Sewel Convention

Ian Murray Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

Absolutely, it is painful. It is painful that the people of Scotland are seeing their powers taken back from them.

Rather than reassure the people of Scotland that the UK Government are committed to protecting our devolution settlement, the Scottish Secretary’s statement effectively turned Sewel on its head by saying that if there is disagreement, such as no consent on a legislative consent motion, the UK Government can proceed to legislate. That is cause for huge concern, and it is a pity he is clearly not that concerned, or he would have made sure to respond to this important debate.

Under the constitutional rules, this Government should not proceed without the Scottish Parliament’s consent. By constitutional convention and invariable practice since 1999, the Bill should not complete its Westminster stages in its current form without that consent. Despite the murmurings of the current Secretary of State, the Scotland Office stated back in 2005 that the UK Government

“considers that the continuation of the Convention is vital to the success of devolution.”

What has changed? The only thing that has changed is that the Scottish Parliament has not given its consent and the UK Government, showing utter disrespect, have decided to proceed.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

We all heard the Secretary of State’s statement to the House on Thursday morning. Can the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) give a commitment on behalf of the Scottish Government, and indeed on behalf of his party, that, if the Secretary of State were to convene cross-party talks, his party would take part?

[Ian Blackford]

Yes. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. One of the things I would say to him, and to the Government, is that I do not believe it is in anybody’s interest not to have an agreement on this. We all have a responsibility to defend the powers and interests of the Scottish Parliament. I implore the Secretary of State to get back round the table. Let us resolve this issue. I do not want us to be in a situation where the Government in London take back responsibility for our powers, and they really must listen to the voices coming from around this Chamber and, indeed, from around Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to be involved in this important debate and to follow the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack), although I take umbrage at his claiming in opening his speech that this debacle, which has actually been made by his own Government, is somehow the fault of democratically elected politicians going through the Lobby to vote for Lords amendments to a major piece of legislation. That is our democratic right. I am sure that many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents wrote to him last week to ask him to support the 15 amendments that came back from the other place, in the same way that many of my constituents wrote to me. That is what we committed to do and it is certainly what we did last week.

The blame for the House having only 19 minutes to deal with the devolution issues lies squarely with the Government’s programme managers—the Leader of the House and the usual channels—who decided to make it a six-hour debate, with a knife at three hours, so that the second three hours was eaten into by votes. They could have taken a completely different approach to the programme motion and allowed the votes to happen and then another three-hour debate after that. This travesty and devastation, and the grievance that has been given to certain parties in the House, is of the Government’s own making.

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the answer did lie in the timetable. The Government could have protected the time for debating that string of amendments but they chose not to. Does he agree that, especially considering the nature of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, to suggest that this House should somehow have to choose between debating the amendments from the other place and voting on them is quite ridiculous?

[Ian Murray]

It is quite ridiculous, and I cannot help but feel that the programme motion was put in place for that very purpose. The Government would have known that the House would divide on the vast majority of those amendments, such that that three-hour knife would, by the nature of the process of amendments coming back from the other place in ping-pong, reduce the time available for debate.

I shall come to why it affects the Sewel convention, but the reason why everyone is so frustrated and angry about the process is that the Secretary of State—I will not get into the personal politics; I disagree with his politics fundamentally, but he is an honourable man and has always dealt with me fairly, and I think he will perhaps look back and regret some of the Government’s actions in this process—promised at the Dispatch Box, on several occasions, that this elected House would get to debate the amendments on devolution that were being put to the other place. He promised that the amendments would come in Committee, and they did not, and that they would come on Report, and they did not. His own Back Bencher, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), who is in his place, said that he would reluctantly back the Government’s position on the Opposition amendments, after he was given assurances by his own Front Benchers that the amendments would come on Report.

