Tag Archives: Stephen Tierney

‘The festering issue’ – the legality of a second independence referendum

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With the Scottish government gearing up for a second independence referendum, questions have been raised about whether or not the Scottish Parliament can legislate for such a poll in a way that the courts will find lawful. In this post, David Torrance discusses the wording of the relevant legislation and the impact of subsequent caselaw, concluding that the prevailing legal understanding is that even a consultative referendum would be outside the scope of the parliament’s powers.

During the House of Lords’ consideration of what would become the Scotland Act 1998, Lord (Donald) Mackay of Drumadoon (a former Lord Advocate and subsequently a Scottish judge) told peers it would be ‘perfectly possible to construct a respectable legal argument’ that it was within the legislative competence of the soon-to-be-created Scottish Parliament to pass a bill authorising an independence referendum.

Lord Mackay added that he remained ‘convinced that the law on this matter should be clarified. If it is not then the festering issue as to whether the Scottish parliament is competent to hold such a referendum will rumble on.’ That was arguably a dictionary definition of prescience.

The debate, if not ‘festering’ does indeed ‘rumble on’ nearly a quarter of a century later, yet much of the commentary seems curiously circular, turning over arguments which might have been relevant in 1998 or 2012 but are less so in 2022. Chief among these is the idea that an ‘advisory’ or ‘consultative’ referendum might pass muster if the dispute were to reach the Supreme Court.

But first let us return to the Lords in 1998. Speaking for the government, Lords Sewel and Hardie (respectively a Scottish Office minister and the then Lord Advocate) were clear that an independence referendum bill would ‘relate to’ the reserved matter of the Union between Scotland and England and would therefore be ultra vires and outside the competence of the Scottish Parliament. As Lord (David) Hope of Craighead later observed, ‘the Scotland Act provides its own dictionary’.

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House of Lords Constitution Committee reports on delegated powers

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photo_2017_1_cropped (1)tierney2.e1489415384219Last week, the Constitution Committee published its report on the increasing use of delegated powers by the government. Mark Elliott and Stephen Tierney highlight the key concerns raised and proposals made by the Committee in two principal areas: the ways in and extent to which legislative powers are delegated, and scrutiny of such powers’ exercise.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee last week published a major report on delegated powers. It is a component of a larger, four-part inquiry that the Committee is undertaking into the legislative process. The first report in this series, concerning the preparation of legislation for parliament, was published in October 2017; reports on the passage of legislation through parliament and post-legislative scrutiny will be published in due course.

Delegation of power

The Constitution Committee, unsurprisingly, does not begin from the unworldly premise that parliamentary delegations of law-making authority are inherently problematic; after all, they are, and will remain, a fact of life. The Committee does, however, adopt as its premise the position that the legitimacy of such delegations is governed by ‘constitutional standards’ whose enforcement amounts to a ‘constitutional obligation’ on parliament’s part.

The Committee goes on to articulate two key principles by reference to which the legitimacy of delegations of power ought to be judged. First, it is ‘essential that primary legislation is used to legislate for policy and other major objectives’, with delegated legislation used only ‘to fill in the details’. Against this background, the Committee laments the ‘upward trend in the seeking of delegated powers in recent years’. Second, and relatedly, the Committee states that it is ‘constitutionally objectionable for the Government to seek delegated powers simply because substantive policy decisions have not yet been taken’ — a phenomenon in which there has been ‘a significant and unwelcome increase’. Having thus nailed its colours to the mast, the Committee goes on to identify a suite of constitutionally dubious trends and practices to which its attention was drawn during the course of the inquiry and which it has itself discerned in recent years through its constitutional scrutiny of all Bills that reach the House of Lords. Continue reading →

Devolution and the repatriation of competences: the House of Lords Constitution Committee reports on the EU Withdrawal Bill

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The Constitution Committee of the House of Lords today published its report on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which is set to have its second reading in the upper house this week. In this post, Stephen Tierney discusses the report’s findings on the devolution issues raised by the Bill and examines the suggestions for solving some of the problems posed by the legislation as currently drafted.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee has today published a comprehensive and critical report on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill (‘the Bill’). The Bill’s second reading will begin in the Lords this week, with the government committed to bringing forward amendments to the Bill’s provisions regarding the devolved territories (in particular, the controversial clause 11), but as yet these have not been tabled.

Largely because of the government’s undertakings to change the Bill, and the fact that it trusts proposed amendments will emerge from negotiations between the UK government and devolved administrations, the Committee refrains from making its own detailed recommendations in relation to clauses 10 and 11. The Committee’s overall position is that: ‘the devolution settlements must not be undermined. We welcome the discussions that are currently taking place between the UK government and the devolved administrations to seek consensus on the approach of the Bill to meeting the challenges posed by Brexit.’ Nonetheless, the Committee is also clear that clause 11 as it stands is problematic and that amendments to the provision are ‘imperative’.

