Chamber and committees

Through a majority in Parliament?

Okay.

Thank you.

It sounds as though the improvement that has happened rests on good will, both at an individual ministerial level, as well as in the general Government-to-Government vibe.

Can I suggest a change that—although it would not absolutely lock them in, as you are right that we cannot fundamentally bind future Governments—could make it more likely that improvements to the relationship would persist? We could make some changes around the public discussion of the intergovernmental space. Most of what we have talked about in relation to intergovernmental relationships was about what you described, quite legitimately, as the private space that is required for Governments to discuss issues that are not yet in the public domain.

I respect the fact that there will always be a need for that, but there is no public space in which the intergovernmental decisions that happen in the grey area in the split between devolved and reserved matters are actually held accountable. When we talk about transparency we usually talk about whether there are minutes of meetings or whether reports will be produced, rather than about whether there is any public process at all.

I can make a comparison. Here, within the Scottish Parliament, during the whole period in which there has been a minority Government, that Government has needed to negotiate every year with other political parties about the budget. That negotiation has needed some private space, but no one would pretend that that private negotiation is a substitute for the public scrutiny that takes place in committees before, during and after the budget process.

Would having some mechanism for the devolved Scottish Parliament committees and UK Parliament committees to meet jointly and to call the ministers that they wish to call to answer questions in public create a built-in incentive for some sort of dialogue? That would not necessarily require formal co-decision but could ensure that people are on the same page. You gave the example of Erasmus+. If ministers who were about to make such an announcement knew that they would be asked in public about Scottish funding arrangements, they would have an incentive to ensure that they knew the answer.

I am suggesting a process of joint parliamentary scrutiny that would actually give ministers in both Governments some incentive to behave better.

Thank you, convener. I do not know whether anybody has started on the Christmas sherry a bit early or something, but the high spirits seem to be kicking in a wee bit. Let us be realistic. This inquiry is clearly going to elicit very different attitudes and views from those of us who want to see a referendum and those who do not, and from those of us who want to see independence and those who do not. There is no particular reason why we should pretend to be surprised about that dynamic in the committee.

From my point of view—and I suspect from yours, cabinet secretary—the position whereby Scotland has been told that the people of Scotland have the right to make a decision but that they may not exercise that right is a fundamental contradiction. It is as if the electoral authorities were telling people as individual citizens, “Of course you can register to vote, but we’re not going to print any ballot papers or open any polling stations.” People have the right to vote, but they may not exercise that right.

However, the contradictions go deeper than that. We have heard from Mr Kerr that all we have to do is persuade the majority of people in Scotland to vote for something—that is all that we are asking to have the opportunity to do—and he seems to think that that should happen through an election. Mr Halcro Johnston reminded us that an election is determined on a great many other issues and that positions on independence are not the only thing involved. An election is either a mandate for independence or a mandate for a referendum. We need to be clear that the latter is the case—that the mandate for a referendum is an election.

However, a contradiction is creeping into the Scottish Government’s position, which I want to give you an opportunity to clarify. You have talked about a party that wins an election having the right to implement its promises. At the beginning of the evidence session, you used a phrase about the situation where a party wins an election on a manifesto promise. That happened in 2007—your party won the 2007 election, but it did not, as a pro-independence party, have a majority in the Parliament, and there was no mandate for independence in the Parliament. More recently, there has been talk about whether a single-party majority is the necessary precondition for a referendum, simply because that happened to be the case in 2011.

Throughout this meeting, you have repeatedly used the phrase “a majority” in relation to parliamentarians who were elected on a commitment. You have also referred to the current parliamentary majority in favour of a referendum, which is not a single-party majority but a parliamentary majority. Will you be clear and explicit that the Scottish Government’s position is that it is a majority in the Parliament rather than a single-party majority that demonstrates a mandate to hold an independence referendum?

Good morning. Minister, you have talked about both the improvements that have happened and the inadequacy of where we have got to. What you described is a sub-optimal shambles, to combine your words and those of Keith Brown. I would like us to think for a moment about the extent to which improvement has happened. Am I right in thinking that nothing has in any way locked those improvements in? Even devolution cannot be fundamentally locked in, but it is solid to the extent that an incoming UK Government that wanted to reverse it would find it technically, legally and politically difficult to abolish devolution. It is not impossible, but it would be very difficult. Has anything happened that would make it difficult for an incoming UK Government to go back to the hostility that we saw before?

Does the Scottish Government see any plausible way of locking in the improvement that has happened so that future UK Governments would still be required to work in as collegiate a way as can be achieved?

It would also require a change to UK legislation to make that happen.