Queen’s Speech

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, with his authority and perspective from a devolved part of the United Kingdom. The topics that we are asked to address today, from the gracious Speech, need our urgent consideration. I listened with much interest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, picking apart some of the suggestions, and I hope that the Minister will be able to fill in a little more about what rebalancing the Executive, legislature and judiciary might entail.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde for introducing the question of the purpose of the House of Lords. Once again we are entering a period where our concept of what purpose the House of Lords is meant to serve will be vital. We have always had in the other place a House of the people. My understanding is that the original criteria for membership of this House meant that it was to be composed of those with experience of administration. I hope the noble and learned Lord will forgive me if I sum it up as a gathering of the bishops, the barons and the beaks.

There is also a desire for continuity. As the Senior Deputy Speaker reminded us today, this is important when we consider the innovations in our experience of a virtual Parliament and whether they are worth preserving and, not so far in the future, the changes that will be brought about during the restoration and renewal programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to the Act of Union 1707. My ancestor then was president of the council of the Scottish Parliament, which promoted the Bill which became the Act of Union. This, as we have learned, prompted the Scottish Lord Chancellor of the day to wind up the proceedings with the words “Aye, there’s ane end of ane auld sang”. As it is, history has not proved him correct, and since the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament the song is coming back again. For better or for worse, my family has been involved in various renderings of that song from the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, which was resisting the depredations of Edward I, the Battle of Flodden, the signing of the Scottish National Covenant in 1638, which was resisting the insistence of Charles I, and so on. Even more recently, my grandfather was involved in bringing together two strands of Scottish nationalism to form what has now become the Scottish National Party.

The presence of hereditary Peers in this House can be traced back to this early history. In those days, the need to own property meant that Members had a connection to and could represent all parts of the country. They were required to provide military support to the Crown. Not only that, in the absence of any civic structure, they provided the planning and direction of construction and development, rudimentary concern for the needs of the local population and, in the early days, the dispensing of justice. Their presence gave an element of continuity. Whatever offices of state or other monetary income they received could be seen to have some bearing on all these responsibilities. The weakness of this system, which some noble Lords may like to remind me of, is that some tended to go for self-aggrandisement first. We have only to look at the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to see how rigorously we now police the safeguards in this regard and see that they are maintained. Fortunately nowadays many of these functions have been taken over by institutions that are answerable to some portion of the public at large and can be judged for their effectiveness.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is concerned first and foremost with the excessive numbers in our House. What is not settled is what elements of the historical attributes should be reflected in the second phase of the reform. That is what I, as one of the elected hereditaries, am waiting to hear. Perhaps the ex-politicians like to feel that they can provide this. That may be true for ex-Ministers, but the recent role of many who come in from that source has been largely as observers and commentators from the sidelines. I, of course, realise that the position of hereditary Peers on their own may not be a great priority for my noble friend—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Could my noble friend wind up, please?

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

—but, as we go into other constitutional questions, it may well come into play and some discussion of the purpose of this House will be essential.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

It is important in this unique situation, where European Union law is being repatriated, that we remember that there are two aspects to it. It is important that the devolution settlement is respected; my understanding of what the Government propose is that, with the exception of those where they seek a common framework, powers will automatically flow back to Cardiff, to Belfast, I hope, and to Edinburgh, where they would fall under areas which are not otherwise reserved.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, there is a provision in Section 29 of the Scotland Act that covers the thing that worries the noble and learned Lord. Section 29(2)(a) provides that it is outside the competence of the Scottish Government to apply,

“part of the law of a country or territory other than Scotland, or confer or remove functions exercisable otherwise than in or as regards Scotland”.

