Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2021
I am delighted to close the debate on the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill for the Conservatives.
Local democracy is fundamentally important to our society. Councillors the length and breadth of Scotland are at the coal face of daily life. They understand the challenges that their constituents face and the aspirations of their communities, and they are best placed to identify solutions and opportunities. We need to trust our local communities and local people to make decisions on the policies that most directly affect them. As I have said before, that is why I welcome the bill and the incorporation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government into Scots law. I pay tribute to Andy Wightman for introducing the bill.
We all know that Scotland’s local communities are not trusted to make decisions themselves. Sometimes, it is difficult to say that our councils are truly local government. A better description might be that they are an extension, or an arm’s-length body, of the Scottish Government. That is certainly how they have been treated. In recent years, the growing number of diktats and bits of guidance from Holyrood has shown that to be the case, and councils have had less and less control over their budgets.
Formal and informal ring fencing has reduced the discretionary spend that councils have and therefore reduced the scope for local decision making. For that reason, the axe has had to fall even harder on many essential services in local communities. It cannot be said that the current Scottish Government is compliant with the principles of the charter. Therefore, we welcome the Government’s support of the bill.
As we said in the stage 1 debate, the purpose of the bill is to ensure that the Scottish Government changes its approach to councils. I ask the Government when the policy diktats will stop and when the ring fencing of budgets will stop. I think that we all know the answer to those questions: they will not.
Although I welcome the ambition of the bill, I still have reservations about how it will work in practice. I still doubt that councils will have the risk appetite or the funds to challenge the Scottish Government in court and to engage in the process to ensure that their local democracy rights are protected. It is simply a case of waiting to see how it will work in practice.
That said, I welcome some of the stage 2 amendments that improved the bill. In particular, I welcome the amendment to ensure that the Scottish ministers have a duty to consult local authority representatives. I also welcome the additional checks and balances in relation to action that is taken by the Scottish ministers. It is vital that the Parliament has proper oversight of any regulations that are made by the Scottish ministers under section 6 of the bill.
Before I conclude, I will highlight some points that were made in the debate. Andy Wightman talked about strengthening the standing of local authorities, and how COSLA has asked for the adoption of the charter in the past. The bill will involve modest changes that will make a difference across the country.
The cabinet secretary spoke about the positive changes of the bill, and the positive approach that has got us to stage 3. Annie Wells talked about the role of local government, and what it can do with its powers. As she identified, there is no doubt that things have been centralised.
We in the Scottish Conservatives welcome the bill to enshrine the European Charter of Local Self-Government in Scots law, which will bring Scotland in line with other European countries. Devolution should not stop at Edinburgh but, over the current Government’s term in office, powers have been sucked into the centre, and local government in Scotland has been fundamentally undermined, both politically and financially. The bill is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, but we need to change the powers of local councils in the future.
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