Chamber and committees

However, it was a very good example of the view of those people who are unprepared, as democrats, to answer the question, “What is the mechanism?” We have a mechanism in Northern Ireland. Why should that mechanism not also exist here? We can agree—

It might be helpful for the record to remind Mr Halcro Johnston that we have stood against each other in elections before and that Mr Halcro Johnston was gracious enough to recognise the victory of the SNP in that contest. In the same way, I appeal to him now: having done that in a parliamentary context, he should be doing so in a constitutional context as well.

Yes, understood.

We will be happy to keep the committee informed of any substantive progress in that area.

The point that I am making is that we have different treatment and different statuses for the different nations of this union, and that is unsustainable. It cannot go on.

There is, for any number of reasons. First, in a democratic society, when a party wins an election on a manifesto, consent from the losing side through the acknowledgment that the Government has a right to make progress on delivering its manifesto is important for the democratic health of a country. Unfortunately, on the constitutional question, things have moved on since 2014. A range of rhetorical devices have been used to stop a referendum on Scottish independence taking place, notwithstanding the repeated election of a majority of members of the Scottish Parliament on a mandate for there to be such a referendum.

We need to separate something out. My point is not about whether one is for independence or not. As democrats, we live in a country in which referenda have been used as a mechanism for agreeing constitutional change. We have the precedent of an independence referendum and the way in which that worked. In Northern Ireland, we now have a mechanism that can determine constitutional change through the ballot box—a de jure mechanism. We have a de facto mechanism for England; given 85 per cent of the population and an overwhelming majority in the UK Parliament, if there were a move for constitutional change in England, there would be a mechanism through Westminster for such a change. However, no formally acknowledged mechanism exists in Scotland or Wales.

Convener, as I am sure you have seen, there is a long list of statements from past British Prime Ministers and leaders from across the political spectrum at Westminster—and, indeed, in the Scottish Parliament—that it is for the people to decide on the question. That being the case, surely there must be a mechanism for it.

As a democrat, for me there is only one route, which is the ballot box and a process that is legal, constitutional and agreed, because that is a requirement for international recognition. The fact that we have already done this tells me that there is a way of doing it, but it requires those who oppose Scottish independence to acknowledge, as democrats, that people have a democratic right to determine constitutional change in Scotland.

I acknowledge that the history of Northern Ireland is not directly comparable with that of Scotland. However, it is not sustainable that, although a mechanism exists for determining Northern Ireland’s constitutional future, one does not exist here. That needs to change. The mechanism does not need to be complicated, but it needs our agreement, as democrats, that the people of Scotland should be able to determine their future in relation to becoming an independent state. That is for our Parliament to determine.

I have regular meetings with colleagues from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. For me and my portfolio, that is primarily in the culture space. We have a very good working relationship, and we acknowledge where there are challenges. Libraries represent a major issue in many parts of Scotland, for example. That is a challenge for local government and it is an issue for the Scottish Government, as we want the library network to be protected, so we have an on-going dialogue. That seems to work well, but one might want to get a better understanding of some of the issues that colleagues have brought up here. I do not know, but perhaps that is a matter for the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee—forgive me.

I will ask Mr Mackie to share some insights from a civil service perspective, which will probably be more interesting than me sharing my view on it.

First, though, I acknowledge that there is not a Scottish civil service and a UK civil service. There is a Great Britain civil service and a Northern Ireland civil service. Those are the only two civil services in the United Kingdom. I regularly hear my civil service colleagues say that they are off to have a meeting with their fellow permanent secretaries, or that they have just come back from London, where they were at a particular Government department speaking with their opposite numbers, and that worked really well, or they were in another department, and that worked less well. From my interactions with UK civil servants—sorry, GB civil servants; I must get my terminologies right—I have always had the impression that there is a very professional relationship between the civil servants who work to the Scottish Government and those who work to the UK Government.

I understand the point that Mr Kerr is making, and I am sympathetic to the aim that he is sharing with the committee of making sure that intergovernmental structures operate as regularly as necessary and that they are not subject to a lack of the agreement on whether they should take place or be cancelled that makes an on-going professional and successful working relationship operate.

I concur with Mr Kerr that this is a work in progress. In acknowledging that there is a secretariat and that it involves Scottish Government civil servants as well as civil servants who are acting for the UK Government, I think that, if improvement is to be made, it is not because of the nature of the secretarial agreements. It is about the willingness of the UK Government and/or individual Government departments to take part in meetings; that is the bottom line.

We can come back to some other examples that Mr Kerr might like me to share with the committee about discussions with different Government departments. With some, they would appear to work very well, but not with others. The Cabinet Office has broached that issue by saying that it is keen to hear about when other UK Government departments are not meeting, are not prepared to meet or will not schedule meetings. The secretariat is not an impediment to all that. It is about the willingness of UK Government departments.

I would keep an open mind on that. It should be in everybody’s interests to make the processes work as well as they can. All that I am sharing with Mr Kerr and the committee is the perspective of Scottish Government ministers and our civil service colleagues who are part of the processes on a daily basis that the secretariat is not thought to be where there are any shortcomings in how we make the IGR process work as well as it can.