that they will take away about £60 million. Unless they use that power they will use the Rate Support Grant Increase Order which means that they will penalise every authority. According to the distribution formula they will all have to bear their share rather than those who caused the trouble.

However, the matter does not end there. Anyone who paid attention to the statement will know that we are promised further legislation both in England and Wales, and in Scotland to hammer the local authorities still further next year. And we expect co-operation? We expect stable Government? In the Reform of Local Government in Scotland it says: Local authorities form a vital part of the nation's democracy and a modern and effective system of local government is essential to achieve the Government's aims of freedom and responsibility at all levels of society". I am sure that those words will ring familiarly in the ears of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, because those are the opening words of the Reform of Local Government in Scotland presented in 1971. As a Secretary of State one has to take responsibility for the Bills that become Acts of Parliament, and the noble Lord was responsible for the Bill dealing with the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in 1973. But the man who took it through Committee was the present Secretary of State. He takes responsibility now for this modern, effective system of local government essential to achieve the Government's aim of freedoms and responsibilities. They constantly say: local government has become too dependent on central Government, with an inevitable loss of local control over local affairs". What is the result of this Bill? In respect of finance local government is completely in the hands of central Government. They are going to determine what the expenditures will be—not just over the whole lot because we have it from Mr. Rifkind in another place that it may be that one particular part of local government expenditure concerns them, and they have to say that in the report to the House of Commons. It has become a mockery and we have reached a very parlous state and a very dangerous state, as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, has said.

There is pride in local government. Tributes have been paid to the dedication of the men concerned and the ability of public servants. It is all in this document written by a Conservative Secretary of State. Where is it now? Did those men suddenly lose their public spirit? Did those local government services suddenly lack their abilities? Of course they did not. The nub of the whole matter is the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Minto. If you set unrealistically low guidelines—and anyone who knows anything about the rate support grant knows how it is done and that you determine reckonable expenditure, what it should be for the coming year although it used to be for two years—then it will not be attained or contained by the local authorities: their expenditures are bound to be above it. If further you reduce the percentage that the Government pay to meet their share of the local expenditures then that will be another spur. As regards Scotland it has varied because it depends who was Secretary of State, I suppose; but in the past two years it has gone down and it is now at the lowest it has been for a long time. It was reduced last year and reduced again this year. If you are to spend what you should spend, inevitably your rates will go up. Then along comes the Secretary of State who says, "Your rates are too high. You are spending too much".

We had a comparison from the noble Lord on Second Reading—the one referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Minto, earlier. That comparison concerned how extravagent local authorities have been since 1971 as against the Government forgetting to tell us that during that time the school-leaving age was raised by a Conservative Government, expenditures had to be curbed, additional teachers were needed in secondary schools and new schools had to be built. That was compared with what is actually being talked about now. Since 1974–75 local government expenditure in aggregate has gone down. Yet there are services which are the responsibility of the Secretary of State, exclusive of local government, which have gone up. The people who have been spending more money are the Government themselves.

So I want to know just exactly what will happen in local government. What do the Government expect of local government—that it will suddenly conform and do the impossible in the six months or so that are left? How will local government conduct any negotiations with the Secretary of State in respect of next year's rate support grant?—because such negotiations are usually completed by the end of the year. All this is to happen in the month of August. It is just not on. It is chaos, and that is what the Government have created. They set out deliberately to have this confrontation, arising from how they spoke. No wonder the leader published in The Scotsman of 27th May and its leader of 5th of June say: … there is no evidence to suggest widespread extravagance on a scale that would justify the damage that Mr. Younger is doing to local government and the worse straits he threatens to impose on it.". If the Minister of State looks back on his parliamentary career, as some have to eventually, I do not think that he will call this his proudest moment. We still remember someone in Scottish history whom we called the "Hammer of the Scots". At least he was an Englishman—and that was Edward himself. But to think that a Scotsman should put himself in the position of becoming the puppet of the Treasury! because this comes from the Treasury. It seems that if England does it, Scotland must do it too. If Mr. Heseltine makes a Statement one day, the Secretary of State makes a Statement the next day. This is what has happened.

