Sewel Convention Inquiry
I am pleased to welcome Mrs Anne McGuire MP, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Scotland Office. She is accompanied today by David Crawley, who is the head of department at the Scotland Office, and Hugo Deadman, who is the head of the constitutional policy branch at the Scotland Office.
Thank you for coming, Anne. We will give you a few minutes to make an opening presentation, after which we will have questions from committee members.
Mrs Anne McGuire MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland):
Thank you very much, Iain. I am delighted to be here. At one point this morning I was not sure whether I would be able to get here: Edinburgh airport was closed and British Midland cancelled our flight. Thankfully, we could go into a second airport, and we came via Glasgow.
You have already mentioned my two colleagues, David Crawley and Hugo Deadman, and I understand that you have already received the Government's memorandum. We have deliberately gone into some detail about the issues connected with the machinery of Government, as the committee is especially interested in how the Sewel convention works within the UK Government. In my opening remarks, I will reiterate some of the messages from the memorandum.
Devolution works through the partnership between the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Executive and the UK and Scottish Parliaments. It has worked well, and dialogue on the process is part of that partnership and success. The Sewel convention is an integral part of the devolution settlement. It recognises and caters for the fundamental principle of the British constitution that the UK Parliament is sovereign and adapts it to allow for the reality of devolution.
The convention is not in any way a derogation of the competence of the Scottish Parliament; the Government that created devolution is not about to undermine it. There is no question of Westminster railroading the Scottish Parliament or telling the Parliament what to do and when to do it.
The convention also delivers eminently practical solutions. I can see no evidence that it has been used to sidestep difficult issues by sending them down to London. Instead, the convention is the means of continuing to knit together Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Many Sewels relate solely to small but important areas of UK bills that make the law in reserved or devolved areas work across the whole of the United Kingdom. It is used not just for matters on which the Parliament can legislate but for other purposes too—the executive devolution of functions to the Scottish ministers in reserved areas and variations of the legislative competence of the Parliament. Given that the convention is about practical outcomes, it must continue to be about a practical process. The Sewel convention is a convention of the UK Government, but the way in which consent is sought is a matter for the Executive and the Parliament to determine.
The other main point that I would like to underline relates to the practicalities. The two Parliaments do not share a common legislative cycle and the Sewel convention is the point at which the two Parliaments touch. I note the calls for the formalisation of reference and consideration as part of the seeking of Sewel consent, but that is a matter for the Parliament. That said, I would like to underline the need for flexibility so that the Executive and Parliament's consideration of Sewels and the UK Parliament's programme do not lose touch with one another. After all, it is the UK Parliament that will take through the legislation if consent is given.
I am sure that, if the reason is solely that a rigid structure does not allow a desirable policy outcome, we all share the view that Scotland should not lose out because provisions do not extend to Scotland.
That said, I am happy to be before the committee in order to show how seriously the UK Government takes its obligations and how our consideration of the need for Sewel consent is factored into the development of our legislation. I also want to show how seriously we take our close liaison with the Executive. All of that goes to show that the Sewel machinery is designed to respect the rights of both the UK and Scottish Parliaments.
Thank you. Before I open up the meeting to general questions from the committee, I will raise an issue that was highlighted in earlier evidence. I appreciate that you did not hear the evidence, minister. The evidence concerned the way in which the convention has operated. Although it is meant to be about the interface between the two Parliaments, it has become about the interface between the two Governments—the Scottish Executive and the Westminster Government.
The role of the Westminster Parliament in the process is relatively peripheral to the extent that it does not even get formal notification of the Scottish Parliament's acceptance of a Sewel motion. Is there a need for a more formal relationship between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament in respect of Sewel motions? At present, the process by which the motions go before the two Parliaments appears to be one that largely involves the two Governments.
