Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2021
Andy Wightman introduced the bill to Parliament less than a year ago and I, too, congratulate him on bringing it to this important and historic stage. However, in truth, it has been a very long journey to get to this stage, in a process that started well before the Parliament had even come into being. I feel as though I have travelled much of that journey alongside it.
As a former council officer, councillor, council leader, member of the European Union’s European Committee of the Regions and now a member of the bill committee, I have some insight into both the need for the bill and its passage into law. I utterly disagree with the previous speakers on what they believe is the retrenchment towards centralisation since 2007. Perhaps they are not as aware as I am of the history of local government before that period.
The European Charter of Local Self-Government came into being on 15 October 1985 and was signed by all 47 member states of the Council of Europe, with the United Kingdom ratifying it in 1998. Before any Brexity types in the Conservative seats start to get all anxious, that is the Council of Europe, one of the few European institutions of which the UK still retains membership. Job done, then, you might think. Why are we still discussing it some 35 years down the road? We are doing that because, as Andy Wightman said, ratification is not the same as incorporation.
It is all very well to say that we agree with a set of principles and then not do anything about it, but what has actual meaning is to say that we agree with the principles and will abide by them. To demonstrate that commitment, and to ensure that we will indeed follow the principles, we must make them part of our legal corpus. The Law Society of Scotland pointed out in its submission to the committee, and the explanatory notes to the bill make it clear, that in the legal systems of the UK
“domestic and international law are distinct and separate from one another. We agree ... that to give public international law the same legal authority as domestic law it must be incorporated into domestic law.”
That is what we are doing today. We are incorporating the charter into Scots law and doing something that I recall supporting at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities more than 20 years ago as a council leader.
I think that Annie Wells, with her litany of attacks on the SNP, does not understand the history of local government. She talks about local authorities being cash strapped, but the idea that that is distinct from the austerity measures of the Government that she supports is laughable.
The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe has responsibility for ensuring the proper application of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, and it is worth reading from the congress’s most recent monitoring report on the UK’s compliance, which was published in 2014, although I suspect that it is more applicable than ever. The report
“expresses satisfaction that the UK is, in general, in compliance with the obligations taken under the Charter and that, compared to 1998, the situation has improved, notably through the devolution process”—
a process that, in contradistinction to what Annie Wells was saying, the UK Government has not observed. We should look at its attacks on this institution.
On consultation procedures, the report welcomes the successful “partnership approach” that was adopted in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It notes that there are some “areas of concern”, particularly regarding
“The financial resources available to local authorities, their limited taxing powers and their dependence on government grants”.
It also underlines that
“there are ‘ambiguities’ that need to be addressed in areas such as the ‘lack of recognition’ of the constitutional right to local self-government in the law beyond the general powers granted by the Localism Act 2011.”
Not having incorporated the charter long ago, the UK is, as on so many other matters, very much an outlier. We have the opportunity today to steer Scotland, at least, back towards the mainstream, perhaps providing an example for the rest of the UK to follow. Most importantly, the bill will strengthen local government in Scotland, and I am pleased to support it.