Part of Orders of the Day — Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland) Bill. – in the House of Commons am ar 9 Gorffennaf 1928.
Scotland, situated as she is, requires those Boards to be available in Edinburgh for consultation with those who represent the local authorities. As a previous speaker has pointed out, the case is not the same as in England, where you have a Parliament situated in London, and it does raise the wider issue of greater powers for Scotland which would enable her to deal with these matters in a very different way. It is possible that that issue may be accelerated. Indeed, my own view is that the carrying of this Bill will accelerate the growing demand for that power which Scotland really requires, so that she may have her advisers, her Departments and her specialists going into the interests of the country at large. We do feel that the Government are handing over these matters to a mere circumscribed bureaucracy which is gaining a greater hold upon the control of affairs, not only in Scotland but in the country generally, and that there is greater need for the expansion of the minds of those who will help us to adjudicate upon these issues in a far more effectual fashion than this Bill is able to do.