So this raises a great problem in the area he is talking about.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, if an Act of Parliament gives the Scottish Parliament power to say no and refuse its consent, what I am asking is whether that affects what might happen in other parts of the United Kingdom, so that you would not be able to get the common UK framework which people might otherwise think is necessary and desirable to be able to sustain a single market within these islands. At the moment, we have to some extent a form of competence at a different level—the European level—which is being brought back down to the United Kingdom. I ask these questions because it possibly means that there is a difference between the procedure which has been used if you wish to modify Schedule 5 or change Schedule 4 and one where we are returning the laws which hitherto have been subject to the European Union.

The amendments in my name, which I know are supported by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, are Amendment 89DAF in respect of Scotland, Amendment 89DAJ in respect of Wales and Amendment 89 DAK in respect of Northern Ireland. These amendments would, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, indicated, change the sunset—although it is not really a sunset in this respect—overall from seven years to five years, and they do that by changing the period during which the frameworks must be established from five years to three years. I did not seek to change the two-year period during which these orders have to be made, because that is consistent with other provisions in the Bill.

If my understanding of the situation is correct, if an order is not made that would identify the area for a framework and freeze, the power would automatically flow back to, let us say in this case, Edinburgh. Is it therefore to be expected that all these orders will be made, identifying the areas for freezing to establish common frameworks by the time we leave the European Union? Otherwise, it might appear that, within a period of days, weeks or months between our leaving the European Union and the order being made, there could be divergence between the different parts of the United Kingdom. After the order is made, I suggest that there should be a three-year period for the frameworks to be established rather than a five-year period.

I welcome the fact that time limits have been put in at all—that was a step forward, and the Government have obviously been listening on that. But I have not heard why it should be five years rather than three. That figure may have been plucked out of the air. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is not in his place, but he did have an amendment in Committee in which five was suggested. It may be that that commended itself to the Government because it came from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I would like to hear a rationale as to why five years is to be preferred to three. The noble and learned Lord said that they had agreement from the Welsh Government on this. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s views on whether the Welsh Government thought that a shorter period of time would be ideal but they were prepared to accept this.

No one disputes the amount of work to be done but we are potentially in a Parkinson’s law situation, where work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If we say five years, it could take up to five years; if we say three years, it would focus the mind and we could possibly do it in three. That is not least because we are dealing with dynamic issues, and if we are to freeze retained EU law in areas where there might be need to update the law—I assume that in these circumstances we would seek to do so by agreement—three years would allow progress to be made faster.

Also in this group is Amendment 90, which again provides a sunset. However, I think it is superseded by what we are debating and so I will not seek to press it. But it is important that the Government give us a rationale as to why they have chosen this period of time.

On a very specific point, Amendment 92AD—on page 19 of the Marshalled List—talks about the reporting that is to be made by Ministers to Parliament:

“After the end of each reporting period, a Minister of the Crown must lay before each House of Parliament a report which … (b) explains how principles … (i) agreed between Her Majesty’s Government and any of the appropriate authorities, and (ii) relating to implementing any arrangements which are to replace any relevant powers or retained EU law restrictions, have been taken into account”.

I rather suspect that these are the principles that were agreed at the Joint Ministerial Committee back in October or November, which have certainly been discussed before. However, it is slightly odd to have reference to “principles” which, as far as I can see, will not actually appear in the Bill. Because we have debated this often enough, we perhaps know what the principles are, or at least know where they can be found, but to anyone coming to this fresh it would not necessarily indicate where these principles are. Will the Minister confirm that these are the principles that are being referred to—the ones agreed at the Joint Ministerial Committee—and explain whether there is any reason that they should not be added as an annexe to the Bill?

In conclusion, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, quoted a letter from the First Minister, which was very measured in its terms—slightly more measured than her writings in last week’s Sunday Herald, in which she said that the Tories would “completely demolish” Scottish devolution. I immediately thought of the many debates we had during the passage of the Scotland Act 2016, in which the Conservative Government extended devolution to cover almost all of income tax and a substantial amount of social security. This could be a very cunning plan, if they assume that the Scottish Government will—I was going to say “screw it up”, but I am not sure whether that is parliamentary—act in such a way that it would end devolution, but I do not think that that was the plan. This Government have shown a very strong commitment—and I say this from the opposition Benches—through the number of things that they have devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Take one example from the 24:

“EU regulations on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP); the placing on the market and use of biocidal products (e.g. rodenticides); the export and import of hazardous chemicals; the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH); and plant protection products (e.g. pesticides)”.


