Select committee: Constitution Committee
Recommendation 206
10th Report - Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st century
Published 20 Jan 2022
Constitution Committee Future Governance of the UK All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend the Government enters into a formal agreement with the House of Lords on the information it will provide about its intergovernmental engagements, to enhance the current scrutiny arrangements. This agreement should formalise the information already provided by the Government and, in the same manner as the agreements between the Scottish and Welsh administrations and legislatures, should include the advance notification of formal intergovernmental meetings to the House, as well as greater detail about those meetings as we have recommended. The agreement should also include a commitment to provide the proposed memorandum we recommended to strengthen the House’s consideration of legislative consent issues.
From: Constitution Committee, 10th Report - Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st century, 20 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 2 September 2022 (deadline 20 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and shares its aim of a stronger Union, agreeing with some recommendations, declining others and giving a mix of commitments and 'will consider' responses on the rest.
- On the Sewel convention, the government says it "will carefully consider the Committee's recommendations" in its discussions with devolved counterparts. On the Cabinet Manual, it intends to publish a revised draft "within this Parliament".
- On intergovernmental relations, it "notes" that the IGR review assures a Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council meeting "at least annually", and that this does not preclude more frequent meetings.
- It does not intend to establish an English devolution task force, pointing instead to ongoing engagement on the Levelling Up White Paper. On the Ministerial Code, it says it "will consider" the recommendation for the next version but does not think revision "is necessary".
- On funding pots for local government, it agrees that effective central coordination matters and will "set out a plan for streamlining the funding landscape this year".