Chamber and committees

The First Minister will know that, before the general election last year, the Labour Party promised to widen devolution for Scotland and Wales. This week, 11 Labour members of the Welsh Senedd wrote to the Prime Minister, accusing the United Kingdom Government of “rolling back” on devolution promises.

Whether it be the internal market or pride in place funding, Labour’s abysmal record in Government shows its contempt for devolution. Welsh members of that Assembly have described their own party’s actions as a “constitutional outrage”. [Interruption.]

They do not like freedom of speech, Presiding Officer.

Does the First Minister share those concerns and can he outline what dialogue the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government on the devolution settlement, particularly in relation to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and pride in place funding?

Given the warning from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the budget—the Labour budget—bakes in austerity for the years ahead, what assessment has the Scottish Government made of the pressure that that will place on Scotland’s public services, especially when the so-called funding uplift does not cover even half of the cost of the national insurance rise that was forced on employers this year?

A real-terms increase of only 0.8 per cent was granted

“because Anas Sarwar asked us to”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 26 November 2025; Vol 776, c 388.]

Does the cabinet secretary agree that that demonstrates not influence but ineffectiveness and a complete lack of ambition on the part of Anas Sarwar, that he asked for far too little and that Scotland has once again been treated, as the cabinet secretary said, as an afterthought by the UK Government?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the UK Government budget announced on 26 November. (S6O-05246)

As he is on the screen, I will go to Professor Renwick.

Unlike yours, Neil, which was pure—[Laughter.]

I do not disagree about ensuring that a referendum is fair and I accept the points about the process leading up to it. However, there is little point in doing that unless you are going to have a referendum, and that is the point that we are stuck at.

On Professor Renwick’s point, empirically the evidence does not support his statement that Scotland is not being treated differently. It was treated differently in 1979, and even in 1997, as asking a second question was a very different mechanism in a referendum. Secondly, we are treating Scotland differently just now by talking about maybe having a coincidental referendum for part of Scotland at the same time, or imposing something like the settled will or a supermajority, or all these different conditions that would apply—none of that was involved in the Brexit referendum. It is fine to say that we should learn from the mess that was the Brexit referendum, but the point that I was trying to make was about the way in which the state is perceived to treat different parts of the UK differently.

However, I am very grateful to the panel for the answers that they have given.

Before I come to other panel members, I have another question. There seems to be no prospect of what you described—of Westminster saying that there have been continual elections that have produced pro-independence or pro-referendum majorities and recognising that that has any consequence at all. Do you see any political consequences from continuing to see ever-more emphatic statements of support in elections for pro-independence or pro-referendum parties? What could be the political consequences of that, if any, for the UK establishment?

This will be my second-last question—feel free to respond quite briefly, if you think that that is appropriate. I do not want to put words in the mouths of witnesses but, in last week’s evidence session, we heard essentially that the act of union was pretty much a dead letter—it is irrelevant to the discussion—yet some of the written evidence suggests that it has a bit more standing than that and that, if there was a successful vote for independence, the act would need to be repealed.

Of course, the idea that there should be a right to self-determination in part rests on the idea, rightly or wrongly, that Scotland and England voluntarily—I would question whether it was voluntary at all—entered into this act of union between two parties, so each party should have the right to end that and have a process for achieving that.

What standing does the act of union have in the debate? I ask that with the view that this will come down to the UK Government putting its finger in the air and deciding what it wants to do—that seems to be how much of the constitution works in this country. What standing does the act of union have? I will go back to Nicola McEwen.

Good morning. I proposed this inquiry, and when I did so, I posed the following question. Given that the current constitutional arrangements are said to be voluntary and democratic, what is the route or the mechanism through which Scotland could choose independence? I do not know whether we are any further forward in answering that, other than to simply say that it will happen when Westminster decides that it will happen. I am happy to be contradicted, but that seems to be where we are at, given the evidence of today’s panel and our previous panel.

I completely agree with Professor Rodger’s point—I have to call him that, because I did not catch his full name—that politics is much more the driver on this, rather than constitutional nostrums. I think that politics will be what drives it. However, am I missing something? Is there a mechanism other than saying that there will be a route when Westminster decides that it will happen?