18
Examination of witnesses
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Kirsty McNeill and Chris Flatt.
Q1 The Chair: Good morning. Welcome to this meeting of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. Today, we are holding a one-off follow-up evidence session on the committee’s 2024 report on the governance of the union, consultation, co-operation and legislative consent. We are delighted to be joined by the Rt Hon Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, Minister for the Constitution; Kirsty McNeill MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland; and Chris Flatt, Director of the Union and Devolution Directorate at the Cabinet Office. You are most welcome, and thank you very much for coming to our meeting this morning.
As a matter of formality, I remind members to declare any interests relevant to today’s meeting the first time they speak. I declare that I have no relevant interests of my own to declare.
We have a short time available to us this morning, so we will try to keep our questions and answers brief. This is a fascinating subject which we could all discuss for many hours. Minister, may I begin by asking you a straight and simple question? We have had devolution in practice for some quarter of a century. Has it been a success?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: You ask for short answers. I think the answer would be yes. I will expand on that in just a moment. I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee. I am very sorry that we have very narrowly—it seems by a matter of hours—missed Lord Strathclyde. I am sure I will have the opportunity to appear before this committee again with him as Chair, but I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you this morning.
That is a very pertinent question to start with. We are now in a position where, unlike the mid to late 1990s when the debate was all about what would be the impact of devolution, we can see what the impact has been over the 27 years since 1999. I am someone who believes in strong devolution and a strong United Kingdom. I think the principle of taking decisions as closely as possible to those who are affected by them is sound. In respect of Northern Ireland—I am sure we will come back to the particular context of Northern Ireland relatively soon—and Scotland and Wales, that opportunity for the very particular contexts across the devolved nations has found expression in the devolved legislatures over that time. I would add that one issue of devolution has been its asymmetry and the fact that there is no single devolved body in respect of England, but mayoralties, in particular metro mayoralties, have been introduced. Obviously, the mayoralty of London was introduced in the first instance after a referendum, but we have increasingly had metro mayors in different parts of England as well. To a degree that has sought to address the issue of asymmetry, but, broadly speaking, that is a positive development. You can see that particularly in things like economic growth, but the opportunity for people to speak very distinctly for their parts of the United Kingdom has been welcome.
The Chair: That was a very helpful answer. We are considering here the constitution, not politics, but we have to look at the reality of what is happening. When the debates began in the mid to late 1990s about devolution and what its political effect would be, I vividly recall the then shadow Secretary of State for Scotland saying that devolution would kill nationalism stone dead. It has not, has it?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: If you look at the results of the elections in Scotland and Wales that we have just seen, there is now a nationalist Government, Plaid Cymru, in Wales. We have had the SNP re-elected in Scotland. It is in a minority, but it has been in government since 2007, so we have had 19 years of that governance, In Northern Ireland both points of view are represented in the Executive there, but it is correct that the First Minister is from Sinn Féin and the Deputy First Minister is from the Democratic Unionist Party.
To your point, Chair, quite evidently it does not seem that nationalism is stone dead in the sense that you have had those electoral successes. However, I point out gently that I do not believe that particularly in Wales—but it applies to Scotland and I am talking about Northern Ireland, too—there is a majority for the break-up of the United Kingdom. If you take the Welsh context in particular for a moment, I do not believe that the vote Plaid Cymru got in that election—it was about 35%—is an indication that a majority of people in Wales want to break up the United Kingdom. I think the quote about killing nationalism stone dead was Lord Robertson’s.
The Chair: It was.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: If you look at it in terms of the United Kingdom, I am still very optimistic about the benefits of the UK and its continuation going forward.
Kirsty McNeill: There are three things to say at the outset. First, sometimes our conversations in national policy terms proceed as if the question is whether the UK Government respect devolution. I would say that, more than that, we are enthusiasts for it. Of course, Labour was the author of the devolution settlement and proud to be so.
Secondly, it is also worth reflecting now we are more than a quarter of a century on that you have a whole generation of politicians for whom devolution is a given, so the conversation is not about whether to make devolution work; it is about how. That is the spirit of creative inquiry in which I think all government Ministers approach this question.
Thirdly, from a Scottish point of view the thing we are very keen to see from a UK Government perspective is how we reanimate that spirit of devolution, not just the procedural components of it, which says the objective is to get power closer to people and redistribute power to people in the places that they know and love. We are doing a lot of thinking about how we can get over what in Scotland is a very centralising tendency. There has been a big debate about how much power is devolved to Scotland and not really a debate about how power is being distributed inside Scotland. The hollowing out of local government is a source of enormous concern to my constituents and, I am sure, to the constituents of Scottish parliamentarians of all parties. There is an ongoing conversation inside government about how we get back to brass tacks about what devolution was all about, which was making people feel they had more agency and control in their lives, and that people who really knew and understood them were making decisions on their behalf.
