Council of Nations tackles challenge of UK power-sharing

Sir Keir Starmer has chaired the first-ever meeting of a new Council of the Nations and Regions in Edinburgh.

It brought the prime minister together with the leaders of the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as England’s mayors.

Power sharing between the different governments of the UK was bound to cause a degree of tension.

Anyone who thought that would always be a creative and constructive force was probably idealistic, if not naive.

There have been some spectacular rows between the devolved administrations and UK departments over the years.

Fights about funding are probably the most common and sometimes ministers in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast have teamed up to make joint representations to the Treasury in London.

At other times, the struggles have been about where power lies and whether or not that should change.

Relations between the Scottish and UK governments have been particularly fraught at times – not least during the protracted debates over Brexit and the possibility of a second independence referendum.

The new Labour government under Starmer promised a reset to which the SNP first minister, John Swinney said he would also commit.

The early signs have been positive.

Yes, there’s been disagreement over the UK decision to stop funding a universal winter fuel payment for the elderly.

But there has also been serious discussion about how the governments can work together to secure a future for the huge Grangemouth industrial site.

Only this week, the Scottish finance secretary Shona Robison, reported to a Holyrood committee meaningful change in her pre-budget discussions with Treasury ministers.

The first meeting of the Council of the Nations and Regions is a further effort to improve the workings of government.

Speaking as it opened on Friday morning, the prime minister said the council was a “statement of intent on my behalf, and on behalf of the government, about the way in which we want to work with all of you.

“I think that is as important as the substance of what we discuss, is how we collaborate, how we work together.

“Because the UK is really strong, we’ve got so much to offer, particularly when it comes to growth and investment, but we are a bit complicated.”

Despite her move to become the “envoy to the nations and regions”, former Downing Street chief of staff Sue Gray will not appear at the meeting.

Ms Gray took on the role of Sir Keir’s aide when Labour swept to power in July, but she has since been replaced by Morgan McSweeney, who led the party’s election campaign.

Former civil servant Ms Gray, who boasts decade of experience behind the scenes, cited “intense commentary about my position” that risked becoming a “distraction” when she stood down.

Some SNP politicians have complained that Scottish cities like Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen do not have their own seats at the table.

Labour sources say that’s because the SNP has not devolved powers beyond Holyrood to create regional leadership within Scotland.

The new Council is not quite the “powerful, legally-mandated” body that Gordon Brown envisaged in his commission on the UK’s future.

It’s not clear what decision-making power it will actually have.

However, Downing Street seems determined to avoid giving the impression that this new body will simply be a talking shop.

The inaugural meeting is discussing major investments in renewable energy technology across the UK ahead of a further investment conference on Monday.

These get togethers are expected to be held twice a year.

Ahead of the first full gathering, devolved leaders met the PM individually and as a group – the so-called “quad”.

Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, said he had pushed Starmer for more public investment when the UK government unveils its budget at the end of the month.

Swinney said it had been a “helpful conversation with the prime minister about the important issues that affect Scotland.”

He added: “This has been a welcome opportunity to raise significant issues that affect the prospects of Scotland, and central to that is the outcome of the budget, where we need to see investment in our public services and in our infrastructure to stimulate the growth that all of us want to see delivered within the economy.”

The first minister also pushed Starmer on a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) facility in Aberdeenshire, which has been overlooked by the UK government for funding.

If relations between the Holyrood and Westminster governments are better now than they were before the UK general election, it’s worth pointing out that the baseline was an all time low.

As Scottish Secretary, Conservative MP Alister Jack was quite happy to be seen as a muscular unionist, checking the nationalism of the SNP.

He used the UK internal market act, brought in following Brexit, to block the introduction of a Scottish bottle deposit scheme.

UK ministers also used their reserved powers to stop gender recognition reforms in Scotland and were backed up by the courts.

SNP ministers saw this as outrageous interference in the exercise of devolved power.

From Mr Jack’s perspective he was confronting outrageous overreach by the devolved administration.

In a separate dispute, UK lawyers argued successfully in court that Holyrood could not hold another independence referendum without their approval.

These clashes poisoned relations between the Scottish and UK governments. They could not have gotten much worse.

Not that there was never any cooperation between Conservative governments at Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood.

They managed to agree to work together on freeports and struck a deal to expand Holyrood’s tax and welfare powers after the 2014 independence referendum.

Relations between governments were probably best when the parties of power in Edinburgh and London were the same.

For the first eight years of devolution that was Labour.

As first minister, Jack McConnell was able to secure a role for Holyrood in overseas aid which is a UK responsibility.

There was also a “fresh talent” deal to allow overseas students graduating in Scotland visa extensions.

But even in those years there were disputes.

When UK authorities carried out “dawn raids” to remove “failed asylum seekers” including children that had become settled in Scotland, the devolved government objected.

They argued that while immigration, asylum and border controls were UK responsibilities, this particular policy clashed with devolved powers to protect the welfare of children.

There was an understanding for a time, then a change of UK ministers reasserted Westminster control.

The switch in Holyrood power from Labour to the SNP in 2007 soon signalled that the level of friction could become a lot greater.

The SNP first minister, Alex Salmond, was outraged when Labour prime minister, Tony Blair struck a prisoner transfer deal in the Libyan desert with Colonel Gaddafi.

This was at a time when the only Libyan prisoner in Scotland was the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Scottish ministers had not been consulted.

As it turned out, the Salmond administration refused to allow transfer under this agreement but instead released al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds because he had cancer.

These disputes are now part of Holyrood history but they underline that there has been and probably always will be tension in intergovernmental relations.

Starmer and Swinney seem committed to a more constructive relationship.

Maintaining that all the way to the next Holyrood elections in 2026 would be a much bigger ask of one another.