UK Intergovernmental Co-operation

Ged Killen Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK constitutional machinery and frameworks for intergovernmental co-operation.

It is a pleasure, Mr Wilson, to serve under your chairmanship.

I am a Unionist by conviction. I have an English mother and a Scottish father; two of my children have married people from Northern Ireland; and three of my four children now live in England. I am also a proud Scot. For me, as for many Scots, the Union is personal; it is social; and it speaks to the heart. It is about family; we are literally a family of nations.

I believe that the people of Stirling, and the people of all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, expect their Governments at all levels to work together for the common good of all people. Those of us privileged to serve in the House of Commons have a special responsibility to engage in a relentless mission to see that people’s expectations are met. To that end, I propose that we now need to address inadequacies in the constitutional machinery and frameworks, in order to create a better and more functional Union.

Of course, with devolution comes divergence and I embrace that, where it is needed, but I am not interested in creating divisions and differences for the sake of it. Diverse as the nations and regions of the UK are, we also need to work together and to remain united, and deliberate in our determination to do so.

The United Kingdom has now a fairly complex structure of governance. In academic circles, phrases such as “asymmetrical devolution” are used to describe the Union’s complex governance structures. That is a product of the organic way in which the constitution has developed over time. We have had devolution for Scotland and Wales, which required a new way of working; then we had the Good Friday agreement, which required further changes; and then we added more powers for Scotland and Wales. That has all left us in a position where governmental structures are convoluted, complex and, in my opinion, not entirely fit for purpose.

In Scotland, we have a full Parliament with wide-ranging legislative and executive powers, but the powers of the Welsh Assembly are different, and the same is true of the Northern Ireland Assembly. England is governed by the UK Government. However, there are also emerging and exciting visions of local democracy in England, with regional and metropolitan Mayors working to galvanise communities and to bring democratic accountability closer to the people.

That is very different from the situation in, for example, the United States, or in other federal regimes, where the nature of government at state and national level is derived from a uniform constitution that treats all the constituent parts of the country equally. I am not a proponent of such federalism, because imposing an artificial uniformity on our constitutional arrangements would undermine the diversity that makes the United Kingdom unique. The situation in Scotland is different from that in Wales, England and Northern Ireland, and to argue otherwise is to ignore centuries of history and our present-day realities. So, understanding how these different Parliaments and levels of Government relate to one another, given their different competencies, is vital to this Parliament.

What, then, is the current situation with inter- governmentalism in the United Kingdom? The process is governed by a 1999 memorandum of understanding that set out the intentions for how joint working and co-operation should work. There is also a series of concordats that set out the structure for how devolved Administrations should work with the UK Government to ensure that there is co-ordination on certain issues.

The memorandum of understanding then outlines how the Joint Ministerial Committee should work. The JMC is the main way in which such joint working can happen. There are three main elements: to consider where there are devolved issues that will be affected by non-devolved decision making; to consider where there should be joint working on devolved issues; and the resolution of disputes.

The JMC is high-level, chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by the leaders of all the devolved Governments and the Secretaries of State for each of the territorial offices. In the formative years of devolution—from 1999 to 2004—the JMC hardly, if ever, met. The 1999 memorandum of understanding comes from a time when Labour was in power in Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff. That meant that issues could mostly be dealt with through the internal structures and workings of the Labour party.

As with so many things, the way that Labour approached this situation was without any thought for a future that did not involve them in government. Labour assumed it would be in the respective seats of government in Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff in perpetuity, and the whole machinery of government was run out of No. 10 or No. 11 Downing Street. Scottish Labour, in the words of a former Labour leader, was run as a branch office of the Blair-Brown axis. In part, that was why Tony Blair once described the power of the Scottish Parliament as being akin to that of an English parish council.

That arrogance in power is what led the people of Scotland to reject Scottish Labour. I remember the days when Conservative voters in Scotland would choose positively to vote for the Scottish National party to get Labour out, and certainly not because of nationalist sympathies. It hardly seems necessary for me to say this, but it is changed days now. The decade since 2007, which followed the end of Labour rule in Scotland and the election of an SNP Scottish Executive, has repeatedly served to show up how inadequate and incomplete the constitutional machinery is. These years have been characterised by growing party political mistrust and division.

Nationalism feeds on discord; it feeds on any grievance that can be created. We saw that last week, when the SNP Members stormed out of the main Chamber of the House of Commons. Theatrics aside, that told the story of how nationalism works. Nationalism works by cynically manipulating imagined slights; it works by stoking our fears and worst instincts. And when there are gaps in the constitutional machinery that should bring Governments and Parliaments together, as I contend there are, those gaps become a wide open space for the manufacture of grievance and division.

Nationalism does not instinctively seek to work co-operatively. I am surprised that even now well-meaning and sincere colleagues from across the House misunderstand the politics of Scottish nationalism. Those colleagues believe that if we are all courteous and reasonable, and show a willingness to compromise to reach an agreement, that approach will be reciprocated.

[Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Although what he says about nationalism is true, does he agree that at the other end of this equation his party is currently also using this situation to aid its best interests? What we are seeing here is a fight between two of Scotland’s Governments, which serve two political parties and not the people of Scotland.

[Stephen Kerr]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The fractious relationship between the Governments of Scotland serves nobody’s purposes, and it serves no good purpose to have the situation continue.

To be clear, when nationalists walk into a negotiation they are not looking for a way to build a consensus that works for everyone; they would far rather walk out in a huff, having achieved nothing, because that fits with their agenda of conflict and grievance. For them, it is always about the politics and never the outcomes. They would rather have the argument than the solution.

There is no doubt that the nationalists create jurisdictional confusion for their political advantage. If we consider how the public sector in Scotland is run through the civil service and, perhaps more importantly, local health boards and local government, we see that differences between English and Scottish regulatory systems allow a wall to be built around the Scottish public sector. However, when we scratch the surface, we see that the differences between the system in Scotland and the systems in the rest of the United Kingdom are actually not so great. This separation creates separatism; it is moving us apart; and it builds a wall around Scotland.