I cannot honestly believe that trying to establish a common framework on that somehow undermines devolution, given that the Government transferred, almost entirely, income tax to the Scottish Parliament. It is a degree of hype that does not serve the debate well.

I rather hope that, as we go forward, we can recognise that what we are trying to do is seek a position so that, when we are no longer part of the European Union, we can in many important areas where it is thought necessary—indeed, the Scottish Government have accepted that in some areas it is necessary—establish a common framework throughout the United Kingdom. There will be further arguments as to the content of these frameworks, but for the moment we need to identify what they are. I would welcome a response to the points that I have made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, with so many lawyers speaking this evening, it is with some temerity that I stand to add a few comments. I emphasise that there will not be many.

We have an inelegant, lop-sided form of devolution. I will not spend my time analysing the amendments in detail because the lawyers have done that much better than I possibly could, but I will talk about the process. We would not design devolution like this now and I believe these amendments show how poorly designed our devolution is. Until now it has relied on the overarching EU presence to smooth things over—to take the politics out of the politics—and I think it will be difficult in the future.

The amendments are not ideal. Like my noble friend Lord Steel, I would prefer that Clause 11 had not been there but this is an acceptable compromise. The important thing from my perspective is that it is acceptable to the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly. As my noble friend Lord Thomas said, the amendments are complex and tortuous. I was relieved to find that he did not understand one particular phrase. I had been too timid to ask what it meant. My concern is that the Government’s attitude towards this has hampered progress. It has taken far longer to reach agreement than it should have done and I believe the grudging attitude of the Government has meant that they have backed themselves into a corner. I recognise the tremendous efforts that have been made in recent days and weeks to deal with this. Nevertheless, while I might be a passionate devolutionist I do not believe that it is honest or straightforward to try to shoe-horn into this Bill an expansion of devolution. I believe that that is the Scottish Government’s current position and I feel that it is necessary to accept these amendments, in the current situation, in order to be straightforward with the people of Wales and Scotland. This is about trying to represent devolution in the situation as it is at the moment. If we are to expand devolution, we need a full debate about it in the future.

I believe that it will be politically tricky in the future to manage devolution. Some very sharp edges are revealed in these amendments between the powers of the UK Government and the devolved Governments. For that reason, my final point is that I would very much like to see the position of the JMC properly and fully established. It should not be the occasional add-on at the Government’s convenience which it currently is.

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, perhaps I may come in here to congratulate the Minister on how far the Government have got in solving this rather knotty problem. As I go with this, I feel that I should re-emphasise my authority for speaking as a Scot and as a nationalist, rather as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern did. Mine is founded rather more in history than in current experience, in that members of my family have fought and died for Scottish independence on a number of occasions. They were also responsible for sitting on the whole negotiation for the Acts of Union.

I am not sure whether I can fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, said about all measures going immediately to Scotland. The provision that I tried to raise when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was speaking is that what is devolved was devolved under Schedule 5, but Schedule 5 was subject to the earlier parts of the Act. In attempting to modify Section 29, we are in really novel territory because that provision has remained as it was put in the Act in 1998. This is the first time that we have had to take a hatchet to it but the remaining subsection says that the Scottish Parliament will exceed its powers if it tries to legislate for any provision which,

“would form part of the law of a country or territory other than Scotland”.

A great many of the powers that are coming back affect all parts of the United Kingdom and that element has to be sorted out.

