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Points of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : I wish to raise with you, Madam Speaker, a point of order of which I gave you notice : the apparent conflict between the rulings that you gave yesterday and that Mr. Speaker Weatherill gave some time ago on Standing Order No. 20 and its terms.
In exchanges yesterday, you said :
"The matter in question must be urgent, and it must relate to new developments, such as a change of policy."--[ Official Report, 13 July 1993 ; Vol. 228, c. 834.]
Standing Order No. 20 states :
"On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday a Member rising in his place at the commencement of public business may propose, in an application lasting not more than three minutes, to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration."
I put it to you, Madam Speaker, that the ruling that you gave yesterday, which was initially given by Mr. Speaker Weatherill, does not give that permissive right to hon. Members to move an application for Standing Order No. 20. If your ruling is accepted--I have no reason to think that it is not--it requires amendment of Standing Order No. 20. Therefore, I should like advice from you on how such an amendment can be secured, because, unless an amendment is made, it seems that Standing Order No. 20 is in direct conflict with the ruling that you made yesterday and that made by Mr. Speaker Weatherill some years ago.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : On the same point of order, Madam Speaker. I am grateful for your letter, and I wish to raise a point of order arising from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden). Many of us can recall when hon. Members, whether the occupants of the Chair liked it or not, stated at your office that they were going to make an application and, as far as I can recall--the Clerks will no doubt advise if this is wrong--there were no restrictions.
During the 1974-79 period, Conservative Members, when in opposition, used to make four or five applications each day. No doubt on each occasion the Members involved took the view that they stood no chance of succeeding, but there were no restrictions on them trying. I accept entirely that it was not you, Madam Speaker, but your predecessor who made it more difficult to make applications. However, with all due respect, I wish to ask you when that change was made and what opportunity the House was given to decide, on a vote, whether that should be the case. Undoubtedly, there has been a change, and it is now far more difficult to get permission to move an application under Standing Order No. 20. The matter should be put to the House and a vote taken accordingly.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : There is an ironic side to this whole episode in connection with Speaker Weatherill. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said that, in 1974-79, when a Labour Government were in office, we had to put up with four or five applications a day for SO9s, as they were then called, from Tory Members. The deputy Chief Whip of the Tory party at that time was none other than the man who was later to become Speaker Weatherill, and he organised the SO9s.
Madam Speaker : That is hardly a point of order for the Chair.
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Mr. Dennis Canavan (Falkirk, West) rose --Madam Speaker : Is it the same point?
Madam Speaker : In that case, I shall respond to the point of order. I am not able to relax the practice of the Chair in this matter. Contrary to what some hon. Members said yesterday, that practice has been applied consistently for several years. If I relaxed the practice, the House would be exposed to a spate of three-minute applications which had no possibility of success because they bore no relation to the criteria that I have to apply. Those criteria are that the matter must be specific, important and urgent, and must be matter for which a Minister has responsibility. Of course, I shall continue to offer constructive suggestions to hon. Members who make Standing Order No. 20 applications so that they might pursue the matter, which I quite understand concerns them, in some other way.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Further to the point of order, Madam Speaker. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and others have said, there was a spate of applications in 1975. By what alchemy, at what point and when was the change made? Who decided it? On reflection, some of us think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover is right, and that this has all been done by the powers that be since television has been brought in. What it is all about is television at prime time. The question is succinct : how and at what moment was the change made and by whom, and was it made with the authority of the House?
Madam Speaker : The hon. Gentleman was a Member at that time. If he and all of us reflect, we will remember that, in the period 1978-79, which hon. Members are recalling there was a spate of urgent issues. We all have long enough memories to understand what they were. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know about the urgency requirement in a Standing Order No. 20 application, he will find that it is there for him to read. If the House wishes to change our procedures or the Standing Order, which is quite specific, there are ways and means, as the hon. Gentleman knows, for him to do so.
Several hon. Members rose --
Madam Speaker : Order. I must take other points of order. I have dealt with the previous one. Some hon. Members are taking up the time of the House on a day that is crucial to other hon. Members.
Mr. Canavan : On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is different from the last one. One of your many onerous duties is to chair the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Scotland. The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 states quite clearly that, in making recommendations about the drawing up of parliamentary constituency boundaries, the commission must have regard to local government area boundaries.
