Hansard

I am delighted that we are discussing the incorporation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. In 1997, the Labour Government signed up to the charter and it ratified it a year later. I am glad that we are here, more than two decades on, to put the charter into Scottish law and empower Scottish local government.

As has been said in the chamber before, in our councils’ response to the pandemic, they have stepped up to the challenge. They have been capable of fundamental change in their service delivery informed by their knowledge and experience of what local communities and businesses need, and they have delivered real and workable solutions.

As a member of the Local Government and Communities Committee, I have worked with colleagues to scrutinise the bill and the intention behind it. I thank all the witnesses and others who have given us evidence and the Parliament’s clerks for the support that we have received from them.

Since I returned to Parliament in 2019, I have been in a position to see just why the bill is so necessary through my conversations with local government representatives. Alexander Stewart referenced the written submission to the committee from the leader of Shetland Islands Council. In talking about the extent to which his budget is now focused on issues that he is working on with the Scottish Government, the councillor described the sense that councils are

“becoming very much like health boards.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Communities Committee, 18 November 2020; c 43.]

I have had feedback from councillor colleagues across the country who have seen their autonomy as elected officials being chipped away by centralised policy decisions.

In introducing the bill, Andy Wightman has aimed to create parity of esteem between the Scottish Government and local government, ensuring that decisions that impact locally are made locally. That is a principle that I and my Labour colleagues whole-heartedly support. The UK was the only one of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe not to have transposed the charter, so it will make an important political statement for us to support the bill today.

Section 2 of the bill places a duty on the Scottish ministers

“to act compatibly with the Charter Articles”,

and section 4 places an obligation on the Parliament to pass legislation

“which is compatible with the Charter Articles.”

That is an important step in ensuring that the work of our elected representatives in the chamber complements the work that elected representatives in our councils are doing to support their local communities.

Section 8 is also of great importance. It requires individual members who bring forward a member’s bill to state whether, in their view,

“the Bill is compatible with the Charter”.

I believe that that gives members of the Parliament the opportunity to work with their council colleagues to strengthen the impact of members’ bills that come before the Parliament by ensuring that they are compliant and can be facilitated by councils in a way that understands local needs and aspirations.

I note that the squeeze on local authority resources has been exacerbated under the SNP Government. Despite voicing its support for initiatives such as the local governance review and the bill, this year’s budget is another disappointment for local government. Local authorities have seen their budgets lose £937 million in non-ring-fenced revenue expenditure since 2013-14.

As I said, the pandemic has highlighted just how dependent we and our local communities are on local government to support us. Councils have shown us the myriad of ways in which they can innovate to respond to crisis. In its submission to the committee, COSLA stated that the bill

“would strengthen local and national governments’ ability to work jointly to improve outcomes in communities across Scotland ... strengthen Scotland’s democracy by ensuring that communities enjoy the same local democratic rights that are already commonplace across Europe and beyond ... deliver the unfinished business of the Scottish Parliament by ensuring that for the first time this partnership between national and local government is built into Scotland’s system of democratic governance, and reflected in its day to day culture and practice”

and

“ensure that Scotland fully complies with international treaty obligations, and addresses outstanding issues that have previously been identified in this regard.”

I completely agree with COSLA. Those are important principles, and I look forward to Parliament agreeing to the principles of the bill—I hope—this afternoon with cross-party support, and to addressing the detailed issues when it comes to committee.