When we consider that this House as much as the other place placed all the additional responsibilities on local government, we should be defending local government and not attacking it. This is one of the worst day's work that we have had from this Government. We are promised more next year. I asked the noble Earl, a question the other day but received no answer. I want to allow the House to judge as to which local government, in a prima facie way anyway, is extravagant. Will the Minister list the budgets for the proposals of all the Scottish local authorities—all 65 of them—and will he mark in red ink the ones against which at the moment he will take action? There is not the slightest doubt that there are others in that list of 65 which could have higher and more expensive budgets. It may well be that they can explain it, but then so can Dumbarton explain its expenditure, and the same applies to Dundee. We used to reckon—and I think that it was worked out by COSLA—that Cumnock and Doon Valley local authority spent less per head of population than any other comparable local authority. But they have been blacklisted; they are on the hit list for £450,000.

It is quite inconceivable how the Government reach these conclusions, even from the powers that they take in this Bill and which eventually they will have to prove. Some local authorities they will drop, but the chances are that they are only after one local authority. One local authority has offended them, so we get all this armoury of powers to deal with it.

Perhaps I may remind the disablement lobby of the answer that they received (they are too easily satisfied) from the Minister of State just now about the designation of access officers. He said that only two local authorities are backsliders. I doubt whether, even in their opinion, there are two local authorities who are serious backsliders in relation to expenditure. However, the Minister said that it did not need to be included because as there are only two, they could deal with that. As regards Scottish local authorities, are there two? Probably there are two at the most. But because there are these two, we must build up this armoury of powers. It does not make sense. The Minister cannot have it both ways—persuading the people who are interested in disablement to withdraw their amendments or their new clauses as against what he is prepared to do to a minimum of Scottish local authorities.

I hope that the Government will think again. I gave them the chance during the debate to think again; at least I applied my mind to it. Local democracy means that the local people decide. I suggested to the Government that they should hold a local referendum. I notice that, according to one new Scottish Sunday newspaper, Mr. Heseltine is thinking about this idea. Why not?—the Minister could do it even now on Third Reading with a manuscript amendment. He has taken a power to delay the valuation. Why does he not take power to advance the next elections so that instead of waiting three or four years, the Secretary of State can say that there will be an election next May to find out what the local people think about this. He thinks that the local people are concerned only about the actual rates. There is no reason why he could not take that power. We are promised legislation again next year by the Secretary of State and by the Minister of State repeating the Statement here, so we could learn what the local people think about this. That is the true discipline upon local authorities.

If local democracy works, then we must leave the local people to deal with recalcitrant local authorities; but in many cases you will find that the local authority will have the support of its people, because this means that there will be fewer services for the disabled. We passed a Bill within the last year which, I am very glad to say, had the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and others. It was about according the same facilities of subsidised transport in Scotland to the handicapped and to the blind. That cost Glasgow £300,000, if not more; perhaps £500,000. We should not be doing that if we are to allow the Government to come back and clobber local government for having spent the money and obeyed the dictates of Parliament. That is what will happen. I have seen a list of things that Glasgow and Strathclyde have rejected; options that were laid before them, It will cut subsidised transport, school transport, and meals for the elderly; it will mean closing residential homes, and all because the Government failed to give a realistic figure in relation to reckonable expenditure, and failed to give adequate support to the local authorities. We should have a resolution stating the unreasonableness of the Government, because in regard to Scottish local authorities as a whole this Government have been very unreasonable indeed.

4.29 p.m.

Baroness Elliot of Harwood

My Lords, I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, and one appreciates that he has immense experience of all kinds of Government, particularly of government in Scotland. But I must protest at some of the remarks he made. First, he said that those of us on this side of the House did not support our noble friend Lord Mansfield. I made as strong a speech as I could on Second Reading, which was countered by my noble friend Lord Minto. Both of us live in the same area and, as I think I told your Lordships, he has succeeded me on the regional council. On this particular Bill we differ and there is no reason why we should not: after all, we differ from our friends in many ways. But that does not make me any less friendly towards him.

In fact, we on this side played an active part in the debates. As your Lordships know, on a Government Bill, supporters of the Government have to limit their speeches because to do otherwise only prolongs discussion on the Bill. Therefore, many of us have tried to be as economical as possible in speaking. That does not mean that we do not support the Government. The only thing that happened to both the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and me was that we were involved on the day of the Second Reading in exactly the same engagement in the Borders. About four years ago, plans for a rally of the Elliot clan were made. There were people from all over the world there, from Canada, Australia, USA and elsewhere. We had promised to be there and to speak, and we really could not cancel. Otherwise I certainly would have come down here if I had thought I could be any help to my noble friend Lord Mansfield on the Report stage.

