Chamber and committees

Given the constitutional significance of the UK Government’s actions, the Lord Advocate, representing the Scottish Government, intervened in Joanna Cherry QC MP and Others against the Advocate General for Scotland in the Inner House of the Court of Session and Gina Miller v the Prime Minister in the Divisional Court of the High Court in England and Wales before ultimately intervening in the subsequent appeals to the UK Supreme Court.

The Lord Advocate argued that the UK Government’s prorogation of the UK Parliament, at such a critical point in advance of 31 October 2019, had the effect of preventing, for five weeks, scrutiny of the UK Government by the UK Parliament and represented an abuse of executive power.

The Scottish Government therefore welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling in September 2019 that the decision of the Prime Minister to advise Her Majesty the Queen to prorogue the UK Parliament was unlawful, and that the Order in Council which followed was similarly unlawful and had no effect.

Details of the expenditure incurred in relation to these cases are set out in the following table.

The Lord Advocate's expenses are not included, as Ministerial costs are routinely published by the Scottish Government. The cost of internal legal advice is not included as that is provided by Government lawyers who are civil servants as part of their normal duties supporting Scottish Government Ministers; and in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them are not recorded, because there is no business need to do this.