The issue is one that is difficult to manage. The reality of government, both in Scotland and in the United Kingdom, is that the legislative programmes are driven by the Executive arm. I appreciate that there are areas within the Scottish Parliament in which back benchers have a role in determining legislation. Indeed, there is a similar situation in the United Kingdom Parliament. We have to start from the practicalities of government, however.
The other major difficulty is the fact that a great deal of preparatory work is done for Sewel consents. Significant liaison takes place between officials in the lead-up to the Queen's speech, for example. If the convention were to be made a Parliament-to-Parliament only convention, we would lose the co-operation and preparation that the present convention allows officials and the Executive in preparing memorandums and so forth for Scottish Parliament committees. The Scottish Parliament would not get to know what was in the Queen's speech until the United Kingdom Parliament got to know it, which is on the day of the speech.
I am sure that members appreciate that the Queen does not magically produce bills on the morning she goes to open Parliament—I am talking about the preparation of bills, rather than the Queen's speech itself. We must ensure that the preparatory work is done.
As I said in my opening remarks and emphasised in my memorandum to the committee, the issue is good government throughout the United Kingdom and we must deal with the reality of the legislative process. The issue is not about undermining the Scottish Parliament. Members of the Scottish Parliament are in control of the parliamentary process and we do not seek to interfere in the process or to predetermine how it operates. However, the relationship between the Executive and the Government works.
I was not proposing a Parliament-only process; I was perhaps suggesting that there might be a need for a slightly more formal relationship between the two Parliaments and in particular a mechanism for notifying the two Houses when the Scottish Parliament agrees to a Sewel motion. As I understand it, there is currently no such formal notification procedure.
It would be difficult to include a formal procedure for notification in the standing orders of Parliament. I will explain how the system worked in relation to the recent Civil Partnership Bill. I indicated in my winding-up speech at second reading that the bill would be the subject of a Sewel memorandum. When the bill reached its remaining stages and I dealt with the Scottish provisions, I mentioned that the Scottish Parliament had agreed to the Sewel motion.
I take the point that there might be an informal way of asking UK ministers to acknowledge that there has been a Sewel discussion in the Scottish Parliament, but it would be incredibly difficult to create a formal procedure for doing so. I appreciate that due recognition should be given to the process in the Scottish Parliament and we can consider the matter.
Thank you for your memorandum and your statement, which were very helpful. I am sure that we all want practical outcomes to flow from Sewel motions.
I do not know whether the minister has had the opportunity to read Lord Sewel's memorandum to the committee, in which he reminded us of his expectations of the Sewel convention. Lord Sewel said at Westminster:
"we would expect a convention to be established that Westminster would not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish parliament."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 July 1998; Vol 592, c 791.]
That is clearly what has been happening.
However, Lord Sewel's memorandum expressed concern that the scope of the convention appears to have been broadened to include the devolution of additional powers to Scottish ministers. I do not think that Lord Sewel has a problem with the devolution of additional powers, but he took issue with the use of the Sewel convention for that purpose, given that that was clearly not the intention of his remarks in 1998 or the will of the UK Parliament at the time. Will you comment on that?
It is for the Scottish Parliament to decide how it wants to manage its consent for proposals in UK Government legislation. In some instances, it might be quite complicated if the Parliament had, in effect, to manage two processes in order to reach one outcome. I will provide an example: two clauses in the Disability Discrimination Bill, which has recently been introduced, relate to devolved matters. The bill also contains a variation on the executive competence of the Scottish ministers.
As I understand it, Lord Sewel is saying that the Scottish Parliament needs one procedure for varying the competence of the Scottish ministers or the Scottish Parliament, and another procedure for UK legislation on a devolved matter. That would mean that both procedures would be required in relation to the Disability Discrimination Bill. It is for the Scottish Parliament to make up its mind on the issue, but I think that such a system would be unnecessarily bureaucratic.
Lord Sewel said in 1999 that the UK Government would not normally legislate in areas of competence of the Scottish Parliament. We have fulfilled that commitment and that convention with the exception of one case, in which there was an error—I mention that in case anyone wants to pick it up. The minister concerned put his hands up and issued an apology to the Parliament and nothing was enacted.
