Intergovernmental Relations Within the United Kingdom

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for securing this debate and for his excellent introduction to the issues. Commuting as I do from Glasgow, I clearly have a Scottish focus on the issue of intergovernmental relations. I think that I will be in the minority today; the Welsh contributions will be more numerous. I note, once again, my disappointment at the lack of representation in this House from the party currently in government in Scotland. That is its choice, but one that I fear cuts off its nose to spite its face.

I declare my interests as laid out in the register. My work as a board member of Creative Scotland and as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland brings me into regular contact with the Scottish Government and their officials, and I currently chair the Scottish Government’s National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions.

In preparation for today, I turned to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre’s most recent briefing on intergovernmental relations, which outlines, as the noble Earl touched on, how many different bodies have wrestled with this issue, including parliamentary committees, academics, independent commissions and the excellent Dunlop review. The majority of these criticised the previous Joint Ministerial Committee for a number of reasons, including ineffective dispute resolution, the role of the UK Government and a lack of transparency. The question, surely, is whether the three-tier system implemented by this Government since 2021 has fared any better. The noble Earl asked the Minister for very specific responses on some of these issues, and I look forward to her replies. I am afraid the sticking point is that, whatever this Government may do, as Michael Gove, the Minister responsible, points out in his foreword to the IGR annual report for 2022,

“this is not a one-government job”.

For over two-thirds of the Scottish Parliament’s 25 years, the SNP—which is, by definition, opposed to devolution—has been the party in government in Holyrood. The SNP’s raison d’être is independence, and everything it does and says is measured through that lens alone. As long as there is devolution, there is no independence. Humza Yousaf has already confirmed that independence will be “page one, line one” of the SNP manifesto at the next general election.

In the early years, day-to-day relationships could be managed through informal political channels by representatives from the same party, relying on good will. Any pretence that this Scottish Administration have to good will or co-operation between Holyrood and Westminster is long gone. Over the past 25 years, much has changed. We have devolved yet more powers to the Scottish Parliament—tax raising and social security, for example. We hoped they would contribute to Scotland taking more responsibility over its own affairs, but we did this without implementing any additional accountability or scrutiny.

So, the Scottish Government make their choices. Scotland is the highest-taxed and most complicated tax area of the United Kingdom. Its health service is close to breaking point; its education system has plummeted down the rankings; and business and enterprise are treated with contempt. Public spending in Scotland amounts to 50% of GDP. Making different choices, though, is the whole point of devolution.

What should this Government do about the state of intergovernmental relations with Scotland? I agree with Michael Gove, who said in an evidence session to the Constitution Committee that, from a Westminster perspective,

“on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis Ministers have very good relationships with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations”.

I also welcome the devolving of civil servants away from London and across the UK, including to Scotland. However, Mr Gove recognised in that same evidence session that

“Ministers in the Scottish Government have a different constitutional vision, so there is an incentive for them, when a political platform is provided, to try to amplify what they perceive to be weaknesses … and to downplay the day-to-day effectiveness of our arrangements”.

This was clearly in evidence during Covid, with competing daily press conferences, and continues today with the opening of Scottish government offices and ministerial meetings abroad.

The hypocrisy of the SNP, on the one hand barely tolerating our monarchical structure in Scotland while Angus Robertson was quick to offer to host the new King and Queen of Denmark due to her “strong Scottish connections”, is breath-taking but unsurprising. It is just another way to find every opportunity to push the limits of the Scotland Act.

We will not have any real opportunity for change until the next Scottish Parliament elections in May 2026. Until then, I urge this Government and any future Westminster Administration not to fall into any of the SNP’s traps. Whether it is regarding equalities and gender recognition, recycling or foreign affairs, all are painted to the Scottish public as examples of the “democratic deficit”. They are staging posts on the “journey” to independence. If the SNP loses those elections then, as its MP Tommy Sheppard put it,

“the debate on independence stops”.

Hooray, I say.

Perhaps then we can focus on what we should change. Perhaps we could agree on what thresholds need to be reached before any future constitutional referendum is contemplated. Perhaps we need to revisit the Scotland Act to impose some much-needed scrutiny on the woefully incompetent legislation emerging out of Holyrood. Perhaps that is why the SNP disapproves of your Lordships’ House so much—it fears the scrutiny of a second Chamber.