We are all of us extremely anxious that this Bill should be a success. I was for years on the county council, and during those years we did not have this inflation. We did not have this enormous difficulty in finding the money we needed for everything. We were in a much happier position in those 29 years when I was on the Roxburgh County Council than the county councillors are today. We were able to do things which I think and hope were of great assistance to our supporters and the voters in the areas in which we lived.

But today, the situation is different and we have to realise that, and we all do realise it. What is more, the voters realise it. Just as the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has spoken about all of the people who he thinks are dead against this legislation, I have had ever so many people write and telephone to me saying, "This is what we want. We want to have some restrictions on the amount of money that people have to pay".

Of course it is agreeable to spend money. We all love spending money. I love to spend money. I like doing everything I possibly can to help people in every possible way. On this occasion it is not spending money that is helping people; it is economising expenditure that is going to make it possible to achieve the financial recovery of this country. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, whom I admire very much for all the work he has done in his great career in Scotland, has exaggerated the fact that perhaps we did not speak enough on this Bill. Some of us who are equally enthusiastic about local government in Scotland—and I bow to nobody in that—feel very keenly that if my noble friend Lord Mansfield and the Government can bring about a situation in which recovery in Scotland enables us to do all the things we should like to do in future, and increase the services for the people, then we shall have done something really worthwhile.

I am afraid that I speak an awful lot in your Lordships' House, and I am always afraid of boring your Lordships, so I do not speak unless I feel very strongly about something. I had not intended to speak on this Third Reading, but I feel very strongly indeed that we should give the Government all the support we can. There are thousands of people in Scotland who are behind me in all this, and who hope that this Bill will be a success. So I would support my noble friend Lord Mansfield and all that he is trying to do. Hopefully, it will lead to better times, and then we shall be able to do other things as well which we should all like to do.

4.33 p.m.

Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief, but I should just like to say how glad I am that the planning circular will make it clear how essential it is to have an access officer for a local authority, because although we know there are only two local authorities in Scotland who have not designated one I think it is important to have it in black and white. As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said at Report stage surely it is the business of Parliament as a whole to make sure that if something is necessary it is done everywhere.

My second point is that I want to say how delighted I am to hear the noble Earl say today that the planning circular will make access around, and between, buildings and from, for example, the car park to a building, a material planning consideration, because this is terribly important. We must remember that we are not just dealing with people in wheelchairs but the blind, the ambulant disabled, and everything. It is also helpful to remember that when these considerations are met that the lives of the pram pushers, the parcel carriers, the pregnant, the temporarily disabled and the old are in fact also made much easier. I am very aware that Clauses 36 and 37 are a very small part of this Bill, but I feel that when Clause 37 is implemented, and when we have the strengthened planning circular, it will make a very big difference to the lives of many disabled Scotsmen and women, and so I should like to thank the Minister for making this possible.

Baroness Masham of Ilton

My Lords, it was a very welcome and satisfying moment in your Lordships' House when the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, moved his amendment to strengthen the legislation to give better access facilities for disabled people to buildings to which the public are to have access. When the noble Earl went on at Report stage, when discussing his amendment, stating that it is the Government's intention that similar provision should extend to the rest of the country by means of an amendment to the Disabled Persons (No. 2) Bill now in your Lordships' House, I was even more delighted. As many of your Lordships know, especially those who are disabled and know from first-hand experience how important good access is, I should just like to say that it has been a long, hard battle to convince the Government how important this legislation is.

I should like to thank on behalf of all the disabled people who will benefit, all your Lordships who have helped in this matter. This includes our Lord in Heaven, as his intervention was asked for in this very important matter. I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and the Scottish Office for all they have done. When I speak in Edinburgh at a conference later this year I will not forget to mention the wise decision made by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and his department. I shall also do likewise when speaking on the results of the International Year of Disabled People at Edinburgh University, when I speak at a conference there earlier next year.