The very fact that the amendments have been tabled in the other place, meaning that the elected House has been unable to debate them or, indeed, have any kind of say in them, has left us with a grievance to exploit, because we have not even debated on the Floor of this Chamber the fundamental issues relating to the Sewel convention, the individual parts of the amendments, the impact on the Scottish Government, the impact on the Scottish Parliament, the impact on the UK Government or the impact on UK-wide frameworks that are being put in place as part of the process.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the programme motion, but on the vote itself, he tried last week to justify Labour’s abstention by saying that had we defeated the Government on the amendment, it would have reverted the devolution clause back to an even less satisfactory position. Is it not the case that had we defeated the Government, the Bill would have gone back to the Lords for further amendment, so we could have made the amendments that we were looking for?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman misinterprets the Labour party position; in fact, misinformation is the SNP’s role in this debate. I am clear about our position. The amendment tabled in the House of Lords would get us to around 80% of where we would like to be. The old clause 11 was deficient, as everyone in this House—including the Secretary of State himself and the Minister for the Cabinet Office—has said. There has been a process of negotiation, and in such a process one cannot always get what one wants. I would have liked the Government to go much further, but on the basis that the amendment was in my view 80% acceptable, it did not seem right to vote for it or to vote against it. That is a principled position to take. I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is completely and utterly fundamentally disingenuous to claim that powers are being taken back from the Scottish Parliament. It is equally fundamentally disingenuous to say that Brexit will be a powers bonanza. Both positions are wrong. The powers of the Scottish Parliament will not increase by one iota as a result of this process, and the number of powers that will be taken from the Scottish Parliament as part of this process is zero. Because the Conservatives and the SNP have it in themselves to continue to fight with each other because it is politically expedient for them to do so, all these kinds of arguments and the pragmatic approach to this process are lost.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

rose—

[Ian Murray]

I will give way to the hon. and learned Lady, my constituency neighbour, if she wants to dispel the myth and agree that the Scottish Parliament will receive no fewer powers than it has and will have no powers taken from it as part of this process.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously disputing the fact that, as a result of the amendments passed last week, 24 powers will be taken back to this Parliament for up to seven years and that, at any time during that seven years, the UK Government can alter them as they see fit? Has he read the amendment and is he seriously disputing that?

[Ian Murray]

The hon. and learned Lady’s question touches on the bit of the amendment from the House of Lords that we disputed. In fact, if she looks at our Front-Bench amendment in this place—[Interruption.] I do not understand why the behaviour of the Scottish National party has to be so hostile when I am actually on its side for the vast majority of this issue. There is no respect in this Chamber for people who want to make their points.

I agree 80% with the amendment that came back from the House of Lords. This is the bit that I do not agree with. In fact, the shadow Secretary of State put forward an amendment in lieu of the Lords amendments that stated the very fact that this was where the contention lay with the sunset clauses. I have the 24 areas of legislation in front of me, and I would like to say to the people of Scotland who are perhaps watching this debate that we do need UK-wide legislative frameworks on some of these matters, because it is important for the operation of Scotland, the UK Government and the UK economy. For example, let us look at environmental quality and standards in chemicals. Nobody could possibly suggest that, in the pragmatic world in which we live, we do not need both Governments to come together and propose a proper UK framework for that kind of issue. That is just one of the 24 issues—there are 153 issues—that has come up in this particular process.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Murray]

I will not give way again to the hon. and learned Lady, because others wish to speak. She will get her opportunity to speak in this debate.

We must take the politics and the heat out of this debate. During the statement last Thursday, I asked the Secretary of State whether there was any possibility of people continuing to talk on this matter. He said that he was willing to talk, but that the Scottish Government will not move from their position. In reply to my intervention a few moments ago, the leader of the SNP said that the Scottish Government, in his view, would be willing to talk. When can we possibly get both Governments around the table to try to flesh some of this out? The nub of the problem—one of a number—is that the Joint Ministerial Committee does not meet regularly enough. As was said by Lord McConnell, who set up this particular process, it should have been scrapped a long time ago. During the passage of the Scotland Bill in 2015 in this Chamber—all the SNP Members were here—I put forward amendments from that Dispatch Box to put the JMC on a statutory footing to allow minutes and agendas to be published publicly, so we did not get into this situation of “he said, she said” and the whole matter becomes a political football.