The Chair: Thank you. I turn now to Lord Murphy on how we look at intergovernmental relations in this respect.
Q2 Lord Murphy of Torfaen: I declare an interest. The Minister and I have represented the same constituency for 40 years. Can I ask about the structures of intergovernmental relations? How will they be sustained in a totally new set-up? I describe this in the context that when I became Welsh Secretary in 1999 there was a Labour Government here, a Labour Government in Cardiff, a Labour Government in Edinburgh, and even in Northern Ireland as well. Effectively, everybody was in the same Government. When seven years later I returned to the same job, there was an SNP Government in Edinburgh and still a Labour Government in Cardiff and in Northern Ireland. By then they had devolution, as you explained earlier, and there was the issue of the two Ministers there. It is even more complicated now. We have the SNP in Edinburgh, Plaid Cymru in Cardiff and Sinn Féin with the First Minister’s job in Northern Ireland.
The structures that we put in over the past quarter of a century, frankly, have not been very good; they have not really withstood the politics of it all. I am also not quite sure how they fitted in with the territorial departments either, but there has been a change for the better in the past couple of years. How, with this totally different landscape, are those structures sustainable? Do they need change yet again to make them meaningful, other than simply formal meetings that you go to from time to time? It is a difficult one, and we have never faced it before. How will we deal with that?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: That is a very reasonable point. When I prepared for this meeting, I looked back at the various intergovernmental meetings there had been since this Government came into office. I learned that I had had at least 32 of them. I was tempted to call myself properly experienced, but, looking round this particular table, I have a long way to go. That is a very fair challenge. The approach I have taken in this role over the past nearly two years has always been, I hope, constructive and collaborative. I think that is what people across the United Kingdom would expect me to do, to try to make decisions and work in a constructive way in the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom.
There was a review back in 2022 of the different structures in place. The one very significant addition this Government made was obviously the Council of the Nations and Regions, which has met on two occasions, once back in October 2024, I think, and in May 2025. That was an important addition because it is what it says on the tin: it is not just the nations but the regions as well. On my earlier point about the asymmetry of devolution, there is still an issue about it within England, but certainly it gave parts of England that voice.
I do not come with a counsel of perfection on structures. You always have to look at the structures. I think that having quite flexible structures is a good thing. As Lord Murphy just said, there is no point in having a regularity of meetings formulaically for the sake of having meetings; they have to be meaningful. To give an example, in recent months I have been involved in meetings created around the Iran conflict and the domestic impact of it, which involved the devolved Administrations and Governments. I thought it was very important that we had the flexibility to do that. There are two points here. Whatever the structures, personal relationships are important, as well as the links to the territorial Secretaries of State.
From a very personal point of view, I felt we had a very good working relationship up to now with my counterparts. It is certainly the same in Northern Ireland for now with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Both my counterparts in Wales and Scotland have now changed, in Wales obviously because the Government have changed, but in Scotland because Angus Robertson, once a Member of Parliament here, lost his seat. Personally, my effort will be again to build working relationships with my new counterparts. I think it will be Stephen Gethins in Scotland and Adam Price in Wales—another former Member of Parliament. For me, personal relationships are always important.
The politics obviously is always important. I am very conscious that in both Scotland and Wales we now have Governments that do not share my view of the importance of the union and the United Kingdom, but, first, I will continue to build those personal working relationships, and, secondly, I will hopefully use the flexibility of what we have in structures so that when there are particular issues I need to discuss I am able to do so. That will be hugely important. Thirdly, I am always conscious that at the Cabinet Office I am co‑ordinating the work of the territorial Secretaries of State as well. They are a central part of the picture going forward, but I do not underestimate the challenges.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen: To follow up on what you just touched on about the territorial Secretaries of State and your relationships with them, how does all that fit in?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I make it a priority. This is probably slightly outside the remit of this committee, but it will be aware that I am lead negotiator on UK-EU relations as well. I make sure all the time that, just as I work closely with representatives of the devolved Governments, I also work with the Crown dependencies and the relevant chief Ministers, and the territorial Secretaries of State here. I see one of my roles as co‑ordinating between those different interests. If you do not link up all those things, it gives you a real problem, not just in terms of decision-making but the political arguments that you want to make going forward.
The Chair: It makes sense.
Kirsty McNeill: If I may add a quick perspective from the territorial office, I can offer some reassurance about what the change in Wales might mean, given we have had a very different political party in the Scottish Government. Everyday working-level relationships are incredibly effective, and officials are in contact daily about the areas on which they work together. The city deals are a very good example of that. Despite our differences on the big constitutional question, when Scottish interests are in play we are able to work together effectively.