It is very good to hear from the Minister how the agreement on dealing with the powers from Brussels has been achieved. However, it sounds—or rather, it sounded at the start—as if the Scottish Government had the same view as the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood: that all law should immediately be devolved to them. This is clearly not going to do. Accompanying a letter from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was a table, which explained the Government’s view at that point on sorting out what was, I think, a total of 167 measures that they had identified in EU legislation as needing to be addressed. Of these, at that point they had no problem with 12 that needed to be reserved and 49 that could be immediately handed over. Can the Minister give us an update on the Government’s view on how many of these laws could immediately be handed over now, as I am sure that they and such things have been subject to negotiation over the Easter period? At the same time, however, we would like to know what legislative process will be put in place to achieve the handing over to the devolved Parliament and Assemblies and how long it is likely to take for those measures.

One or two noble Lords have quoted from the letter of 26 April from the First Minister of Scotland. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has provided a very good outline of how Section 30 will work. I have no doubt that many of us have much to learn about that. I was slightly worried about the First Minister’s second suggestion in her letter, when she talks about,

“the existing constitutional arrangement where changes to devolved competence are to be made under Section 30 … by Order in Council subject to the approval of both the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament”.

I was led to wonder whether an Order in Council, if passed by Her Majesty, was actually subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament at that stage, whereas I think that the amendments that are now in place are suggesting that approval would be sought and, with any luck, granted before the application was made for the order. If the Scottish Parliament were being offered the chance to turn down such a thing as an Order in Council that had already been made, a constitutional change in this order would need more than a memorandum of understanding, which is how the present system works.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I am comforted by the fact that all of the learned noble Lords who have contributed have acknowledged that this is an extremely complicated situation, one in which there are clearly differences of views. Indeed, the submission that we have had from the Law Society of Scotland took a similar view. However, I also recognise that it is just as well that it is complicated because Clause 11, in its initial format, was brutally simple and wrong. We therefore have got to a position where, after some time, we are now able to debate something that acknowledges the difficulties that Clause 11 originally contained.

Everybody has genuinely welcomed—and should rightly welcome—the progress that has been made, the spirit with which it has been made and the work that has been done to get to a situation which genuinely acknowledges that what we are trying to do is find a decision-making process that carries everybody with us, recognises legitimate interests, but is always left with the elephant in the room, which is, “Where does the buck stop?” Clearly, the buck ultimately stops with the UK because we are a United Kingdom. That, of course, is not entirely acceptable to people who do not believe in the United Kingdom and do not wish it to continue.

It is fair to say that Mike Russell in particular has, on more than one occasion, acknowledged constructive progress and engagement. Indeed, many of us have the view that, left to his own devices, the Scottish Government might have accepted where we are today. The First Minister clearly has not. She has not only sent a letter here to the Lord Speaker, but made fairly—shall we say—lively representations in the Scottish media as to what she thinks is intended. The trouble is that what she said might be legitimately attached to Clause 11 as it was, but it does not legitimately attach to where we are today. That is why the sentiment of this House—and I suspect the sentiment of those people in Scotland who think about it—is that the Scottish Government should be very careful that they do not over-push their position, because Scotland has voted to be in the United Kingdom, is part of the United Kingdom, and recognises that there are shared interests, where we will need to make decisions together. The issue is: how do we find a process that has the trust and confidence and the interests of everybody that can be taken on board?

We might eventually have to talk about a federal constitution; the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was the only speaker to mention quasi-federalism. We are stumbling towards a federal United Kingdom and we may need to acknowledge that, because federalism would provide a legal framework in which the powers were clearly stated in law and disputes were resolved through a constitutional court.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord. In a sense, that puts us in an even more difficult position. Surely, one idea was that by taking back control we would be able to legislate and use our own courts. We will have 21 months in which we do what the European Union requests without having a say. What are the Government doing to ensure we have at least some sort of seat at the table?

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

I had a son who worked in the European court. As far as I understand it, if an issue comes up which is relevant to the United Kingdom, it is unlikely that a United Kingdom judge would be part of the panel asked to rule on it.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

There will be no United Kingdom judge: when we are not members of the European Union, we will not be entitled to have a judge at the European Court of Justice. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is absolutely right, I am afraid.

