Public Bodies Bill
Item 3 is to take evidence on the legislative consent memorandum to the UK Public Bodies Bill. Accompanying the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth for this evidence session are Keith Connal and Colin Miller from the Scottish Government’s public bodies policy team. Welcome. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement.
The UK Government’s Public Bodies Bill provides order-making powers for UK ministers in respect of the bodies and offices that are listed in the various schedules to the bill. The powers are designed to allow UK ministers to implement the proposals that the UK Government announced last year for the abolition, reform or restructuring of public bodies that operate either in England and Wales or on a UK-wide basis.
The bill is an enabling bill, which means that it will not of itself make any changes to public bodies when it comes into effect. Instead, it provides a series of order-making powers for UK ministers in respect of the bodies and offices that are listed in schedules 1 to 6. They include powers to abolish, merge or modify the constitutional or funding arrangements of those bodies, or to modify or transfer the functions of the bodies that are listed in each schedule. Schedule 7 to the bill as introduced contains a list of bodies that may be added by order to any of the principal schedules and therefore brought within the scope of one or other of the bill’s substantive powers. However, I understand that the United Kingdom Government announced yesterday that it would be removing schedule 7 from the bill altogether.
Orders under clauses 1 to 6 will be subject to affirmative resolution procedure at Westminster, together with additional procedural safeguards. I was interested to note that the United Kingdom Government is proposing further safeguards, and that some of them appear to have been taken from the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, and so they will be familiar to members of the committee.
As I have mentioned, all the bodies that are listed in the schedules to the Public Bodies Bill operate either in England and Wales or on a UK-wide basis. They do not include any devolved public bodies for which the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament are responsible. However, orders made by UK ministers under the powers contained in schedules 1 to 6 could affect bodies that exercise devolved functions in Scotland or affect the executive competence of Scottish ministers.
Following constructive discussions between ministers in all four Administrations, the UK Government has agreed to table amendments to the bill on those matters and has provided various assurances. Taken as a whole, the package of alterations fully protects Scottish interests and the Parliament’s position in relation to devolved matters.
I will outline the main elements of the package of amendments. The UK Government will shortly table amendments to replace the requirement for the Scottish ministers’ consent in clause 9 of the bill with a requirement for the Scottish Parliament’s consent. That is more appropriate and was recommended by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which considered the bill. The amendments will provide that an order under clauses 1 to 6 to make any provision that is within this Parliament’s legislative competence will require this Parliament’s consent. The amendments will also require this Parliament’s consent to any other provision that modifies a function of the Scottish ministers, except when that function relates to a body that is being abolished.
The UK Government has provided a written assurance that, if a proposal falls within the scope of order-making powers in the Scotland Act 1998 that are subject to parliamentary procedure in this Parliament, it will—as far as is practicable and proportionate—be introduced under the relevant order-making power in the 1998 act and not by an order under the bill. That is designed to ensure the primacy of the powers and associated procedural safeguards in the 1998 act.
When costs arise as a result of proposals that UK ministers have made, the statement of funding policy will apply. That means that the UK Government will meet the costs of decisions that UK ministers take. Of course, any proposals that relate to devolved functions or the executive competence of the Scottish ministers will in any event be subject to the Scottish Parliament’s consent, which could take into consideration any costs or savings involved.
The package of amendments that we have agreed with the UK Government will ensure that any proposals that UK ministers introduce under the bill will be subject to scrutiny by the Parliament and will require the Parliament’s consent, to the extent that they relate to devolved matters. I will of course send the committee the text of the amendments as soon as they have been tabled.
That is an entirely appropriate and satisfactory outcome that fully reflects and respects the boundaries between devolved and reserved matters. On that basis, I invite the committee to lend its support to the legislative consent memorandum that the Government has lodged.
I have one brief question. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the Scottish Government has no difficulty with how the statement of funding policy will operate in relation to the bill?
Provided that the details that I have described to the committee are followed—provided that the details in the statement of funding policy apply to the costs that arise from proposals that UK ministers make, so that the UK Government is required to meet the costs of decisions that UK ministers take—I will be satisfied with the policy’s operation.
Various environmental bodies were concerned about schedule 7’s implications for the Committee on Climate Change, but I imagine that the situation has improved because of what happened in the House of Lords yesterday. However, it is still legitimate to ask whether the Scottish Government made any representations on that matter. It is important that that committee should remain as an independent and impartial body to give advice on climate change to the UK and Scottish Governments.
The Scottish Government has been involved in ensuring that we have in place the proper arrangements to protect the Scottish Parliament’s interests fully. The Committee on Climate Change is referred to and has a central place in the statute of this Parliament for its role in providing the Scottish Government with advice on climate change matters. We made no specific representations on any provisions in schedule 7, because we knew from our discussions that that schedule’s contents were being debated in the UK Government.
For completeness, I point out that, although schedule 7 is proposed to be removed and will no longer appear in the bill, the UK Government has identified several bodies that are mentioned in schedule 7 that will be put in other schedules, so those bodies might be open to revision. For example, the Sea Fish Industry Authority is mentioned in schedule 7. Actually, I have chosen a bad example, because it has not been proposed what schedule it will go into. Let me take another example. The Competition Commission is mentioned in schedule 7, but the UK Government has said that it will put it into schedule 2, with the possibility that it will merge with the Office of Fair Trading. Around 15 bodies have been identified in schedule 7 to be put into other schedules, but the Committee on Climate Change is not one of them.
Is that the Government’s final statement on the matter, as far as you understand?
I do not think that that could be judged to be the final statement. The announcement on the decision to remove schedule 7 was made only yesterday, and the information that I have shared with the committee and which I am happy to give it—actually, I have just been told that it is not in the public domain. There we are. We will somehow resolve what we will do with that. However, there is a list of 15 bodies. I presume that further announcements will be made on where the process will go, but I would certainly be happy to keep the committee advised. I expect that the amendments will be published fairly shortly. We thought that the amendments to which I have referred would have been published in advance of today, but they have not. As soon as they are, I will share them with the committee.
What would the Scottish Government’s attitude be if the Committee on Climate Change were to appear in one of the other schedules? I suppose that that is a hypothetical question.
It is clear that we have attached a significant role to the Committee on Climate Change in providing advice to the Scottish Government and Parliament on issues relating to climate change targets. As Mr Chisholm will recall, during the passage of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, the question whether we should have a separate climate change committee was debated in Parliament, and the judgment that Parliament settled on was that the UK provisions were perfectly adequate and appropriate. It is clear that we will need an organisation of that type. We would try to persuade the UK Government of the merits of retaining the Committee on Climate Change and resist not retaining it, but obviously, if that was unsuccessful, we would have to take other steps and make other provisions.
Members have no more questions. The committee has to make a report to Parliament on its views on the LCM. It appears that there are no particular issues that members want to raise in the report, so are members content for a short report to be drafted that refers to the Official Report of this evidence session?
Members indicated agreement.