We have discussed during the passage of this Bill the need for access officers who are expert in access to advise local authorities on these matters. This was fully supported by your Lordships at Report stage. The noble Earl has given an undertaking to encourage the only two local authorities not to have an access officer, to do so. I am greatly encouraged by the many voluntary bodies throughout the country who have become watchdogs, who I am sure will help to see that correct access is not forgotten.

In some parts of the country the Consumer Council has set up and is operating a scrutineering system. Scrutineers inspect the planning lists. The planning lists will show what sort of project is being submitted for approval. The plans are then scrutinised to ensure that adequate access for the disabled is provided. I am sure that co-operation between the statutory and voluntary sectors can only be helpful. I am very pleased that during 1981 your Lordships have been able to improve this Bill to include better provision regarding the needs of the disabled.

4.38 p.m.

The Earl of Mansfield

My Lords, it is usually not necessary on a debate such as this for the Minister to reply, but I think I should in this important debate for two reasons. First, and shortly, to thank noble Lords and noble Baronesses, especially those who are disabled, for the kind words that they have said. There has been a considerable effort by a number of departments in Government to achieve something that would improve this Bill, and I am glad that they have acknowledged that fact and that we have been able to do something which I think in the years ahead will possibly be regarded as a milestone.

The other matters with which I must deal are one or two points that have been made in this debate. Normally if the noble Lord, Lord Ross, makes a bad point I do not always answer it—not that he often does make a bad point, but he is fallible like the rest of us. When he makes a false point, then it is something with which I really have to deal. In this case, he quite unjustifiably insinuated—in fact said directly—that my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy had not in fact attended the debates upon this important Bill. Well, of course he did, and he spoke on Second Reading on two matters. He was also present and spoke during the deliberations in Committee, so I am glad of the opportunity to put that point right.

As to the generality of the the Bill, one would have thought from what the noble Lord, Lord Ross, said, and to a certain extent from the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Minto, that what we are trying to do is something totally new and novel; in other words, to try to reduce local government expenditure. When the noble Lord, Lord Ross, was Secretary of State for Scotland, he spent a considerable time—as I am sure he will acknowledge if he casts his mind back—in trying, as it were, to curtail and reduce local government expenditure. His successor in office, Mr. Millan, took part more or less in the same exercise, and indeed when local government expenditure goes against the trends of a Government's economic policy, any responsible Secretary of State will try to get local government expenditure to correspond to national economic priorities. There is no alternative.

In the debates in this House since this Government took office, it has sometimes seemed to me to be very difficult for noble Lords opposite to appreciate just how badly off, economically speaking, this country is. What we are trying to do so far as planned expenditure is concerned is to get local authorities to reduce their expenditure to the planned figure for 1981–82, and that is higher than the actual expenditure the then Secretary of State, Mr. Millan, approved in 1977–78; and if at that time anybody thought these dire consequences would be the result, I certainly do not recall that being said. In 1980–81 and 1981–82 local authorities' estimated spending will be higher in real terms than spending in the noble Lord's period of office. That is the way in which anybody who comes to consider the Bill and the effect it will have must compose his thoughts.

The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, spoke about tenderness to the disabled but not to the local authorities. I would remind him that the measures in Part II are selective; they will be used only for authorities whose expenditure is unreasonable and excessive. In deciding whether it appears to him that the spending of an individual authority falls into that category, the Secretary of State will have to look carefully at any representations which may be made to him, and more especially he will have to put that in the form of the report which will go to the House of Commons.

The noble Viscount in effect said that local authorities had the task or duty to engage in expenditure to meet their statutory duties, and that of course is right. But I would remind him that they retain a considerable discretion as to how they perform those duties. There is a great range of expenditure by local authorities on a number of services, and at this time of economic difficulty it is absolutely essential that they perform their tasks, decide their priorities and pursue in general a course of what I might describe as moderate expenditure. What Part II does, and what it only does really, is to discourage immoderate expenditure.

Thus, I hope the idea will not go forth from this House that the Bill will in some way reduce the effectiveness of local authorities to carry out the functions which their members are elected to perform. What it is intended to do, and what we hope it will do, is to bring home to those local authorities that they cannot so comport themselves financially that their financial policies are grossly extravagant; and, if they do, then the Government, who after all are responsible undertake the right course of action. It is in those circumstances that I commend the Bill to the House for Third Reading.

On Question, Bill read 3a, with the amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

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