Traditionally in Scotland, local government area boundaries have been determined after very careful consideration and, in many cases, after public consultation by the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland. Major restructuring involving the creation of
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new authorities or the abolition of existing ones, has usually been done after careful consideration by some form of independent commission.However, for the proposals that will be before the House this afternoon, that has not been done. There have been accusations of gerrymandering, and it would put you, Madam Speaker, in an invidious position if the work of your commission, the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Scotland, were prejudiced in any way by the implementation of the gerrymandered local government proposals that will be before the House today.
ou use your position as Chair of the Scottish Parliamentary Boundary Commission and your good offices to try to bring about somekind of independent commission to study this matter carefully and sethat the proposals that will be before the House today are scrapped,or at least shelved until the whole matter of Scottish local government is given the fullest possible consideration by an independent commission chaired by somebody who is neutral and fair-minded, such as your good self? Madam Speaker : These are still only proposals. The hon. Gentleman has made some interesting points which are better raised in the debate, which, if we ever reach it, will be shortly. He should put his concerns to the Minister at that time.
Mr. John McAllion (Dundee, East) : On a different point of order, Madam Speaker. May I refer you to the amendment tabled today in the name of the Prime Minister, which relates to the debate that we are about to have on Scottish local government? It refers to the Government's White Paper, which contains proposals to set up "a single tier of strong and acceptable all-purpose authorities." If you read the Government's White Paper, you will find that they are proposing to remove water, police and fire services from those single-tier authorities. Therefore, the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister is misleading and inaccurate, and on that basis will you rule it out of order?
Madam Speaker : As soon as we start the debate, I will give my ruling on the amendment, but we are not in the debate yet. Mr. Derek Enright (Hemsworth) : You will recall, Madam Speaker that, some time ago at Question Time, I said to the Minister for Energy that the President of the Board of Trade had dipped his hand in the till of the miners' pensions. The Minister, in the House, vehemently denied that, but in this morning's paper it was admitted that Ministers had urged British Coal to raid the pension funds.
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Has the Minister for Energy offered to come to the House to make an apology--Madam Speaker : Order. What appears in newspapers has nothing whatsoever to do with the Chair of the House. All 650 Members could bring in their newspapers and ask me whether I thought they were correct. It is a terrible abuse of the time of the House.
Mr. Enright : It is the court reporter.
Madam Speaker : I do not give a-- [Laughter.] I do not care whether it is the court reporter or the most junior reporter on my local paper ; it is not an issue for the Chair or for the House. I had a point of order yesterday from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) to which I wish to reply. The hon. Gentleman raised with me the effect of article 21 of the Act of Union on the implementation of the Government's proposals for local government reorganisation in Scotland. As the House is aware, I rule on the orderliness of the business before the House and not on hypothetical questions. I am satisfied that the motion before the House today is perfectly in order. Consideration of the orderliness of a future Local Government (Scotland) Bill will have to wait until the text of the Bill is available and I have been able to see it.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : Thank you, Madam Speaker. Your ruling is slightly ambiguous. Scottish Members would like to know whether the determination of Scottish local authority boundaries and structure and the future of water supplies will be dictated by the votes of English Members of Parliament in the House, regardless of and notwithstanding the Act of Union.
I thank you for your consideration of the matter, but you will appreciate its importance. If the conventions of the United Kingdom Parliament dictate that English Conservative Members, many rolling in from the liquid dungeons of this place at the end of the day, dictate that
Madam Speaker : Order. I patiently listened to the hon. Gentleman's point of order. He put it to me clearly, and I took some time in considering it. This is a United Kingdom Parliament, and we all determine together what happens in the various parts of this nation.
Mr. Salmond : Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker : Order. There can be no further point of order. I carefully considered the hon. Gentleman's point of order yesterday. I have gone into it thoroughly, and I answered it today by saying that this is a United Kingdom Parliament and every one of us is entitled to make a decision on what comes before the House.
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Women into Parliament
3.44 pm
Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) : I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Representation of the People Acts with a view to increasing the number of women elected to Parliament ; and for connected purposes.
By great good fortune, and with the co-operation of the people who arrange ten-minute Bills, today is the birthday of Emmeline Pankhurst--and this year marks the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage. A group of women Members of Parliament from all parties have got together to commemorate those great events to stage an exhibition in the House called "Women into Politics"--which you, Madam Speaker, graciously opened on Monday.
Today, Lady Thatcher, our first woman Prime Minister, unveiled a plaque to suffragettes in St. Stephen's hall. It is the first time that suffragettes have been commemorated in the House.