I think that the Sewel approach has worked. If we want to have a different process, we could call it the McGuire convention, the Craigie convention or—I will be even-handed and see whether I can pick out anyone else—the Smith convention. I trust that you understand what I am saying. My advice is that that would be unnecessarily bureaucratic, but it is for you to make the decision.
We know that the Sewel convention is a convention and not a law—that was emphasised to us in the evidence that we received this morning. You said that the Government that created devolution is unlikely to do anything that would damage the Scottish Parliament. Do you think that there is any need to enshrine the convention in law in some way or will future Westminster Parliaments honour the convention that has been established?
One of the advantages of the convention is that it has built up significant credibility during the past five years. There have been about 60 Sewel motions. As I am sure colleagues will know, a great deal of the British constitution is, in effect, based on convention and practice. I foresee the processes that have been established in the past five years being robust enough to take us through a continuing partnership between the United Kingdom and the Scottish Parliament.
A great deal of the work is done at official level. With the greatest respect to political colleagues, we come and go—some of us might face going slightly sooner rather than later. However, the official, core work of government goes on and a great deal of that expertise and practice is embedded in the civil servants both in the Scottish Parliament and at Westminster. There is always a debate about entrenchment. I am sure that Cathie Craigie will remember some of the debates that we had about whether one could entrench the powers of the Scottish Parliament. We dealt with that though the referendum and the Scotland Act 1998, which we made as robust as possible. The Sewel convention is pretty robust and I think that it will survive.
You quite rightly said that the Scottish Parliament has the prerogative to discuss, in relation to its own procedures, how consent is sought. The issue about the relationship between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament is how consent is communicated. In the helpful paper that you prepared for us you identify the fact that a wide variety of different provisions fall under the heading of Sewel motions. Do you have any thoughts about how those different provisions might give rise to different methods of communicating consent?
In addition to the convener's point about the formal communication of consent in the debate, do we need provisions for communication between Scottish Parliament committees and Westminster committees and provisions for communicating consent after the last amendable stage? Amendments may come in after the Sewel motion has been passed by the Scottish Parliament, and therefore after the opportunity for consent to be communicated from the Scottish Parliament to Westminster.
As you will be aware, there has been a change of process in the Scottish Parliament. There was discomfort that a Sewel motion had been lodged between the first reading and the second reading in the first house—you have to remember that we have two houses, which can complicate matters slightly. The bill had to lie on the table for two weekends—the period could be as short as that, so it can be a tight timescale.
Looking at the matter as an observer from Westminster, I think that the current process, which encourages the Sewel memorandum to come in before the last amending stage in the first house, allows a lot more opportunity for discussion and comment. The Justice 1 Committee undertook a significant consultation on the Civil Partnership Bill, and I met representatives of the committee to talk through some of the issues that they still had a bit of a niggle about. There are various ways of communicating that sort of information.
At Westminster, where there is a bicameral system, for the most part we try to discourage amendments in the second house for an obvious reason. If an amendment is lodged in the second house that has not yet been considered by the first house, the bill has to go back to the first house. In respect of the machinery of government, it is quite complicated to do that; therefore, we try to keep to a minimum the number of amendments that are lodged in the second house. So, for example, if a bill is introduced in the House of Lords, we will try to deal with as many of the amendments as we can in the House of Lords. Otherwise, we would get into a game of ping-pong, with the bill passing between the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
I return to something that Iain Smith asked about, on which I perhaps did not answer fully. If major changes are made to a bill as it is amended, the Executive submits a supplementary memorandum to the parliamentary committee that is scrutinising the bill. I am not sure which Westminster committees would be the appropriate ones for any communication. We have standing committees for bills but we also have select committees, which may be more like the committees of the Scottish Parliament.
