Chamber and committees

The requirement that an authority

“must take account of any views”

seems a bit weak. How would it demonstrate that it has taken account of any representations?

I have welcomed the steps that the Government has taken. It was suggested that the Government has listened, but those steps do not go far enough. That is the point. There is a point of principle, which is that to take powers from the legislature into the executive is fundamentally—

Amendment 1 is the only amendment to the bill that I have lodged. As we have heard from many witnesses at our evidence sessions, the bill is wide ranging, and there is an argument to be made that we should focus better. Umpteen bits of legislation could have been introduced, such as the housing legislation that Scottish Labour very much supports. There is a question about the bill in general, but my amendment seeks specifically to remove the so-called Henry VIII powers.

I have argued, and will continue to make the case, for a significant transfer of powers to this Parliament, but the use of the Henry VIII powers basically removes powers from the Parliament, which is the legislature, and puts them into the hands of ministers, or the executive. That cannot be right, and it is why people are rightly using the term “power grab”. I did not particularly support the use of that term at first but, when I looked at the evidence, it was clear that that usage was legitimate.

I will not go through all the evidence—there is plenty of it—but I highlight the evidence from Dr Tickell and Professor Britton from Glasgow Caledonian University. In their written response, they said:

“While powers of this kind have been used by the UK government to adapt the statute book to the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, Henry VIII powers are rightly controversial, as they infringe upon the separation of powers, give legislative functions to the executive, and can be imposed with modest opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in circumstances when they are used on an emergency basis.”

I therefore lodged amendment 1 on a point of principle. Despite the fact that my party supports many aspects of the bill—we think that it should have been done differently, but we support quite a lot of it—because of that point of principle, we could not vote for it. We cannot vote to take powers from the legislature and put them in the hands of the executive.

In the stage 1 debate, in my view, the best speaker on the Scottish National Party side of the chamber was John Mason. He made the point that, although he hoped that the Deputy First Minister and First Minister would have a long career in those positions, at some point another Government could be in place. It is the principle that is the point: whoever is in power should not have the powers that are set out in the bill.

I acknowledge that the Deputy First Minister has attempted to address the concerns, but I have to say that—based on the evidence—the attempt does not go far enough. In the interest of democracy, of ensuring that the Parliament is the legislature and has the powers to legislate and of making sure that no executive should take powers away from the Parliament and to itself, the mechanism does not go far enough and concerns remain. Although I acknowledge that the gateway vote mechanism is an attempt to address the concerns, it does not go far enough, and I say that on a point of principle. If we allow this to happen, what happens in future when the next Government makes a decision?

I wondered where the phrase “Henry VIII powers” came from. Basically, in 1539, the then king wanted to make law without reference to the English Parliament, and that is when those powers came about. In 2022, when a Scottish Government—an SNP Government—wants to use similar powers to those that Henry VIII did in 1539, and take powers away from the legislature and this Parliament, that has to be a point of principle.

It is a shame, because having sat through evidence sessions and read the responses that we have had, there is a lot in the bill that can be supported, but we cannot support taking powers from the legislature and giving them to the executive. It is a point of principle.

I put that back to Mr Mason: would he accept that the best veto would be to not have the Henry VIII powers in the first place? If we ended up in a situation in which we had another pandemic of some sort—that threat is likely; we had the Spanish flu 100 years ago—our experience is that the Government would not have a problem in coming to Parliament and putting legislation through quickly. Not only have many of us been supportive of the Government, but we have stood shoulder to shoulder with it through the pandemic to support what it did under massively difficult circumstances. However, this is a principle too far.

Do you agree that, in relation to local government, the clue is in its name—that is, “government”? They are elected bodies, and although in Scotland we have some of the weakest local government in Europe, with more and more of it being centralised, there is a clear role for local government—for elected and accountable politicians—to play and it needs to come together with the Scottish Government to determine what happened and learn the lessons from that. Do you believe that local government and democratically elected officials are being sidelined?

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Callum Hood, do you have any comments on that?

Good morning. A member of the previous panel talked about us as a country being unprepared on communications. Lots of planning went into different emergencies. There was criticism that we were unprepared for Covid because we were more prepared for a flu-like disease. That witness said, however, that we were unprepared on communications. Do you agree with that? If so, what is it that we need to learn, and what do we need to be better prepared for?

I will ask Stefan Webster a brief question. Television was the main form of communication, and the success of that was seen in the uptake of the vaccine, despite all the misinformation on social media. However, was there a balance? The First Minister did a press conference near enough every day, and the viewing figures show that the majority of people very much wanted to hear what was happening. However, there were people who said that there was political bias, and the odd bod went to the BBC and tried to create problems. In a crisis in which we need to communicate and politicians are communicating, but other politicians say that they are getting an unfair advantage, where does that leave you? How did you deal with that, and how do you deal with it?