Question to the Scotland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) effectiveness of the operation of the Sewel Convention and (b) ability of the Scottish Parliament to carry out its legislative functions on devolved matters.

Scotland’s two governments continue to work well together in line with the established practices of the Sewel Convention, a convention that has been used hundreds of times since the creation of the devolution settlement. The Scottish Government supported legislative consent motions for 19 UK Government bills in the last UK Parliamentary session.

The UK Government fully respects the devolution settlement as set out in the Scotland Act 1998, including the Scottish Parliament’s competence to legislate in respect of devolved matters.