Leaving the EU: Scotland and Wales Continuity Bills Debate
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John Lamont
Main Page: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)Department Debates - View all John Lamont's debates with the Attorney General
Leaving the EU: Scotland and Wales Continuity Bills
John Lamont Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The Attorney General
It is important to be clear about the process. We are making a reference to the Supreme Court so that it can consider whether these particular Bills, one Welsh and one Scottish, are within the competence of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Government. It is not about deciding whether devolution is or is not going to stand. It is about whether, in accordance with the provisions of the devolution settlement, these particular Bills are inside or outside competence. That is what the Supreme Court will need to do. There is a way of avoiding all this, and we have discussed it at length. If these ongoing negotiations, which involve my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and other members of the Government, are fruitful, and I hope they will be, there will be no need for this process to be concluded. However, if there are competing versions of the way in which continuity is dealt with in legislation, in the end the system will require that to be sorted out.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Does the Attorney General agree that the SNP Scottish Government should have been focusing on their day job of delivering the best possible Brexit deal for Scotland, rather than pursuing this divisive continuity Bill?
The Attorney General
I agree with my hon. Friend. As I said, the Scottish Government are perfectly entitled to bring to their Parliament whatever legislation they wish and to argue for it, and if they can win a vote, good luck to them. But having done all that, it is bizarre in the extreme for them not to recognise that through their own actions, they have created a difference between the way in which the Scottish Government seek to deal with continuity and the way in which the UK Government have set out that they would deal with continuity. When there is a dispute, there is a way of resolving it, and that is what we are seeking to engage with.