Inevitably, a constitutional committee will have a constitutional conversation. It is in a way inevitable that we will think about IGR as the main mechanism for working together, but what I hear repeatedly from Scottish stakeholders—I encourage the committee to think about stakeholders and organisations beyond the Governments and what they need from IGR—and the business community in particular is that they would like to be assured that there is a mechanism for the cumulative impact of policy to be considered quite upstream. They say that they are at the business end of decisions made by local government, the Scottish Government and UK Government, and they would like to be reassured that you have thought about the interactions of all those policies at a very early stage of the process. We would like to be able to inform that and be part of that conversation. There is a real hunger from policy stakeholders and particularly the business community right across Scotland—I am sure the same is true of Wales as well—that, if they thought there was a closed IGR process that was the only place where policy was discussed, they would not be very reassured. They want to make sure that we are porous to each other at different levels of government and they are porous to both of us, and we can be part of a joint conversation about what we are trying to achieve together.
The Chair: That is a very good point.
Q3 Lord Beith: It sounds nicely positive. Let us put it in the context of the leaked memorandum which appeared earlier this year in which the Prime Minister is alleged to have said that “an overly deferential or laissez-faire approach to devolved government engagement almost inevitably creates political challenges or misses positive opportunities. We should be confident in our ability to deliver directly in those nations, including through direct spending, even when devolved Governments may oppose this”. Is that not a different concept of how devolution works, where you have the Westminster Government and the Governments of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland competing with each other to see who can produce the most attractive bus shelters or the best schemes for local authorities to carry out? That was a subject criticised by the Welsh Labour Senedd members when they wrote to the Prime Minister before that document was produced. It is a very different view of devolution and one that I seem to remember Boris Johnson espousing, that the Westminster Government should be in there competing on the same ground as the Governments of the territories.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I do not accept at all that it is the same approach as the one Boris Johnson’s Government took. The point referred to there in terms of direct spending is a consequence, obviously, of the fact that the UK is no longer a member of the European Union. There is an issue on structural funding. By the way, there are different aspects of structural funding, but certainly the devolved Governments have had a stronger role in how elements of it are spent. You are right that there is an element of direct spending, but I do not see this at all in a competitive sense. I am very much a pragmatic, outcomes-based person on devolution. When I speak to people, not just in Wales but all parts of the United Kingdom, they are interested in the best outcome. I do not think it is a political competition. Where money comes directly from the UK Government, that is certainly done working in collaboration with the devolved Administrations, of course, but it can be a huge advantage to communities across the United Kingdom that they have that extra funding.
Kirsty McNeill: I do not purport to speak for the Prime Minister, but one thing he alluded to there, a view I very much share, is that it has to be re‑established that Scotland has two Governments. I serve in one of them. There has been some sort of public commentary over the past 10 years or so that implies Scotland has only one Government and that the Scottish Government are uniquely empowered to speak for Scotland and Scots. That is simply not the case. As the Minister just described, it is perfectly appropriate for there to be spending for the benefits of Scots, but it is also perfectly appropriate for members of the Westminster Parliament to reflect the views of their constituents on all manner of policies that impact them. I think the Prime Minister was re‑establishing the legitimacy and mandate of the UK Government in Scotland. Scotland is of course a constituent part of the United Kingdom. It is perfectly appropriate for the UK Government to say it is one of Scotland’s Governments.
Lord Beith: Inevitably, there is political competition, partly because politics operates in these situations and partly because most of us around this table are dedicated to retaining the unity of the United Kingdom and competing with parties that take a different view on that. In that situation, if you introduce a competitive spending approach, are you not risking that devolution just does not work?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I do not think so. I would not call it competitive spending as much as additional spending. In my view, additional spending that goes to improve local communities can only be a positive thing. We would all agree there are aspects of our communities that really need that funding. I think it is something to be welcomed.
On the broader point about political competition, that is just the political reality now in our national debate. It is not the case, as Lord Murphy pointed out, that as in the early years of devolution particularly in Scotland, Wales and England you have the same party in power. That is no longer the case. That is just the political reality. Within that, it is not just legitimate but in a sense the duty of the UK Government to speak for their position in this debate, not least when we are talking about those in Scotland and Wales who want to break up the United Kingdom, and make clear that they have a very different view. We are perfectly entitled to make the case for it.
Q4 Lord Griffiths of Burry Port: Twenty-eight years ago we had a referendum, but also 10 years ago we had a referendum. In a very humble way, I am the non-politician in the group. I was on the Labour party Front Bench in the Lords dealing with that enormous Bill that sought to disentangle Brussels from the Welsh legislative programme. I remember just how complicated all of that was. I wonder whether after 10 years there has not been an opportunity to evaluate what that huge seismic shift amounted to.