I talked earlier about encouraging a notification to Westminster that something has been or will be the matter of a Sewel discussion—whichever is the appropriate phrase at the time. I think that that would be helpful. It would alert 651 members of the House of Commons to the fact that there was a devolved matter on which the UK Government was seeking to legislate. That would be an informal agreement or understanding, and we would use our good offices to encourage that to happen.
I do not know whether that quite answers your question. The issue is the management of the legislative programme at Westminster. With the two houses and amending stages, timescales can sometimes be quite swift and can sometimes extend for quite a long time, which means that we need to work closely with our Executive colleagues to ensure that they can relay the information appropriately to the Scottish Parliament and the relevant parliamentary committee.
You said that our two Parliaments work on different cycles. What are the procedural implications if the amendments go beyond the original consents that are given by the Scottish Parliament for the Sewel motion? If the amendments at Westminster were debated when the Scottish Parliament was in recess, what would you do about that? Would there be any circumstances in which it would be appropriate for Westminster to proceed without consent?
That harks back to my earlier point and the point that we make in the memorandum: there needs to be a great deal of co-operation. It is correct to say that we operate on different legislative cycles although, to be frank, the difference is now only a matter of a few weeks during the summer when there is a long recess. The other recesses are a bit more manageable. The preparation work that is done helps us to manage the two cycles and ensures that the Scottish Parliament has adequate time to consider the issues.
One of my colleagues may want to comment on the two legislative cycles.
Hugo Deadman (Scotland Office):
If there is to be a Government amendment and there is a suggestion that it might apply in a devolved area, the choice would be the Executive's—it would be for the Executive to decide whether it wished the amendment to apply in that devolved area, and that would be one of the subjects of the prior formal ministerial correspondence. The moment at which the amendment concerned is debated in the UK Parliament would have been preceded by some consideration, albeit sometimes fairly short, within the Government and the Executive. Such things do not come as a bolt out of the blue. UK bill teams liaise very closely with Executive officials as bills progress, and a great deal of prior consideration is usually given to such issues. Were an amendment to be debated during a recess of the Scottish Parliament, things would have happened prior to that.
Lord Sewel, having obviously been one of the major architects of the Sewel convention, hinted in his evidence that the mechanism was meant to apply to minor, technical issues. Do you think that it has been used too often?
I am not sure what Lord Sewel said, as I did not hear his evidence. He is on record as saying that, in his opinion, the Sewel convention has worked well and has delivered a pragmatic approach in those issues that cut across devolved and reserved areas. I am not sure what he said here, however.
We need to look back to where we were in 1997, 1998 and 1999, when the Scottish Parliament was established, when a major constitutional change and a major decentralisation of government was taking place. In many ways, that was a major unpicking of the ways in which Government had operated. I am not sure whether, in 1999, we could have said with total confidence that Sewel motions would be used only to deal with technical matters.
As we have all developed under the devolutionary partnership, colleagues at both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster have come to work with the way in which legislation operates. There is not always such a thing as a clean line between the devolved and the reserved. We have learned to appreciate the fact that the Sewel convention was there to let us deal with some issues in an open and transparent manner. Lord Sewel, in saying his prophetic words during the passage of the Scotland Bill, might not have known how important the convention was going to be for good government across the United Kingdom.
When a bill that covers both reserved and devolved matters in relation to Scotland is going through the Westminster Parliament, and the consent of the Scottish Parliament is withheld, all that that means is that the devolved, Scottish element is removed from the bill, but the reserved issues simply proceed. Is that correct?
Yes.
Sometimes, there seems to be a misconception that the whole process would stop dead in relation to Scotland. That is not the case; only those areas that relate to the powers that have been devolved are affected.
I am sure that Mr McFee and I can agree that there are significant elements of UK Government policy that still impact on Scotland. You are right to say that the provisions covering those issues would go ahead, because it is the reserved right of the United Kingdom Parliament to legislate in those areas. Given what I have already said, when consent has been withheld for a piece of a bill that would impact on Scotland, we would not normally seek to legislate in that area.