Since 1918, only 163 women have been elected to Parliament, compared with 3,986 men. Almost half that number of women were in Parliament for only one Session, because they were given marginal seats to fight or were elected at by-elections, and therefore did not spend more than a couple of years here.
Perhaps it is not surprising that there have only been 10 women Cabinet members, while 388 men have served in the Cabinets. One fifth of all women Cabinet Ministers are in office today, and there are still 17 Government Departments without a woman politician, or which have never had a woman politician in them. Women have a view on every subject. How can their views be reflected in legislation if they are not in the room when key decisions about legislation are made? Things are getting a little better. At the last general election, 60 women were elected--the largest number ever--but they still account for less than 10 per cent. of the membership of the House. It is not true that women do not come forward as candidates. It is just much harder for them to be adopted for safe seats. You, Madam Speaker, tried for 16 years before being elected, and many of us got here almost by a lucky fluke.
Throughout the history of our democracy, women have had to battle for recognition. Until recently, they did not have property rights or the right to their earnings if they were married, and had to fight for a university education and to be accepted into the professions. The suffragettes were not militant feminists, but Christian women who believed that democracy was part of the Christian message, which taught that women were equal to men.
Parliament is still very much a man's world. If women are to make a contribution in their own style, men must accept the need for structures to change. In my time as a Member of Parliament, the need for changing working conditions has been debated but nothing has come of it.
Even the few women who made it to the House have effected profound changes in respect of care of the elderly, children, maternity services and health. Such topics were not considered suitable topics for Parliament to debate before women arrived. They were laughed at or thought too embarrassing to discuss. Women such as Margaret Bondfield, the first woman Cabinet Minister, Eleanor Rathbone, Irene Ward, Megan Lloyd-George and Barbara Castle battled to make this a more caring country.
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In the past, Parliament met to raise money to fight the king's wars. Today it meets to raise taxes that are mainly spent on social services and social structures. Those areas are second nature to women because of their upbringing and experience, and ones in which they can make a key contribution to the deliberations of the House. Historically, Parliament has always been refreshed by the injection of people from different backgrounds. It was once dominated by merchants and landowners. Now, small business men and trade unionists take their place here. Surely now is the time for that trust to extend to the inclusion of far more women in our deliberations. There needs to be a critical mass of women for the priorities in this place to change.Parliament is broadened by the insights and energies of these newcomers. No one is detracting from existing Members, or the contributions made by men, but stating that women have a key economic role to play, not just outside but inside this building. It is time for us to encourage more women into the House.
Women have all the qualities necessary to be Members of Parliament--not that those qualities are exceptional--and we will know that women have really reached their place in our political community when they are allowed to be as mediocre as some of the men who occupy these Benches.
There is not a level playing field between men and women when it comes to selection for parliamentary seats. If there were, there would be no need for my Bill. Different parties address the matter in different ways. Some parties consider the possibility of quotas, others proportional representation, and still others may--like Bernard Shaw--recommend a coupled vote.
A Parliament with more women would be more equitable, and would more fairly reflect the changes that have taken place in society, particularly in the lives and status of women. I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support the principles that I have outlined in my Bill, and I commend it to the House.
3.51 pm
Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton) : It is with some diffidence that I oppose the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman).
I sympathise with much of what my hon. Friend and her supporters seek to achieve, but I disagree fundamentally with the method that they have chosen to achieve those objectives--that of tinkering with our present electoral system, which is epitomised in the Representation of the People Acts.
One of the greatest strengths of our democratic system is the single-member constituency. I have always opposed any suggestion of introducing proportional representation. It would divide the electorate, so that, for example, Conservative voters would approach a Conservative Member of Parliament to deal with their problems, socialist voters would approach a socialist Member of Parliament and Liberal voters would approach a Liberal Member of Parliament. A secondary result would be that even more power would be put in the hands of the party hierarchy over the selection of candidates, and that centre of decision-making would be taken away from where it should rightly be, at grass-roots level in the constituencies. The people who live
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in an area should have the freedom to choose an individual to represent them, whether that individual be male or female. Our existing arrangements for electoral representation have worked well, and have not debarred women from coming forward as candidates. Women Members have made a considerable contribution to the House, to the political life of the country and to society as a whole. With you in the Chair, Madam Speaker, hon. Members are continually reminded that it is possible for women to achieve the highest and most influential of offices, and to fulfil the ensuing responsibilities with great distinction.I remind the House that the Head of State and the head of the established Church in this country is a woman. Until relatively recently, we had our first woman Prime Minister, who was outstanding in terms of both leadership and intellect. Currently, two members of the Cabinet are women, seven members of the Government are women and 59 right hon. and hon. Members are women. The leaders of countless county borough and parish councils are women. The hard-working grass-roots majority of the membership, certainly of the Conservative party, are women.