If I may be excused for making one, apparently quite left-field, observation, in the 1980s I was part of a consultancy group that went to west Africa. I am a Methodist minister. The task we were given was to make churches that had had a mother-daughter relationship—because all those churches were the creation of United Kingdom missionaries and so on—become sister churches; in other words, to take the former metropolitan power and reinvest it with qualities that could give confidence to the people on the other end of that debate so that they no longer felt overshadowed or intimidated by or deferential to what had previously been the paymaster, the political organisation that called the shots and all that kind of thing. I hope you will see why that seemed to me to be relevant, because you will always have here in London the task of creating the kinds of relationships with the devolved bodies that do not make you, all the time, subject to Westminster telling you what to do, grumbling among themselves and so on.
By the way, I have heard quite a lot of that. I was so cheered by the bouncy way in which you began. You were asked what you felt about it and you sounded very excited, but the big psychological task, surely, is not just to have a reset that finds another organisational way of improving things, but working hard at the relationships that build the trust that allows you to share a future from your respective points of view. I hope that was coherent, but it was perhaps more like a sermon than anything else.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: Perhaps a sermon is appropriate in the circumstances anyway. I always like a more left-field observation. To your second point, clearly mutual respect is hugely important. What I personally always try to bring to this are constructive working relationships, whatever happens to be the political party of my counterpart. While within any devolved settlement you will always have a debate about the best and most effective place where power should lie, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the objective is delivery for the public. If all you are going to do is spend time in arguments about where particular powers lie, there is a danger that you lose sight of that overall objective.
On your first point, which is a particular issue for me in terms of the UK‑EU negotiations in which I am currently engaged, evidently there were a number of areas where, when we were members of the European Union and were part of the single market, we were governed by the rules of that. Post our exit from the European Union, I know there is a range of views across the devolved Governments on the UK’s Internal Market Act, but, just moving from the central tenets of the Act for a minute, it is obviously important that outside the European Union we have regulatory consistency. It is also important that we are not creating unnecessary trade barriers. There is a particular aspect of this in terms of monitoring GB-NI trade in the context of the Windsor Framework. Equally, just as when we left the European Union the previous Government were left with that challenge, I am now negotiating particularly in areas of food and drink. That is a very good example of this. We will take the sovereign choice to align and have common standards with the EU. Again, it will be important— this is what I have been doing in my intergovernmental work—to ensure that the voice of the devolved Administrations is heard throughout that and that I take a pragmatic approach, as I do, to enforcing it when hopefully we reach the final agreement.
The Chair: Would Mr Flatt like to expand on the whole issue of reset? If not, we will hold you back for the next question.
Chris Flatt: In terms of the reset, it is worth saying that everything that Ministers do is supported by an official set-up beneath it, and we have a senior officials group that sits beside and beneath the ministerial set-up. Through what we have seen in changes of Government—not just in the last month but obviously a change of Government in 2024—we have had a network of officials supporting all this. That means that we have a way of supporting Ministers through different changes and it keeps a network of connectivity going throughout all of that process. It means that post 2016 and in the work that has happened on arranging how the UK Internal Market Act works, we have been able to work together on setting up common frameworks for administering all of this. Underneath the differences of political parties and different political administrations, there is a continuing framework of officials that supports all of that, which is really helpful in meaning there is continuity throughout all these changes.
Q5 Lord Bellamy: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. Accepting the importance of matters such as respect, collaboration, constructive approach and so forth, presumably to make these arrangements work we need some structures. One is the famous Sewel convention and the question of legislative consent. We were told in the present Government’s manifesto that there was work ongoing on an MoU to explain how that should work. Where have you got to on that? What are you trying to do? What can we expect from such an MoU?
Kirsty McNeill: To offer some hopefully welcome reassurance, progress has been good. There has been quite a lot of detailed work since last summer. The intention, as per our manifesto, is to re-establish the importance of the Sewel convention and a posture of respect and enthusiasm for devolution working as it was intended. Progress has been good, as you will imagine. There is a trade-off in all forms of IGR between haste and buy-in. Because the MoU is being negotiated with lots of different perspectives involved, we have to get it right.
Lord Bellamy: Can you give us an indicative timeline or deadline? It is very often difficult to get a deadline out of Governments.
Kirsty McNeill: Negotiations are ongoing. There was a reason it was in our manifesto—to signal the seriousness with which we take it and how very committed we are to it. As I say, it is a conversation that has to happen with all the devolved Governments, so I will not give a—
Lord Bellamy: No timeline or deadline.
Kirsty McNeill: I would not want to commit to a deadline today but, to give you some sense of enthusiasm for a timeline, we want to progress this at pace because it is very important to us.
Lord Bellamy: Very good. Moving on from that, it often seems on the question of legislative consent that it is so important for everyone to engage early. We wonder whether there is, first, enough direction from the Government about the importance of early engagement so that it is not an afterthought—”Oh dear, we’ve just realised we need to get legislative consent for this, that or the other”. Secondly, should there be a bit more transparency as to what is expected, what the process is and how it works? I do not know if those are the sorts of things you can include in your MoU, but in general we would be very glad of your comments on how you see that aspect.
