Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
80-90)
LORD DAVIDSON
OF GLEN
CLOVA QC
19 NOVEMBER 2008
Q80 Mr Wallace: I think I detected
a coded warning about our remit. Can I ask, if I may, about your
other role as a member of the Government? The Government has submitted
to the Calman Commission a position. So this is not legal advice,
certainly not for public policy or anything else. Were you consulted
on the Government's position as a government Minister to recommendations
from the Government to make devolution work better or improved.
Were you consulted on the Government's position on that?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: I
am sorry.
Q81 Mr Wallace: The Government has
submitted to the Calman Commission a position. As a Minister of
the Crown and of the Government, were you asked for your views
on what could make it better or whatever?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: I
was not formally asked for my policy view as Advocate General.
I did offer one or two policy observations.
Q82 Mr Wallace: We may get a clue
to this when we go slightly further on. The judiciary in the Court
of Sessions have put forward some views and I wondered whether
you supported some of those views or not, or whether you are allowed
to say. There were three options they put forward. The judiciary
in the Court of Sessions identified what they believed were a
number of problems in the provisions of the Scotland Act relating
to the role of the Lord Advocate. I am not asking you to criticise
the Lord Advocate at all. One of the options was obviously a Director
of Public Prosecutions. Did you or do you take a view of their
submission? Have you read their submission?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: I
have.
Q83 Mr Wallace: Can you expand on
whether you think it is a submission you are in agreement with
or not?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: In
a sense, it is nothing to do with me. I was particularly interested
in looking at it because it deals with section 57(2) of the Scotland
Act and that is an issue that I have looked at really over the
last nine years. I have been in case after case where this point
has arisen. I have argued about the interpretation of section
57 in a number of different ways, sometimes opposing ways, trying
to work out where it is that this part of the Scotland Act fits
into government. So I am very interested in the area. At the end
of the day, my interests and views really do not matter a hill
of beans because that type of issue comes down to the way in which
the Scotland Act is looked at. If there is to be a change in the
Lord Advocate's position, it is a matter for the UK Parliament.
I think that is probably as much as I can say about that.
Q84 Mr Wallace: Can I take you briefly
back to the question when you said, "I have not formally
been asked for my view vis-a"-vis the Government's
submission to the Calman Commission." When you say "formally",
do you mean a legal opinion?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: No.
Q85 Mr Wallace: In your capacity
as a Scottish law officer, or do you mean actually the Ministers
did not formally consult with all the Ministers and ask what your
view is?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: I
certainly do not mean anything about the legal advice component
of it. It was simply somebody saying "Here is a new observation.
Do you want to tell us your particular view?"
Q86 Mr Wallace: You were not asked
for that formally?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: Formally,
no.
Q87 Mr Wallace: The Calman Commission
is as much about trying to make devolution work better, the relationship
between the Scotland Act, the Scottish Parliament. Do you not
think it might have been better that the one person at the very
centre of the day-to-day, boring bit of the Bills and ultra
vires should have been formally asked? Do you not think that
is important? You know more about it than a Member of the Scottish
Parliament coming in as Solicitor General.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: Certainly
there were conversations but I do not think there was any need
to ask for some formal deposition on my view of the policy.
Q88 Mr Wallace: When you say there
was not any need, you mean you thought it was just working fine?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: The
Government intervention to the Calman Commission was a Government
intervention. It is really trying to pull together a government
view.[5]
If you have seen the document, and I am sure you have, you will
see that it covers a wide range of areas which have absolutely
nothing whatsoever to do with questions like section 57(2) or
the position of law officers.
Q89 Mr Wallace: But the Calman Commission
is as much about just greasing the wheels the mechanisms of the
relationship between devolution and Whitehall as it is anything
else, and you are the man who probably knows more about it than
most. Without a position of the Union or the Nationalists or the
left or right, you simply know the foibles of trying to get things
through different civil services, different departments. I find
it astonishing that you were not formally asked.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: The
flattery is well meant but it is inaccurate. I am not some receptacle
of all knowledge about matters Scottish. The question of the Government's
relationship with devolution is a matter that goes far wider than
my Department. So thank you for the flattery but it is not accurate.
Q90 Chairman: I would like to thank
you for your attendance today. Before I declare the meeting closed,
would you like to say anything in conclusion, perhaps on the areas
which we have not covered in our questions?
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova: Not
really. I would simply like to thank you, sir, for chairing this
Committee, and I would like to thank the Members for the courtesy
and their well meant flattery, their allusions to Mr Dalglish
from time to time, which I am sure were also well meant. Thank
you very much for the courtesy that has been extended to me. I
look forward to coming back again before this Committee.
Chairman: Thank you for coming and giving
us your very informed views on the issues.
5 Note by witness: Officials in the Office of
the Solicitor to the Advocate General regularly work with officials
from the Scotland Office and other Whitehall Departments on a
range of issues. Back
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