Parliament’s Evolving Scrutiny Function

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 8 December 2020.

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Photo of Murdo Fraser Murdo Fraser Conservative

I am pleased to close this important debate on behalf of the Finance and Constitution Committee. Although the committee has been considering the impact of Brexit on the devolution settlement for some time, it has been interesting to hear the views of other committees, given that the issue will impact on all the remits to some extent. I appreciate the views that have been expressed by not only committee conveners, but other representatives.

Inevitably, in a debate in which the word Brexit appears, there was always going to be some party political comment, and that is entirely understandable. Given that I am responding on behalf of the committee, I am sadly constrained in responding to any of those comments. Anas Sarwar put it well earlier, when he said that we should all be able to unite around the debate, because it is a discussion on how the Parliament should function. I will concentrate my closing remarks on those aspects, rather than on the party political comments that were made by all sides.

It is clear, both from responses to the committee’s letter and from the debate, that three key areas are giving cause for concern. First, there is the question of who will undertake the monitoring of relevant EU policy developments to inform decisions whether to keep pace with them, where appropriate. That question arises as a result of the continuity bill, which is expected to complete its parliamentary passage before the Christmas break. That issue was referred to by a number of the conveners who spoke, including Ruth Maguire on behalf of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, Gillian Martin on behalf of the ECCLR Committee and Joan McAlpine on behalf of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee. Monitoring will be a challenging task—Gillian Martin made that point fairly—because, particularly in relation to the environment, a huge amount of policy will come out of the EU that we will need to keep track of.

The key question is who will decide whether to keep pace with specific policy developments. Some committees have suggested that the Scottish Government should be required to report on the use of the power and, perhaps more important, on the reasons underpinning its decisions. It has also been suggested that the Parliament and its committees should have a role in such decisions, and our stage 1 report welcomed the cabinet secretary’s commitment to working with the Parliament to agree a decision-making framework for future alignment with EU law. It is essential that the Parliament gives serious consideration to the level of scrutiny of the keeping pace power that would be both appropriate and proportionate—Bill Bowman made that point in his contribution on behalf of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I look forward to greater clarity being provided on those matters when the continuity bill is considered at stage 3 in a couple of weeks’ time.

The second overarching point relates to the need for sufficient time for parliamentary scrutiny and engagement and consultation with those stakeholders who will be most affected by the decisions. That point was made by Gordon Lindhurst on behalf of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee in a contribution that was made at least partly in French—and it sounded like fluent French to me. The point is particularly important in respect of common frameworks, which the Finance and Constitution Committee has previously recommended should be agreed between devolved Administrations and the UK Government. However, it is equally important that common frameworks are not in effect imposed on the Parliament and stakeholders without meaningful consultation and an opportunity to discuss or propose amendments. I hope that both of Scotland’s Governments will reflect on those points and seek to build sufficient time into the process for meaningful parliamentary scrutiny—for example, how might amendments be dealt with in what is essentially an intergovernmental process? We need to consider that more carefully.

My third and final point has also been highlighted by several committees and it is about the impact of increased workloads on committees’ already busy work programmes; Ruth Maguire highlighted that on behalf of her committee. Much of the work will be complex and technical in nature and will involve topics to which the Scottish Parliament has given limited scrutiny to date because they have been matters reserved to the EU. Questions have been asked and raised about the Parliament’s capacity to undertake that additional work in tandem with our usual legislative and inquiry-driven functions and whether resources should be reprioritised accordingly. I expect that the Finance and Constitution Committee will return to that subject in our scrutiny of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s budget submission for 2021-22. I believe that we are taking evidence from the SPCB on that subject next week. The issue was acknowledged at the start of the debate by the Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans, and all other speakers acknowledged it, too.

I agree with the remarks made by Michael Russell in his closing speech. Those are not words that I utter often in the chamber, but his comments about support for committees around legislation were very well made. As committee members, we have all had the experience of sitting in a stage 2 bill debate when our carefully crafted amendments, which have been prepared with help from the Parliament’s legislation team, have been gaily dismissed by the relevant minister as being poorly drafted or not doing what was intended. Ministers benefit from the back-up of civil servants in drafting their amendments; perhaps we should reflect on giving non-ministerial members similar back-up, so that our amendments are just as credible and capable as those of ministers are.

In the time that has been available, I have touched only briefly on the topics that have been raised, but the debate has certainly provided valuable food for thought. I thank again all who contributed and I look forward to returning to the topics in due course.