Scotland Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, the problem with the term “Sewel convention” itself seems to beg a question as to exactly what it covers. The word “normally” is not the only problem in that respect.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I should say that if we get to the stage of putting this to a vote, I would like to support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. In Committee, I drew out the question about the progression from the wording that Lord Sewel set out at that stage of the 1998 Bill and what it had become. It seems to me that the beauty of creating the legislation in statute rather than in a convention is that we know exactly what we have got. It may be that the Government are arguing that we never want to pin things down and that they should be free to do whatever they like at all times, but I think we in this House prefer to have things clearly stated so that people know where they are. Of course, my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has also made this point —that you cannot have a convention and a statute—so the Government have to make a choice as to which road they will go down. At the moment there seems to be a lack of clarity on many levels, so to have an amendment which has been drafted by the Scottish Parliament and recommended by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is not a bad beginning.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, can the Advocate-General tell us whether the use of the word “normally” is to allow the Government sufficient flexibility in the event that a devolved Parliament actually breaks the rules of an international treaty obligation? The United Kingdom is signed up to a number of international treaties, and it is possible that the actions of a devolved legislature could break one of those conventions. Indeed, we are on the cusp of that at this very time over certain issues concerning rights in Northern Ireland, and it could happen on other occasions. Is it therefore the Government’s view that because they want that flexibility, they have chosen to use this language so that if, for instance, the Scottish Parliament does something which breaks our international obligations in terms of legislation, this Parliament would have the ability to correct it?

It is a bit unfortunate that the Constitution Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Lang, is currently looking at a range of issues which include whether there are any countrywide values or other rights that we believe any United Kingdom citizen should be entitled to. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is not in his place, has advocated something approaching this on a number of occasions. I therefore wonder whether the Minister considers that the provision as it stands allows for that or could allow for it, or whether that was the intention behind the language. I have to say that I do not agree with the Sewel convention. In my home circumstances, the practice was that from 1921, Parliament effectively ignored what Stormont did, and we all know where that led.

I agree that there is not much point in having devolution if you continuously intervene over the heads of the devolved legislature, but at the same time there is a rational argument for saying that you cannot allow things just to drift on without having regard to the wider issue and to our international obligations. Therefore, I wonder whether that is what is at the back of the Government’s mind. If so, it would be most helpful to have an explanation.

Scotland Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCluskey]

That depends on the context in which it is used. Normally, “normally” means “usually”—but “norm” means a standard and the main definition in some dictionaries is of conforming to a standard. I cannot understand with regard to devolved matters of legislation what the standard would be. That is why I tabled Amendment 19. If you leave in “normally”, in effect the decision on whether the circumstances are such as to allow the Parliament of the UK to legislate is one for that Parliament to take. That is the first point. In other words, I do not care who decides it, but someone must decide it.

If you do not decide it in this sort of way—namely, by giving the job to a Parliament—you will leave the job to a court. I have no idea what a court would make of the word “normally”. How would a court judge what is normal in the context of devolved and other legislation without hearing evidence? Must a court then hear a lot of evidence from constitutional experts, who are unlikely to be unanimous if today’s proceedings are anything to go by? They are not unanimous and I do not think a court would be able to rule on the matter without hearing evidence. I would hate to see the courts having to deal with this kind of matter, albeit that it would be a bonanza for lawyers—of whom I confess to being one.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Lang in what he said. The wording of this clause reflects what I understood that Lord Sewel said in this House at the time of the passing of the Bill. It says that,

“the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters”.

When that was said before, I think that all of us here—my noble friend Lord Lang reinforced this—thought that it referred to Schedule 5, non-devolved matters, so that a Sewel Motion would be needed for anything discussed in this House outwith Schedule 5.