If we consider the gradual manner in which our parliamentary democracy came into being over a period of centuries and the way in which the franchise was extended from a limited number to include all adults, we see that the speed with which women have, in the last few decades alone, seized the initiative is truly remarkable. The enthusiasm of my hon. Friend further to hasten this process by any form of positive discrimination should not be allowed to undermine the progress which has been made, or to alter the Representation of the People Acts, which are one of the foundation stones upon which our system of free elections is based.
I support 100 per cent. any attempt to encourage more women Members into this House of Commons, but I completely oppose any attempt to change the rules, to fiddle the rules, to enable them so to do. Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Teresa Gorman, Ms Jean Corston, Mrs. Margaret Ewing and Mrs. Ray Michie.
Women into Parliament
Mrs. Teresa Gorman accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Representation of the Peoples Acts with a view to increasing the number of women elected to Parliament ; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 16 July, and to be printed. [Bill 238.]
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Orders of the Day
OPPOSITION DAY
[17 th Allotted Day
]
Local Government and Water (Scotland)
Madam Speaker : I have looked at the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister. It is perfectly in order and has been selected for debate.
May I make a plea at this stage for short speeches? There are a great many Members in all parts of the House who wish to speak in the debate.
3.56 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke (Monklands, West) : I beg to move,
That this House notes the publication of the White Paper Shaping the Future -The New Councils' ; considers that these proposals have been brought forward without adequate consultation, and represent costly and unnecessary changes not sustained by general support for their introduction ; condemns the blatant manipulation of boundaries for narrow party interests, consistent with an approach to the governance of Britain which centralises power and disregards the basic consensus necessary to a healthy democracy ; welcomes the success of the public campaign against outright privatisation of water, but notes the continuing threat to the future of these services posed by the proposals in the White Paper to remove them from local authority control ; and demands that Her Majesty's Government withdraws the White Paper, establishes an independent Commission to review the whole question of local government in Scotland, retains water and sewerage in local authority control, and makes proper provision for adequate investment in these services. I ought to say that we intend to oppose the amendment that stands in the name of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends. There is a widespread belief that Scotland is usually the first to be at the receiving end of this Government's most damaging initiatives. That is certainly true of the discredited poll tax and the discredited Ministers who supported it, but the Secretary of State for Scotland can make no plea of mitigation in respect of local government and water privatisation. He already knows of the disasters that followed that elsewhere in the United Kingdom. He also knows now that Scotland is at the end of the queue.
What the Secretary of State announced last Thursday was not the product of original thought on his part. His announcement consisted of two proposals : to rearrange the map of Scottish local government to the advantage of his party, and to move a step closer to the selling of Scottish water. Both proposals have already been visited on other parts of the United Kingdom. The people of Scotland, having seen the so-called future, in Tory eyes, know that it does not work. The fact is that the Government have one overriding conviction, and have adopted it in Scotland as well : if they cannot win elections, abolish them-- [Interruption.] The Under- Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), must know that they won 11 out of 72 seats in Scotland and that they have a mere 16 per cent. of support, according to the opinion polls, among the people of Scotland--hardly a mandate to do anything in Scotland, far less to impose this nonsense upon us.
Mr. Phil Gallie (Ayr) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Mr. Clarke : I shall give way in a moment.
We saw their solution to the problems that democracy poses. The Greater London council, the metropolitan counties and the Inner London education authority caused problems for the Tories and were abolished. Scotland has now been presented with the same sort of treatment.
Mr. Gallie : The hon. Gentleman referred to 11 Tory Members from Scotland. How many Scottish seats did he forecast the Tory party would get before the general election? Will he note that we achieved 25 per cent. of the vote at the general election?
Mr. Clarke : One thing that I will forecast is that, even with the gerrymandering, the Tories will not get in next time. They know that they cannot win Strathclyde, Lothian, Central or Fife, they suffered humiliating losses in Tayside, Grampian, Dumfries and Galloway and they did not do all that well in the district elections.
