Meeting of the Parliament 10 December 2014
That is a point to be regretted. However, the fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland made it clear in his meeting with the First Minister last Thursday that he would make representations within the United Kingdom Government to determine whether something different could be done to change Mr Duncan Smith’s mind has given me hope. I hope that that is successful.
The third difference between the Government’s amendment and the Conservative motion is the last part of that amendment, which proposes that the Parliament
“welcomes the contribution of stakeholders and the public to the work of the commission, and recognises the need for continuing meaningful public consultation and engagement to ensure the credibility of the process in Scotland.”
That is important for the very simple reason—I think that I went through this in my reply to Miss Goldie after my statement on the Smith commission report last week—that a whole host of organisations made their submissions in good faith to the Smith commission on what they would like to be devolved and they have not had those wishes fulfilled in what the Smith commission concluded. It is now important that we engage constructively and actively with the stakeholder community in Scotland to ensure that we properly reflect its concerns and aspirations as we take forward the legislation.
Those are the reasons why the Government has taken the stance that we have taken. However, there is one other point that I want to make. We have covered some of this already. The Conservatives quite understandably want to move the debate on to what we would do with the powers. I am, of course, very happy to debate and discuss what we would do with them, but there is a stage before we get to that: the implementation of those powers. There is the actual translation of all the agreement into legislative form.
It would be a sign of good faith if the United Kingdom Government was prepared to engage constructively about early implementation of the provisions. To say to people in the referendum, “Look you can vote no and you will get change quicker than you’ll get Scottish independence” and everyone was—