I have watched over the years as this matter has gradually crept out. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, mentioned the various steps along which the Civil Service has progressed in making this convention. It was always a fairly constitutional matter and they were chipping away at what we understood could or could not be discussed. To just leave the wording as it is tells only half the story. We must find out what exactly the convention has developed into and what wording would describe it if we want to have it as either a convention or whatever it is. At least we have it on the Floor of the House now and can begin to look at what it should be.

Having seen the wording when the Bill was published, I asked a Written Question of my noble friend the Minister. I asked,

“how many times the Scottish Parliament has passed a legislative consent motion … regarding matters that were not at that time devolved under Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act … and in each case what reason was given”.

The Minister kindly replied with one example, but I think there must be many more. His example was that,

“section 10 of the Scotland Act 2012 made provision for certain elements in relation to air weapons to be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”,

the argument being that things that were about to be devolved should be subject to a legislative consent Motion. We need to know exactly how far this goes and what its meaning will be.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support my noble friend Lord Norton’s remarks and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lang. I will not go through all the arguments about sovereignty again because we have done them to death. I will also speak to Amendment 17, which for some reason was put in an earlier group. I tabled it as a probing amendment but having listened to the debate I really think my noble friend needs to go back to the drawing board on this. It surely makes sense to put into statute the Sewel convention and then abandon it as a convention, as we discussed earlier. Of course, when we discussed English votes for English laws, I predicted that by giving the Westminster Parliament an English veto on legislation it would be only a matter of time before people argued that there ought to be a Scottish veto, as the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, did in the context of the Sewel convention.

What my noble friend Lord Norton said was very wise. We need to work out what this convention means and we need to put that in the Bill in a way that is apparent. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who worries about how this will be seen by nationalists north of the border and that some people are trying to refight the battles of 1997, I see no reason why we should not just cut this Gordian knot and leave the Scottish Parliament to legislate on all devolved matters. What happens is that it piggy-backs on legislation that is carried down here and then finds it very convenient to blame Westminster for passing the legislation to which of course it was a party.

This Bill hands a huge new set of powers to the Scottish Parliament, with huge new responsibilities. The whole purpose of the Bill is apparently about making the Parliament accountable to the Scottish people. Well, why not let them get on with passing the legislation necessary to meet their responsibilities? I think that the Sewel convention should be toughened up. It should be made stronger and should basically provide that the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not legislate with regard to devolved matters. It is up to the Scottish Parliament. Why would we wish to do so?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The term “veto”, if you wish to employ it, is there. It means that English measures require the consent of English Members, but it does not derogate from the sovereignty of this Parliament.

Clause 2 delivers paragraph 22 of the Smith agreement which sets out quite clearly that the Sewel convention will be put on a statutory footing. As with Clause 1 on permanence, the Smith commission agreement did not intend that the constitutional position should be changed, but that legislation should accurately reflect the position that already exists and has existed for 15 years.

I shall put this into context. Section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998 makes it perfectly clear that this Parliament can legislate in respect of Scotland in all matters, including devolved matters. It preserves the sovereignty of this Parliament.

[The Duke of Montrose]

When the Minister talks about the Sewel convention as it has been for 15 years, that does not include the various modifications that have been introduced in the 15 years. The Government will have to be careful about how they describe it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I do not accept that, because it appears that what is understood by the Sewel convention is the expression of that convention by Lord Sewel during the passage of the Scotland Act 1998 through Parliament. I indicated before the sundry working arrangements that developed and changed over the passage of the 15 years after that convention came into place, such as DGN10, which is why there is no attempt, and properly so, to express those working arrangements in statutory terms within the Bill.

[The Duke of Montrose]

Can the Minister say whether that means that there will be a new convention that includes those elements?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It may be that further working arrangements will develop as between the two Parliaments with respect to legislation that touches upon devolved matters. However, the provision as expressed in the Bill is simply that as expressed by Lord Sewel at the time the Scotland Act passed through Parliament in 1998. It merely says that while in terms of Section 28 we have the power to legislate for Scotland in all matters, including devolved matters, we will not normally do so.