What is their answer? It is the same one as we have seen before--the London solution : sweep them away. They respond to the problem of voters who continue to elect Labour councils by creating safe havens for themselves. What is much worse is that they take away from councils as many powers and services as possible, reduce democratic accountability and prepare for sell -offs to the highest bidders. On water and sewerage, the House will know that there was not a hint in the Tory manifesto at the general election in Scotland of the Government's proposals on water privatisation, or a suggestion that water would be up for sale. Most people in Scotland-- indeed, 98 per cent.--believe that water is a gift from God.
Last Thursday, the Government stopped short--but not far short--of selling off water as a result of the Scottish people's influence and determination, not because there was a sudden change on the road to Damascus on the part of the Secretary of State for Scotland. A few days before the House returned after the summer recess last year, and at considerable expense to taxpayers, the Secretary of State launched a glossy document in Glasgow. The document was full of marks, photographs and nice graphics, and even contained an explanation of why it rains in Scotland. Following that, a firm of consultants was commissioned, at a cost to the taxpayers of upwards of £100,000. It caused months of deep uncertainty among workers and consumers, and nearly 3,000 replies were received, of which only 1 per cent. favoured privatisation. All of that, for what?
The document that we saw last week was not even a full page--it had a mere four paragraphs on water. However, it still managed to disguise the real thinking of the Secretary of State on the matter. Why did he not tell us that water and sewerage will be left in the hands of democratically elected local authorities?
Those local authorities have 150 years of service in protecting the public in terms of health. They know about investment, and they know that they are entitled to protect God's gift to Scotland, as the Scottish people see it. The Government's determination to move in and profiteer is not welcomed either in Ayr or elsewhere.
The Secretary of State said that the public ownership of three new water companies can be combined with a major role for the private sector in providing and financing much
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of the essential and large capital investment programme that is needed over the next decade. Therefore, the private companies will be providers as well as providing finance.Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us how that will work. What is the difference between the franchising option and what he suggested last Thursday? Nothing in the White Paper suggests that he has abandoned all hope of privatisation. We have seen a U-turn, but one that will last only to this side of the next election, as we saw in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State has been less than honest in Scotland, so let us be clear that his paving Bill will be a major issue at the next general election in Scotland, and we will, of course, invite the Scottish people to decide.
As with water, the Government cannot conceal how they see the role of local government. For the Labour party, that role is about democracy, it is about elected councillors, it is about serving the local community, it is about accountability, and it is about sustaining high standards of services. They are all noble ideals that were once accepted as a consensus by all political parties on behalf of the Scottish people.
For the Government, in their miserable documents, that role is about centralisation, about competitive tendering and, in the end, about local councils organising meetings to award contracts to people who are not accountable to anybody.
The Government issued another glossy document in the past year with a flourish of publicity, including the publication of a video that I understand was called "Lang--the Movie". Civil servants advised the Secretary of State, so in future Ministers may take more account of advice from elsewhere. We were told that "Lang--the Movie" cost £25, 000-- many will ask if the right hon. Gentleman's presentation was worth that amount. All that was missing was Scarlett O'Hara saying that the Scottish people could not give a damn about his proposals. That costly exercise offered the Scottish people options of 24 or 35 or 51 authorities. Did the Government respond to the replies? No, not really. They were not responding to people's replies to the various options. During that apology for a consultation exercise, the Government had their own ideas, and those ideas related not to what the people of Scotland wanted, and certainly not to an independent commission, but to a small minority view that coincides with what alocal government, Ministers have been both prosecutors and jury, while the people had no right of appeal.
Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) : In support of the hon. Gentleman, he will remember the sentence in the White Paper that says :
"The Government recognise the time and effort devoted to preparing these reponses, and have examined them with great care".
The responses have been on public view in St. Andrew's house over the past week. There were 108 submissions in the Borders, which have been examined, and of those only three support the proposals advanced by the Government to take Berwickshire out of the Borders region. Not surprisingly, the three who support it are the Conservative group on Berwickshire district council, the Conservative group on Lothian regional council and a single Conservative councillor. Is that public consultation?
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Mr. Clarke : The right hon. Gentleman has done a service to the House in exposing what amounts to a disgraceful exercise. I invite the Secretary of State to publish not only those documents to which the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) referred, but other documents that are relevant to our discussions.
The Government claim that there is no evidence of gerrymandering, yet since Thursday--again I challenge the Secretary of State to deny this when he replies--not one independent commentator has been willing to say that the Government's exercise was not influenced by party political considerations alone.
Arthur Midwinter, an academic expert so clearly regarded as non-partisan as to be invited to the Prime Minister's breakfast sitting and invited to give advice during the state visit in the past year, said :
"Stirling, East Renfrewshire, Berwickshire and East Lothian represented Toytown councils."
