Meeting of the Parliament (Virtual) 04 February 2021
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I thank the Local Government and Communities Committee for its work on the bill. It produced a first-class report, and I am only sorry that I was not on the committee to be part of its consideration. As members know, I was a very enthusiastic member of the committee until fairly recently.
I knew that Andy Wightman’s bill was coming up, and, indeed, I was a supporter of the committee dealing with it in this parliamentary session. I consider Andy Wightman to be a friend. We have often been on the same page—although not always. He has been a strong advocate for local government—as have I, but he has gone further than me by introducing the bill. I back the bill and congratulate him on it.
In essence, the bill is about showing respect to local government—something that has been, and is, lacking in this country. The bill aims to strengthen the status and standing of local government by incorporating the European charter into Scots law. That includes making it possible to challenge, in the Scottish courts, any executive action by Scottish ministers within devolved competence or any legislation that is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and is believed to be incompatible with the charter.
The bill does a number of things, but two of them are really important. It places a duty on Scottish ministers to act compatibly with the charter articles and it places a duty on Scottish ministers to promote self-government.
We could have quite a few debates in the years ahead over that last point. For example, how could it be argued that local self-government was being promoted if powers are centralised? How would the current restrictions on civil liberties be compatible with that? How would year-on-year cuts to council budgets be compatible with that? We could have some fun, and I hope that I am here to see it.
Mr Wightman contends that Scotland is unusual in Europe in not having transposed the charter into domestic law. One of the key questions for the committee was what the impact of the bill would be, and it struggled with that. In some ways, it could be considered symbolic. However, I do not think that that would be the case.
The charter has a number of key principles, which have been mentioned by some of today’s speakers. There have been some good contributions today, most notably by my friend Alexander Stewart, who made a blistering argument in favour of respecting local government.
The committee convener, James Dornan, gave a very considered speech on behalf of the committee. Aileen Campbell said that the bill was about partnership and will strengthen local democracy. Sarah Boyack told us that councillors feel that their autonomy is being chipped away at. Keith Brown was Keith Brown and David Torrance and others were better.
However, the last word should go to Andy Wightman—always a man of independent mind and now at peace with himself as a genuine independent. In his opening remarks he said that local authorities’ standing and powers have been weakened. The bill aims to fix that, which is why we support it.
16:05