Hansard

Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to take part in this brief debate.

The three principles in paragraph 8 of the agreement—transparency, accountability and confidentiality—are inherently fine, but I think that they can be difficult to reconcile in practice. That probably applies in all walks of life; for example, all committees in the Parliament want to meet in public but take some items in private.

Previously, when I was a member of the Finance Committee, the block grant adjustment was a major issue around the time that Scotland took over control of stamp duty and landfill tax. The negotiations dragged on and John Swinney was very limited in what he could say to the committee. Eventually, we understood that the cabinet secretary and the Treasury split the difference of their disagreement during a phone call.

Another negotiation between the two Governments concerned the Scottish Fiscal Commission and who would make the forecasts. That is a subject that we had debated in the chamber and the committee many times and there was clear disagreement between the two Governments. On that occasion, the Scottish Government conceded the point in order to get a wider, more beneficial agreement on the range of issues under discussion. The Finance Committee got hints about how negotiations were going along the way, but we got no detail, despite our questioning. Of course, I would not have expected John Swinney to advertise ahead that he was willing to concede a particular point in the negotiations.

One of the key aims in all this is to allow committees to express a view before the intergovernmental meeting takes place. To go back to the example of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the committee in fact expressed two different views, so the Government certainly knew what reaction it would be getting from the committee in that case.

On that point, I was interested that, for the meeting of the JMC yesterday, 7 December, the letter from Mike Russell to Bruce Crawford, the committee convener, was dated 5 December—just two days ahead. That may have been because Mike Russell did not know about the meeting, but that clearly would not be enough time for a committee to express a view on a subject if it had not previously considered it. In his letter about yesterday’s JMC meeting, Mike Russell says:

“Although I am unable to provide a detailed agenda for this meeting, I expect the agenda to include substantive discussion on Justice Security and Home Affairs issues.”

I hope that that will not be typical of the amount of detail on the agenda.

There are many caveats in the agreement about disclosing details; it uses words such as

“where appropriate ... the need for a shared, private space ... respect for ... confidentiality”,

and it points out that other Governments can refuse to release information. We will have to see how this develops. For example, if agendas and minutes are not forthcoming, that issue would have to be looked at again.

Overall, any formalisation of the process has to be welcomed; it is a step forward, which is a lot better than no step at all. Those of us on the back benches expect as much transparency and accountability as possible and those two principles should be the assumed starting point.