Kirsty McNeill: The committee has had some reflections about how transparency could be improved, which I know the Cabinet Office has been reflecting on. We are very keen to use the relevant documentation to increase transparency in particular when things come in front of the Lords. In terms of the enthusiasm that we have for early and positive engagement, that is incredibly high, and I am pleased to have the chance to commit that to the record. All government departments recognise the need to engage very early and with a positive, open posture. The transparency point has been well taken from the committee and well understood in the departments, but we are looking at doing that through the standing documentation rather than introducing a further layer.
Lord Bellamy: Thank you. Lastly on this point, once you have legislative consent and it is the UK Government that are implementing the legislation, there is then often a second stage when there is secondary legislation, statutory instruments and so forth. How does the collaboration work at that stage? Is the UK sufficiently attuned to the need to consult with and take the devolved Administrations with them to ensure that there is proper consultation and consent at that second stage?
Kirsty McNeill: They are very attuned. Perhaps Nick might like to corroborate that. The Sewel convention does not apply to secondary legislation, but the spirit of the convention is very much in our minds. While it does not apply, we have made commitments that we would not want to operate without any engagement whatsoever, and we are very committed to actioning that.
Lord Bellamy: Is there a firm commitment to engagement always on the necessary secondary legislation?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I will pass this to Chris as well because he can talk about it from an official point of view. Just to pick up broadly, because I know that the committee has previously expressed concerns about transparency—
The Chair: Indeed, it has.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: There is obviously a balance here to be struck between transparency and what is happening. It is important as well to have a space for confidential discussion with the devolved Administrations. Again, Chair, I do not come with a counsel of perfection. We can always look at that to see if we can go further. Always, where we can, I err on the side of being transparent because it is helpful, broadly speaking, to see the work that is going on and to be able to see the frequency of the work that is going on with the devolved Administrations.
With regard to secondary legislation, it is not technically covered by Sewel, but none the less, as my friend from the Scotland Office just said, we see the spirit of it running through. We tend to judge it on a case-by-case basis. Certainly, in terms of our consultation and our working with the devolved Administrations, I can absolutely say that that is hugely important. To your point as well, Lord Bellamy, around the early engagement on this, I can assure you that it is something that we take very seriously in the Cabinet Office. Chris can say from an official point of view how what I have just said is supported.
Chris Flatt: We have a team of people specifically to support UK government departments in the Bills that they take forward to help them with working through legislative consent Motions, and they are a linkage between other government departments and the devolved Governments. It is a way for us to have quick and regular contact so that we can go through all these issues, on both primary and secondary legislation. Legislation, and particularly secondary legislation, can cover a whole series of issues. Some of them move very quickly. It means that there is always somebody to whom you can talk to resolve these issues. We try to get in and resolve things as quickly as we can and deal with lots of the issues that come up between devolved Governments and the UK Government. It is not perfect, and legislation covers all sorts of different things, which means you are always coming up with a new situation that you have not dealt with before, but there is a team of people dedicated to try to make this work as smoothly as possible.
Baroness Hamwee: This House’s committee on secondary legislation has been working very hard to encourage all departments to provide detailed Explanatory Memoranda. Is it in your mind to cover this whole issue of quasi-legislative consent in those memoranda? The House would find it very useful to know what points have been taken up in that quarter.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I am always willing to be as open as possible. Explanatory Memoranda are the most appropriate vehicle to do that. I certainly have no objection to that. I know that the committee has previously considered the idea of whether you should have a set of general principles in that sense. On that, it is really important to go case by case because new situations arise, as Chris said a moment or two ago. I am all for early engagement in this process. I am not underestimating the political challenges here. They will be there however early you do the engagement. Early engagement and constructive open discussion are the best way that you can do that. If there are then other vehicles, including Explanatory Memoranda, at least setting out the logic of the position, that is important as well.
Baroness Hamwee: Indeed, it is reporting. I accept that.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Let us turn now to the matter of the Council of the Nations and Regions. We are all very curious about this.
Q6 Baroness Hamwee: I realise I should declare an interest, partly prompted by your referring, Minister, to the London Government as comprising the mayoralty. When I was chair of it in its first eight years, I was very keen to get the message across that it was more than just the mayor. They were very different political times with different political characters.
You mentioned the council and said in a positive way that it has met twice. Should we regard two meetings over this period as positive?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: The answer is yes. I do not think frequency is necessarily something on which we should judge success. First, I will say something about those two meetings and then I will come back more broadly to this issue. At the first meeting in October 2024, the priorities were inward investment and economic growth. In May last year, it principally talked about the opportunities of trade agreements that the UK Government had concluded, as well as the challenges of artificial intelligence. One aspect of that second meeting, which was a first, was bringing together the chief data officers of not only the devolved Administrations but also the devolved bodies in England, which I think is important.