I will give you an example. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill was the subject of a Sewel motion about four or five weeks ago, I think, and there was an element within that bill with which the Scottish Parliament was uncomfortable. In fact, it was about giving powers to Scottish ministers and the Parliament decided that it did not want to accept those powers. That part of the bill was then removed and the bill was amended. We had all the ducks lined up. We had all the contingent measures in place to ensure that we did not legislate in the face of the lack of consent from the Scottish Parliament. You are right to say that the reserved areas would still continue.
Your paper was useful in giving us some background on how the convention works in practice in dialogue between Administrations and officials.
I have two questions. First, a lot of questions in the debate seem to be arising just now. Perhaps that is because of different parliamentary timetables and the fact that a lot of legislation is going through at Westminster, which has had an impact on the number of Sewel motions. Do you feel that any particular pressures have been put on the convention because of the different timescales of the Parliaments?
Secondly, you made some helpful suggestions about Parliament-to-Parliament dialogue, but much of the debate here has been about the extent to which Sewel motions are scrutinised in the Scottish Parliament. What needs to be highlighted more in the debate is the fact that this Parliament always has a final say on the motions. Would it be productive for us to take a look at how committees debate and scrutinise the motions?
The second point is a matter for the Scottish Parliament's committees, but I shall deal with the first point, on timescales and pressure. One of the reasons why I was quite firm in my view that the initial relationship must be between the Executive and the UK Government is the very issue of timescales, because such a relationship allows the preparatory work to be done. For example, it allowed Margaret Curran to highlight to the Scottish Parliament, within a few minutes of the Queen sitting down after making the Queen's speech, the areas in which it was anticipated that the Executive would be asking for a Sewel motion. That was done as quickly as it possibly could be, but behind all that there is a great deal of preparation.
In the Scotland Office, we ensure that officials at Whitehall realise the importance of the convention and appreciate that they must get it right and on time. I was going to say that we take very seriously the education of Whitehall officials, but that might be seen as pejorative. Part of that is about working with the appropriate Scottish Executive officials. Indeed, Margaret Curran and I spoke to a packed house of both Scottish Executive and UK officials just after the Queen's speech, to ensure that all the bill teams recognised the importance of the convention and knew what they would have to do to ensure that it worked.
Reference was made to there being two different timescales. We try as hard as we can, with colleagues in both the Executive and Whitehall, to ensure that we get it right. The timescale issue is one that we manage. I cannot look into a crystal ball and say that, if some emergency comes up, we will not have to work together to make that happen, but for the most part, we want to maximise the time and preparation that are given to colleagues.
The convention is important and we feel that some of the publicity that is given to it is not always the most appropriate. I hope that the Procedures Committee's inquiry will allow some of the facts about how the Sewel convention operates to get a public airing in a way that has not happened recently.
In the interest of airing those facts, could you comment on the fact that much of the publicity about Sewel motions is couched in terms of the Scottish Parliament handing back powers to Westminster? The Government's memorandum makes it clear that that is not the case, but perhaps you could confirm that your understanding is that legislative competence, and therefore the powers of the Scottish Parliament, are not affected by the passing of a Sewel motion?
I am delighted to give you that assurance. The passing of a Sewel motion does not in any way challenge the competence of the Scottish Parliament as laid out in the Scotland Act 1998. The convention is a mechanism for ensuring that we work together for the benefit of people in Scotland. Regardless of our political views, that is an aim that we can all share. The convention is a mechanism for maximising the use of parliamentary time in the Scottish Parliament and at Westminster.
If an MSP has not been on a committee that has dealt with a Sewel motion, their experience of Sewel motions is relatively limited. As you were involved in the Sewel motion on the Civil Partnership Bill, I ask you take us through what happens at your end and your dialogue with the Scottish Parliament committee or the Scottish minister. I am not asking you to go into the specifics of who said what, when, where or how, but to explain the process so that we can get a better understanding of its workings from your end.