If I am mistaken about the influences on the Government, perhaps the Secretary of State, after his wide-ranging consultation, will tell us which serious commentator or advisory body, other than the Tory party, advised him to put Helensburgh into Argyll, to take Musselburgh out of East Lothian or to put Barrhead into Greater Eastwood. If he will do so, I am happy to give way.
I am happy to give way to him if he can name a single independent body that supports the proposals. I am happy to give way even to his sidekick, the hon. Member for Eastwood, if he will tell us of any independent body that supported such a view. The fact is, as is clear from the silence, that nobody did, because nobody would support a proposal so reeking of political corruption and so consistent with party political advantage. I am still happy to give way.
The House can reach only one conclusion--that the Secretary of State is the "Jim'll Fix It" of Scottish politics. He has fixed it for the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), he has fixed it for the hon. Member for Eastwood, and he thinks that he has fixed it for the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie). He certainly has not fixed it for the Scottish people, because they have fixed it for him. As someone else might have said at the Dispatch Box, never in the history of local government reform has so much been owed by so few to so few. Let us consider the carve-up of Renfrewshire. West Renfrewshire has three times the population of East Renfrewshire. No doubt Eastwood has a consideration in these matters, and no doubt we shall get an impartial explanation of how such a conclusion was reached. North Ayrshire includes Cumnock and Doon Valley in the south, and is more than three times as large as South Ayrshire. There is a farcical situation in the Lothians. West Lothian is physically separated from Midlothian, and Musselburgh and Prestonpans are thrown in for good measure. West Lothian is three times as large as Berwickshire and East Lothian.
Are we to conclude that it is now official policy that three voters for a Labour council may be compared with one for a Tory council? That is hardly a model for a modern democracy. Stirling, the model toytown council, spent a year-- [Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Eastwood is being so provocative, I shall spell it out again, especially as I have no wish to misquote Professor Midwinter.
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Stirling, the model toytown council, spent a year selling everything in sight, no doubt on the advice of the hon. Member for Stirling. I have no doubt that the Government want to do the same to regional services. We are entitled to ask seriously, because the voters of Stirling regard the matter as serious, whether such a small council will begin to take responsibilities for education and social work.Twenty years ago, the Wheatley report said that an ideal size of council area for social work was 200,000 people. The Secretary of State has often said that the regions have achieved quality of service and identity with local communities. The same is true of education, in terms of economies of scale, delegation of management, direct accountability of staff to councillors and direct accountability of councillors to voters, which the Secretary of State has told us his proposals are all about. Those factors represent a successful recipe for the delivery of strategic services. The most important question before the House is whether the quality of services and their delivery will be met by the Government's proposals. In social work, what evidence is there to overturn Wheatley? Wheatley, after a long period of consideration and genuine consultation, produced an excellent report, not a sham report based on narrow political dogma.
Where is the evidence that social work departments are better and stronger if they are smaller? Where is the evidence that they can provide the necessary services? Where is the evidence that the needs of the vulnerable who are suffering under the Government's so-called policy on community care will be met by the Government's proposals? Since we are dealing with people who have to work with much larger health boards--in terms of co-operation with community care--perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us more about how he expects the system to work.
Since we are told that the Government are also willing to leave such important matters as education to local authorities, what guarantees are there that the people of Scotland will avoid the bitter experience of those in inner London? The Government argued that abolishing the Inner London education authority would cut costs--something that Tory Ministers repeatedly told us would work--and Ministers are telling us the same of our future in Scotland, but they must know that, in London, the opposite has happened. London boroughs, forced to duplicate central administration and to increase bureaucracy, have upped the number of managers by 67 per cent., which would blow the Government's costing to smithereens. Inner London boroughs were forced to duplicate specialist education services or to abandon them.
Perhaps we shall hear evidence today of what will happen to youth work in Scotland, to adult education and to special needs, based on the inner London experience, which no Secretary of State worth his salt would wish to emulate. When so many young Scots are imperilled by unemployment and drug- related crimes, community education and youth work may be among the victims of the Government's ideological obsessions. That is another reason why the people of Scotland find the Government's proposals so unattrative.
Last week, we had a short exchange in the House about transitional costs. I invite the Secretary of State to be more forthcoming today. We are told that, on the Government's estimate, the transitional cost would be about £200 million. Since, in response to my hon. Friend the Member
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