Hansard

The first line of the agreement says:

“The Smith Commission agreement considered the issue of inter-governmental relations in some detail.”

“In some detail”—whoever wrote that could give Sir Humphrey Appleby lessons in constructive ambiguity. As Linda Fabiani is happily neutral in the chair and as Professor Tomkins is closing on behalf of the committee, perhaps I am the only person who feels free to say that the Smith commission did not have the time to consider any issues in adequate detail.

That was at a time when we were constructing a more complex relationship between the two Governments and between the two Parliaments than there had ever been before. Since then, we have seen additional levels and dimensions of complexity being added. If I thought that the Smith commission was a chaotic mess, I did not know the meaning of that phrase until I saw Brexit. We now have to try to understand how intergovernmental scrutiny will take place in the context of this profoundly new world.

James Kelly is right to say that, fundamentally, the challenge is not new, as it has evolved since the beginning of the Parliament. When a single party was in charge of—or at least the dominant party in—the Government in both Scotland and London, the intergovernmental relationships were more constructive but perhaps less transparent to the rest of us and to wider society. At a time when relationships might go through some rocky patches, merely to add more transparency will not necessarily make matters more constructive. Those challenges are very difficult to overcome. It is important that Parliament and Government, in reaching this agreement, remember that the relationship between them is not a relationship of equals, and that the Government is always accountable to Parliament in everything that it does.

The commitment to engage actively with parliamentary committees is important and is certainly the minimum that we would expect. I am sure that we all agree that we would hope to see the same level of engagement with committees from UK ministers that we expect from Scottish ministers. It is not only Scottish National Party members who I hope will agree with that. When only the Scottish Government ministers put their case in front of committees, we may not, as we should do, get the full picture. I hope that the Conservative Party will also argue that ministers in the UK Government should engage actively—more so than they have done in the past—with Scottish Parliament committees.

Finally, I make a plea that, when we make further changes in future—for example, reviewing the framework when it is due for review—we do so in a more calm, reflective, open and detailed manner than the way in which we have made changes to date.