My Lords, if the previous debate was about a major part of the United Kingdom’s external soul, this debate is about a major part of our internal one. The past 25 years have seen huge changes in how we are governed, with the devolution of much power from Westminster in various stages. The job of creating the mechanics as to how the UK’s resulting governmental bodies interact has, however, not kept step; this is contributing to the significant creaks and groans within the union that are of such concern today to so many here—certainly to me. I thought I would remind the House of some of the history and then draw some conclusions.
The instrument that governs the principles of intergovernmental relations in the UK is the memorandum of understanding of October 2013. This 60-page document is in fact only a draft, as it was never fully adopted by all the parties. It vests the responsibility in the UK Government for the MoU and the Joint Ministerial Committees with the Deputy Prime Minister—a position vacant since 2015. Ten pages are also taken up with a chapter entitled “Concordat on Co-ordination of European Union Policy Issues”. Those two anachronisms are not the only issues.
The Scottish independence referendum was in September 2014. The resulting Smith commission agreement led to a substantial additional number of powers being devolved, as duly happened pursuant to the Scotland Act 2016 and the Wales Act 2017. These significant changes in the devolution settlements represent yet more things that the drafters of the October 2013 MoU had not sought to address.
Under the strong chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, who will speak later, our Constitution Committee reported in May 2016. The committee went into things in impressive detail in its report, The Union and Devolution, which built on its incisive May 2015 report on the Smith commission agreement. It concluded that the UK Government must
“devise and articulate a coherent vision for the shape and structure of the United Kingdom, without which there cannot be constitutional stability.”
Indeed, the whole report is as relevant and to the point today as it was five years ago.
The Brexit process kicked off in June 2016, just one month later, and exacerbated the situation. In our report, Brexit: Devolution, the European Union Committee commented in July 2017:
“The devolved governments, and some of our witnesses, have also argued that fundamental reform is needed to give the devolved institutions a more formal role in UK decision-making post-Brexit, analogous to that of regions and states in federal systems.”
I remember well the evidence sessions. The committee could not take a formal view on this, of course, as it was outside our remit, but the very fact that we included this paragraph shows how concerned we were.