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is, in some respects, a model of how to operate. There were parallel consultations by the Scottish Parliament, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Northern Ireland Office on the Civil Partnership Bill. A great deal of work was done to build up to the bill. I will ask one of my colleagues to speak about the involvement at official level, but I liaised closely with Jacqui Smith, the DTI minister who was in charge of the bill, and with Margaret Curran and Hugh Henry. We ensured that we kept in touch during the bill's passage through Parliament.
I cannot remember whether it was highlighted earlier how we did the briefings, which were really helpful, but discrete elements of Scots law and Scottish practice on tenancies were involved in the briefings. The officials who supported me in the House of Commons were from the Executive departments that deal with those matters. It was not a case of DTI officials assuming that they knew about Scots law; Executive officials—and, of course, some of our Scotland Office officials—supported me, as the minister who handled the core elements of the bill that dealt with Scots law. I also took the opportunity to meet Margaret Smith, Pauline McNeill and one other person whose name escapes me at the moment, and to talk informally through some of their concerns on pensions and give them an understanding of what would happen.
Thereafter, when the bill was going through its second reading, after its second reading and at a couple of points at committee stage, I made sure that I communicated with Hugh Henry. My line of communication is with the minister. At one point at the end of the process, we did a final wind-up letter to Hugh Henry to let him know what had happened.
The process worked quite well. We worked at it, and the bill was passed. In spite of the comments that were made about the bill being controversial, the result of the vote in the House of Commons was more than 400 to about 40. In the same way, the bill was supported overwhelmingly in the Scottish Parliament's consultation and its discussions on the Sewel motion.
That helps.
There is nothing that I need to add to that, is there, David?
David Crawley (Scotland Office):
I do not think so. You have described the relationship between officials well. It is important to acknowledge that the Executive has significant experience in some areas and that the Whitehall department bill teams for the Civil Partnership Bill and other bills realise that. With support and encouragement from the Scotland Office, they use that expertise. The Civil Partnership Bill was a good example of how that can be done.
We did a similar exercise on the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which is a tremendous piece of legislation and a credit to Westminster and the Scottish Parliament. We also did a similar exercise on the Railways Bill, which was Sewelled in the Scottish Parliament to give the Scottish ministers powers and vary their competences.
Those are good examples. I am trying to get over to the committee the point that robust processes exist and co-operation takes place, because the process is about trying to get the best possible legislation. It is in nobody's interest to come up with inadequate legislation.
Whether there should be some final process by which the Scottish Parliament can prove that what actually comes out of the Westminster machine is what the Scottish Parliament agreed to in the first place has been the subject of quite a few comments this morning. That was mentioned in Lord Sewel's memorandum and he has suggested that there should be something between the end of the amendment stage and a bill's receiving royal assent. Another suggestion is that the commencement order for the Scottish provisions in a bill should be subject to approval in the Scottish Parliament. Does the Government have any views on whether a formal final approval stage for the Scottish Parliament might be appropriate? Do you have any comments on the options that have been suggested?
The commencement order option is superficially attractive, but having varying commencement orders could, frankly, lead to difficulties in some instances. For example, if there had been different commencement orders in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, there could have been a regime for drug dealers and money launderers furth of Carlisle that was different from that north of the border for six months or a year, depending on the length of the Scottish Parliament's deliberations. The option is superficially attractive, but I am not sure whether it would meet the need.
I suppose that I could hand the other suggestion back to the committee through a question. When the Westminster Parliament finishes its deliberations on a bill it will have gone through all the processes, ticked all the boxes and had all the votes. Would it be appropriate that between that point and royal assent there would be a further stage—a stage at which legislation that has been worked on hard could be amended? I do not think that that stacks up constitutionally. I hope that members of the committee see that there would be a problem with that approach, even in practical terms.
