Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2026 [Draft]
The bill has always had a simple and widely supported purpose: to incorporate the European Charter of Local Self-Government into Scots law, giving local authorities clear legal rights to require ministers to act compatibly with the charter, and to ensure that Scotland meets the democratic standards that are expected across Europe. It strengthens local autonomy, improves transparency and provides councils with a meaningful safeguard if their role is undermined.
The bill was universally supported when it was originally passed, in February 2021. Getting it on to the statute book should have been the easy part. However, we are here five years later because the Scottish Government failed to act with any degree of urgency after the Supreme Court ruling in October 2021. In May 2022, the then Deputy First Minister promised to work “at pace” to bring forward amendments. However, for years, there was no timetable, no amendments and no visible progress.
COSLA highlighted the lack of apparent movement in early 2023. It is also important to say that the Law Society of Scotland highlighted that the delay
“is not in the interest of good law making”,
urging that any future bills that are dealt with by reconsideration following a Supreme Court decision should be dealt with within two years of that decision, to uphold that principle of good law making.
While all that has been going on—or has not been going on—the issues that local government faces and that make the bill an essential component of our democratic system have worsened. Over the past decade, councils have faced more than £7 billion in cumulative cuts. They have been asked to deliver more with less, absorb rising demand and inflationary pressure, and carry an unsustainable financial burden. They have somehow become administrators of Government policy rather than the autonomous decision-making bodies that they are. The Government needs to ask itself how it reconciles the language of local self-government with the lived reality of increasing centralisation, directed or ring-fenced funds for central policy decisions, and financial constraints.
Rights on paper should surely be matched by respect in practice. Scottish Labour continues to support the legal rights and standards that are enshrined in the bill, but it is incumbent on the Government to get it right—to not just correct what the court identified but ensure that the additional changes that are now proposed genuinely avoid the risk of yet more delay. Local authorities cannot afford another constitutional detour. They need certainty, stability and, above all, a Government that treats them as partners, not administrators of centrally determined priorities.
The bill should not have taken the best part of six years, and it should not have required pressure from COSLA and others to reach this point, right at the end of the session. However, that is where we are. I ask the Parliament to finally approve a competent bill that embeds in Scots law the principles of subsidiarity, local democracy and mutual respect.