I would hesitate to have it as something that had to meet on a certain regularity at a certain time. Its flexibility is also helpful for where very particular issues come up. It is helpful to be able to convene it to look at how you can take a collaborative approach to it. The other reason I think there is an importance to this, Baroness Laing, which I mentioned in my opening remarks to your first question, is that it also seeks to deal with the problem of asymmetry of devolution in the United Kingdom. There is of course the Executive in Northern Ireland and you have the Governments in Wales and Scotland, but there is not a single England devolved body. It also gives the opportunity to bring those devolved bodies from England together. It serves a useful and important purpose. Certainly, if issues arise that are suitable to be considered there, it is a very useful body to have available.
Baroness Hamwee: I have a different way of looking at this. I agree that no one wants meetings when there is no point to them, but if you have a programme of meetings or have it in your minds that you should have quite frequent meetings, that creates the opportunity to discuss things instead of only being reactive to an agenda set from London.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: On that point, we have to remember as well that it sits in a pyramid of other forms of engagement that are happening on a very regular basis, not just at official level but with significant numbers of ministerial meetings as well. Simply because that particular body has not been convened does not mean that other engagements are not going on that make sure that devolved Administrations can put forward their priorities as well.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: There is a slight danger in too much formality in this council. Although it is true that the United Kingdom is one of the most urbanised countries in the world—the prediction I saw the other day is that by 2050 some 80% or 90% of our people will live in urban areas—this excludes people who rather tend to feel excluded already. We have heard in this committee about problems with rural policing and so on. I used to be a Member of Parliament in Bristol. Bristol has a mayor, but it has nothing at all in common with Cornwall or West Devon. There is a danger, is there not, of exclusion in this council?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: It is a fair point that arises from the nature of devolution across England. Bristol, where your former constituency was, is under the West of England mayoralty at the moment. That would cover both urban and rural parts.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: It does not go to Cornwall.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: No, you are absolutely right. That is one reason the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been looking at precisely this in terms of the local government models around England. The assurance that I would give, certainly from a Cabinet Office point of view, is that I am acutely conscious of the different parts of England that, as of today, are not part of mayoralties. You are entirely right to draw my attention to that because they are equally a vital part of our United Kingdom with particular issues that you will be very familiar with that very much have to be considered as part of this.
Kirsty McNeill: Yes, I think it is good. We are very conscious of Scotland’s rurality when we make decisions at the Scotland Office. The Scottish Cities Alliance as a standing body does an excellent job of representing Scotland’s cities. I was very conscious that there was not a similar forum for the needs of rural communities to be considered, so we set one up. It had its first meeting earlier this year. Whether you are in the south of Scotland or the islands, some of the issues that affect you by virtue of your rurality are the same. We are trying to create bespoke settings in which people can be heard and, in a sense, not relying on standing bodies, but trying to do something quite bespoke because the needs are different.
My impression from dealing with those rural stakeholders was that they appreciated that something bespoke had been done for them in recognition that their needs were particular. I would not want to speak for them, but my impression was that that was appreciated and they would not want to have a standing process that was more by rote and convened for the sake of it. They particularly wanted to be heard on local growth and some of our thinking around energy. We had a very chunky agenda, partly at their instigation, because they wanted a forum that was just for them. I am sure that the Wales Office and the Northern Ireland Office would say similarly. By virtue of our size as government departments, we can be quite agile and responsive to their needs. Because of our proximity to those Scottish stakeholders, we were able to respond very fast when they said, “We felt we haven’t had a hearing in this process”. I would not want anyone to feel that the formal structures are the only theatres that we have for discussion, because we are very alive, as the Minister for the Cabinet Office said, to the needs of rural Scotland, and porous to them and willing to convene at speed bespoke conversations.
The Chair: We mentioned this morning several layers of government under which or with which the typical citizen of the United Kingdom now lives. I wonder what your answer is to the taxpayer who might ask why they are paying for several layers of government from the parish council to the national Government. Quite often, you will know as a constituency MP, when a citizen has a problem, they do not know to which of their representatives they should turn for help. If you do not know where the buck stops, it does not stop anywhere. I am sure you will have an erudite answer to that taxpayer who might ask you that question.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: That is a very fair challenge. Constituents who come to my constituency surgery want their problem dealt with. They tend to be quite agnostic as to where it is going to be dealt with. They want the problem solved. There is an argument that particular powers belong at a level of closeness to the people. You can pick up something like local town councils. We have six in the constituency that Lord Murphy and I have represented for over 40 years. It is absolutely right that, when you are talking about things like our town centres, the street furniture and the knowledge that is required to produce that, that is an appropriate level for that decision to take place. If you are talking about something like a local anti-social behaviour strategy, it is right that the borough council takes that view because it has that overview of the whole area. If you are talking about something like education in Wales, it is appropriate that that belongs to the Welsh Government. However, if we are talking about things like defence and foreign policy, people accept in a very reasonable way that that is within the purview of the UK Government.