At Westminster, when the final stage of the final discussions in the second house is reached—sometimes a bill will come back again—there is a point at which, as in the Scottish Parliament, we say, "That's it—it's finished," and the bill goes for royal assent. To return to the answer that I gave earlier, it is not that the Scottish Parliament is handed back competence. The Scottish Parliament can still legislate in the areas for which it has given Sewel consent. I think that it is a win-win in terms of managing the legislative process.
As you point out, we are not talking about a transfer of competences, but a transfer of responsibility, and Lord Sewel was keen to stress that safeguards are needed for that transfer of responsibility. One important safeguard is surely that, after everything has been done, the Scottish Parliament has a chance to consider the final version of the bill, as opposed to the bill as it was when the Sewel motion was passed. One would think that there will eventually be congruence of legislation in areas such as the proceeds of crime, but the Scottish Parliament might be unwilling to transfer responsibility in an area in which it has competence because it sees no safeguards in place.
We must be clear about the language that we are using. The Scottish Parliament would not transfer its competence to deal with issues.
I did not say that.
Right. I understand that safeguards are built into your processes through the supplementary memorandum. If a substantial amendment is made, other than a change that has been agreed to by the Scottish Parliament through the Sewel procedure, Executive ministers will submit a supplementary memorandum to the committee. The safeguards are already there. I hope that you understand that, in building up the partnership, there is also an issue of trust. When the issues have been debated and Executive ministers have ensured that the Parliament is informed through its committees of any substantial change, a point comes at which we must say, "That is it." However, that does not vary the Scottish Parliament's competence to reconsider the provisions that it has asked the UK Parliament to deal with. The important safeguard is that the competence does not change.
What mechanisms operate when a piece of legislation goes beyond a Sewel motion that the Parliament has agreed to? The Scottish ministers could give the Scottish Parliament information, but what mechanisms would operate between the Scottish Executive and the Scotland Office to deal with that?
There is constant traffic during the progress of legislation. As I said, with big bills such as the Civil Partnership Bill and the Railways Bill, Scottish Executive officials can see what is happening and our officials ensure communication. If a substantive change was made from what the Scottish Parliament voted for, Executive ministers would produce a supplementary memorandum or lodge another motion to reinforce the Scottish Parliament's consent to the original Sewel motion. I say to Mark Ballard that those are the safeguards. I do not mean to be aggressive, but there is no amending stage after the final amending stage in the House of Commons nor, I suspect, in the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Parliament has such a stage. If it legislates outwith its competence, it can be asked to change the legislation before royal assent.
I know that the Scottish Parliament is full of competent people. Perhaps we need to use a different word.
Your memorandum makes it clear that the present process is that the UK Government will not support a private member's bill unless it has the Scottish Executive's agreement to lodge a Sewel motion on it. Why is a request not made to the Scottish Parliament? Why could a private member's bill not go direct to the Scottish Parliament? The Executive is not the Scottish Parliament and might not win a vote, or the Scottish Parliament might support a bill that the Executive did not.
Even the business of a private member's bill is managed through the Government. For the most part, the Government does not whip private members' bills, but management of that business in the House of Commons and the House of Lords remains the Government's prerogative. We have had no requests for Parliament-to-Parliament contact on that issue and the system has worked well.
What became the Fireworks Act 2003 is a good case in point. It is horses for courses. Back benchers in Westminster and in the Scottish Parliament took a great interest in that legislation and the mechanism for making it happen was the Sewel convention. I suggest respectfully to the committee that the best way to operate is between the UK Government and the Executive, after which the Scottish Parliament's mechanisms kick in. As with Government legislation, the Scottish Parliament had the right to withhold its consent to that private member's bill. Many people are glad that it did not do that.
I thank Anne McGuire for attending. That concludes the evidence session. I appreciate the time pressures that you are under and the effort that you made to arrive via the other airport that we do not talk about on this side of the country.
I think that Edinburgh airport runway is now open, so I will take the next flight back to London.
I thank members for their attendance.
Meeting closed at 13:19.