When the Minister gets to the Dispatch Box, I urge him to give a clear commitment that every single piece of communication that has happened in the JMC with regards to the devolution amendments is published. I shall tell him why he should do that. While this whole process is secret and while people are kept in the dark about who said what and who agreed to what, all we get is: this is a power grab, or this is a powers bonanza. The people of Scotland then have to decide which one is the most appropriate. As the compromise was made, I want to know, and the people of Scotland want to know, how far apart the two sides are. Is it the case that it is two minor things on which the Scottish Government are deliberately withholding consent, because it is not in their interest to give consent? I agree with the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) that the Scottish Government never intended to give consent, even if they got 100% of what they wanted. It is not in their political interest to do so. Let us have a little bit of transparency about this process, so that we can see, in black and white, where the gap is and how we are able to bridge that gap.

[Jamie Stone]

Further to my earlier intervention on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he agrees with my suggestion that many of us will not be on Joint Ministerial Committees, but that some sort of Back-Bench liaison, cross-party body of MPs and MSPs would be constructive for the future operation of both Parliaments?

[Ian Murray]

I think that it would be constructive. If this process has shown anything, it is that the inter-governmental relationship between two Governments when they are of different colours does not work. The consequences of it not working is not that the Secretary of State cannot get what he wants, or that the First Minister cannot get what she wants, but that it is bad for the people of Scotland. We cannot have an orderly withdrawal from the EU—if that is what happens and let us not get into the issues of whether or not we will leave the EU; I have my own views—unless we have a proper structure in place where both Governments can be confident, and the people of Scotland can be confident, that both Governments can work together. It is in both Governments’ interests to fight over these particular issues, because they cannot resolve some of the major problems with regards to leaving the European Union. Therefore, a fight between flags, between the Conservatives and the Scottish National party, suits both political agendas down to the ground while every other issue ends up being on the agenda.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

rose—

[Ian Murray]

I will not give way, because we will run out of time. I would hate it if the hon. Gentleman had to walk out because he was not able to get his say in this particular debate.

I will make two other brief points. I think that we are all in the same place in this Chamber in terms of what we want to try to achieve. If we leave the European Union, we want to be able to have a legislative framework in front of us that works for the things that we need it to work for. It is quite clear from the people who speak to me that we cannot have different frameworks with regards to the movement of animals across the UK, because we need the UK internal market to work. We cannot have different food labelling or we will have a situation like I have in my constituency where we have a wonderful Mexican deli which imports all this stuff from Mexico but has to relabel it with all the different labels. We could not possibly have that situation, so we do need some UK-wide frameworks that work and operate for the UK internal market. It is not in the SNP’s interests to make that work, because it wants out of the UK internal market. That is part of the problem that we have here with the politics. It comes down to the nub of the issue, which is: are the UK Government right on this particular issue? I do not think they are. They could have gone much further and they have made a hash of it and they are architects of their own misfortune. But are the SNP Scottish Government willing to move to be able to get an agreement on this? I think the answer to that is no. In the absence of two parties that are willing to talk to each other or willing to compromise, where does it leave us in terms of the overall devolution settlement?

I will finish on this. When he set up the Sewel convention, Lord Sewel said quite clearly that it should not be used for major policy issues on which there is a major political disagreement, and we are seeing that play out now. I do not know how we can get to a place whereby the Scottish Government can give this a legislative consent motion. I suspect that if clause 15 and schedule 3 were deleted from the amended Bill, they would still not give the legislative consent motion because it is not in their interests to do so. In the absence of two Governments willing to work together, how do we get to a position where this Bill can be passed and the Scottish Government can say that they will give it legislative consent? This is no power grab and it is no powers bonanza. Both Governments should tone down the rhetoric, get back round the table and think seriously about making sure that the JMC operates properly in the future and that it is transparent about its minutes and agendas.

[Several hon. Members rose—]