My No. 1 answer to the taxpayer who has come to see me as the local MP is that my job, not theirs, is to be able to point them to the place that has the power to try to deal with their problem. It will not always obviously have the result that is wanted, but certainly we try our best. My secondary answer is that certain types of decision are best made at a particular level.
Kirsty McNeill: This is such a great question and I think we are of one mind about this. It is true not just for the individual citizen but for organisations as well. The thing that I have often said to Scottish stakeholders is that, if they come to the Scotland Office with a problem, exactly as the Minister just said, the burden should not rest with the organisation or citizen to try to find their way through the maze; it is our obligation to be a sherpa for them and to take problems away. I have often said this to Scottish businesses: if they come to a problem, I would like to get to a situation where it is a one touch with levels of government, and it is for those of us on the governing side of the table, whatever layer of government we sit at, to take their problem away and between us collaborate to resolve it for them, and let them get on with running their business or their organisation. It should not be an enormously time-consuming effort of political education to try to work out who is responsible for what. We should telegraph who is responsible for what and take that problem away.
The second question is directly about the taxpayer rather than organisations. It goes back to a question that we had earlier. Who gets the credit for things is constantly contested in politics. It is contested between parties in this level of government and between different levels of government, certainly in Scotland.
The Chair: You are absolutely right. On one side, who has the responsibility and who takes the blame, and then who takes the credit? Is it not funny how many people will grab at that one but turn their back on the other?
Kirsty McNeill: This conversation about attribution and contested attribution is very live in Scotland because we obviously have a Scottish Government with the full majesty and communications capability of government. It is a contested space about what has been achieved by whom. The question was: does that lead to competitiveness? I would say that is actually a driver of accountability, because the taxpayer deserves to know what has happened to their tax money that has gone into UK Government and is coming back out, whether it is through a city deal or any other form of government spending, in their locality. It was framed as if the contested attribution is wholly negative, and, actually, as the Minister said, it is incumbent on us to narrate to the taxpayer exactly what has happened with their money. I feel spurred to be involved in that contested attribution as a form of accountability and transparency. I welcome the opportunity to say to the Scottish taxpayer what their second Government, the UK Government, have done for them, because of course they have to.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I knew you would have erudite answers to that one. Let us hope that one day it works in practice. Lord Cryer has been very patient.
Q7 Lord Cryer: Thanks for coming this morning. First, I want to ask about common frameworks, which were, as you know, a system of principles that were agreed post referendum in 2017 to govern those matters that were devolved but fell under EU law. Some of the common frameworks have been agreed; some have not. To what extent have the existing common frameworks been effective and when might we see the finalisation of the remaining frameworks?
Kirsty McNeill: Eight are fully implemented and signed off by all the different Ministers who are party to them. We have eight raring to go. Twenty are provisionally agreed and in operation. There are still a few other layers of sign-off to go through, but they are operational. Two are in the early stages of development. This goes back to an earlier answer that I gave. This is another example of the trade-off between haste and buy-in, because of course we have to get every level of government to agree to them. That explains why two are in the early stages. We have quite a good record; eight are fully implemented and 20 are provisionally agreed and operational.
Lord Cryer: Would the remaining 20 be agreed in the next, say, two years?
Kirsty McNeill: As I say, they are provisionally agreed and operational. We will move at pace on them. I want to signal and put on record our very high degree of enthusiasm for getting these done as fast as we can, but it is not entirely in the hands of the UK Government because we have to agree them with all the devolved Administrations.
Lord Cryer: Does anybody else want to answer?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: On one other aspect, I think there are 10 of these frameworks where the divergence will be minimised in any event by the final agreement that I hope to strike with the European Union and the particular sectors that that will be. I could take the food and drink agreement, but there are some other areas of common alignment, particularly around emissions trading, that I am negotiating at the moment. Where these frameworks came into place to deal with those issues of EU competence when we were an EU member state, some of the potential divergence will be minimised, because if you have a single sanitary and phytosanitary area for the United Kingdom that is a single food and drink area that obviously minimises the potential for difference.
Lord Cryer: This relates not to what I just asked but to quite a few questions that have been asked and the answers. It strikes me that a lot of the issues that we have dealt with this morning relate to the peculiar imbalance in the way that devolution has worked in Britain and the UK. That goes back to a question that some of us remember—and some might not—which is the West Lothian question, asked by Tam Dalyell. I say that with a wry smile. I think Tam first posed this in the 1960s. He said, “How can you have a system where, for instance, the MP for West Lothian would be able to go to Westminster and vote on issues that affect London and England but not on education issues in his or her own constituency because they are completely devolved?”