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The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill: legal implications for devolution

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The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will begin its second reading in the House of Commons today. In this post Stephen Tierney considers the bill’s legal implications for devolution, noting that as currently drafted it will be almost impossible to articulate the boundaries of devolved competence once the Act has come into force.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill (‘the bill’), introduced into parliament on 13 July, will begin its second reading in the Commons today. Already constitutional problems are piling up, not least a potential impasse with the devolved legislatures. The bill has been called ‘a naked power-grab’ and ‘an attack on the founding principles of devolution’ in a joint statement by the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales. They also made clear that they will not recommend legislative consent for the bill as it stands. Michael Keating has addressed the policy implications of the bill on this blog. In light of discussions with UK and devolved parliamentary committees and other policy-makers over the summer, this post will consider the legal implications of the bill for the territorial constitution, in particular the changes it makes to devolved competence and the ramifications of the enormous secondary powers given to UK ministers.

The bill (clauses 10 and 11), makes provision for devolution, amending the Scotland Act 1998, the Government of Wales Act 2006 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 in order to circumscribe closely the exercise of devolved powers in relation to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. These provisions need to be read in light of two other sets of provisions within the bill. Those which seek to convert EU law into domestic law (clauses 2-6); and those which give powers to UK ministers and to the devolved administrations inter alia to change ‘retained EU law’ and to give effect to the withdrawal agreement by way of secondary powers (clauses 7-9).

Altering competence

All of this requires some brief contextualisation. The bill will of course repeal the European Communities Act 1972 (‘the ECA’) and end the supremacy of EU law across the UK. But in doing so, it will not expunge the vast body of EU law from the statute book. Instead it converts EU law as it exists at the moment of the UK’s withdrawal into domestic law; creating the new category of ‘retained EU law’. The competence of the devolved legislatures will upon passage of the Withdrawal Bill be redrawn by this category of ‘retained EU law’. Clause 11, in amending the three main devolution statutes, in effect puts ‘retained EU law’ beyond the competence of the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly. For example, the existing provision in the Scotland Act 1998 (s.29(2)(d)) that denies the Scottish Parliament competence to legislate incompatibly with EU law, is replaced with an equivalent restriction in relation to ‘retained EU law’.

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A second Scottish independence referendum without a s.30 Order? A legal question that demands a political answer

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In this blog Stephen Tierney argues that the legality of a unilateral referendum organised by the Scottish Parliament is a grey area. He also offers personal reflections from his experience as a parliamentary adviser at the time of the 2014 referendum and contends that a referendum held without an agreed process would have been damaging then and would be damaging now. It is incumbent upon both governments to ensure that a political solution to the current dispute is achieved and that, in particular, such a divisive issue is not left to the courts to settle. 

The Scottish Parliament today concludes its debate on whether to request from the UK parliament a ‘s.30 Order’ under the Scotland Act 1998. This would provide unequivocal authority for the Scottish Parliament to hold a second independence referendum. Westminster is likely to refuse this request for the time being at least, raising the question of whether the Scottish Parliament can legislate to hold a referendum without such consent.

In 2012 I argued that there was a plausible case to be made that the current powers of the Scottish Parliament do indeed allow it to legislate on the subject of an independence referendum; a view shared by several colleagues. The argument was that a consultative exercise, asking the electorate if they favoured an independent Scotland, could be legally permissible. Crucial to the legality of such a referendum, however, would also be its legal inconsequentiality; it would not bind the UK government to give effect to a pro-independence outcome.

I still consider this argument to be valid; the relevant devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament have not changed since that time. But I went on to serve as Constitutional Adviser to the Scottish Parliament Referendum Bill Committee which helped shape the bills (here and here) which regulated the 2014 referendum. What became clear to me was that, regardless of whether one was a Yes or a No voter, it was far better in terms of fostering a conducive environment for debate that a referendum, without the consent of the UK parliament, was not attempted. The fact that the 2014 referendum was the product of the Edinburgh Agreement between the Scottish and UK governments is central to how commentators now look upon that referendum as a valid and deliberative, if not uncontentious, exercise in popular decision-making.

In this blog I will briefly set out the zone of legal uncertainty, one which does suggest that the Scottish Parliament’s powers in this area are potentially broader than is often claimed. My main goal, however, is to make a plea for political restraint by both governments in recognition that this is fundamentally an issue of politics and not of law, and that in the interests of a healthy, democratic political process, it is incumbent upon the two governments not to allow an uncertain area of law to become a political football.

I would emphasise that this is not a call for unilateral self-restraint by the Scottish government and Scottish Parliament; both sides must work to ensure that this matter does not end up before the courts with potentially disastrous consequences for the reputation of the UK’s Supreme Court and the health of our democracy.

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