I am not arguing for an English Parliament or anything, but it strikes me that we do not have a federal system, unlike in America, where states and the federal government have very defined roles so there is a clear separation of powers. In this country, we do not have those clearly defined roles and therefore you get those continuous tensions. I do not know how we answer that. That is not so much a question; it is more a statement on which you might like to comment—or you might not.
The Chair: It is a question that will for ever be a question.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: It is, indeed, Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian question. It is certainly a question in the way Tam Dalyell posed it, but it is also just a statement of consequence, is it not, if you have asymmetric devolution, as we do? I can remember that, when I used to teach British politics as a university lecturer, this was a very common essay question that we used to deal with. There are a lot of theoretical answers to it; devolution all round is one of them. You are right, Lord Cryer, to highlight that. I am not advocating for an American-style constitutional arrangement. We are inevitably in a place where we do not have a codified constitution. We do not have in the UK either some sort of higher form of constitutional law. What we have is a little “c” constitution that has evolved over generations. The democracy has evolved probably since the Great Reform Act of 1832. While we often have these debates and quite fair challenges are posed—”Perhaps you should do this or do that”—we should not forget that our constitutional arrangements have advantages as well, and the flexibilities that we have within our constitution are important, too.
Q8 The Chair: Thank you very much. We have, as a committee, previously expressed concern about the need for an update of the Cabinet Manual. The committee was delighted to receive yesterday a letter from the Cabinet Secretary saying that the Government will update the Cabinet Manual and that the Government intend to share a draft text with this committee in the autumn with a view to publication in early 2027. That is very good news.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: I have nothing to add to that. You have rather sabotaged it. This is one of my favourite subjects, and I am delighted to be able to thank the Prime Minister, you and the Cabinet Secretary for responding to what has been a pretty consistent drumbeat from this committee over many years—long before I was on it—that this should be done. This is a very opportune moment to look at all constitutional defences and practices, because, without being too alarmist, there is some danger that they may be rather tested over years to come. I welcome this very much. You invited the committee to be involved, and I am sure we will be.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: The previous Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster appeared before this committee in the past and always said, “We keep this under review”. The reality of this is that we have a Cabinet Manual from 2011. We were still an EU member state then, let alone anything else. We were in the period of the coalition Government. Everybody would collectively agree that much has changed in the past 15 years. To have that place that is a reference point for Ministers and civil servants as to the laws, the rules and the conventions is a very positive thing. I was delighted to be able to contribute to this announcement. It is something that we need to do. It is also an open invitation to this committee. You will get it in draft form. We would very much welcome your collective input into this. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the House of Commons will also contribute. The expertise that we have around this table would be very welcome in what I hope will be a quite significant moment in updating the Cabinet Manual.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I am sure that the committee will receive the draft with enthusiasm and spend some time considering it.
Baroness Hamwee: I do not disagree with a word of that and I am not seeking to nitpick; this is just a point of clarification, as you are here, and we have just had it. The letter from the Cabinet Secretary says that the process will “ensure the manual continues to be a non-party political record of fact”. I had understood—and I may be wrong about this—that it was about process and practice, not just backward-looking at fact. Am I nitpicking? You can say yes.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I would never accuse you of nitpicking. The way that I see this and what the Cabinet Secretary is saying in terms of statement of fact is that it is an assessment at a moment in time of the laws, rules and conventions to which Ministers and civil servants operate. I do not think it is saying “fact” in terms of being backward-looking. I think it is just illustrating what the Cabinet Manual is meant to be. Going back to my answer to Lord Cryer earlier, our constitution with a little “c” evolves over time. It will continue to do so. In fact, that has been one of the principal reasons put for updating the Cabinet Manual. Saying it is a statement of fact is saying that this is a survey, a sense of what those laws, rules and conventions are now. Yes, it is not party political in the sense that we are just trying to do that survey of how people are operating and then committing it to paper.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: I think I am right in saying that, though the coalition Government published the first version of it, it was Prime Minister Brown who initiated the process.
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I think that is right. Then it was completed in 2011 under David Cameron.
Baroness Hamwee: Thank you for the “how” bit of that.
The Chair: Does any member of the committee have any further questions for our guests? Minister, do you have anything to add? Is there anything that we have not covered that you would like to tell us?
Nick Thomas-Symonds: I suspect that the last theme, on the Cabinet Manual, may have been shortened by the announcement in previous days.
The Chair: Yes, indeed. We very much look forward to a future encounter on that subject that might well encompass many of the questions that often come before us and you. Thank you very much indeed. My Lords and my Lady, I formally draw this public evidence session to a close.
