I have written in other posts — here and here — about the constitutional implications of the proposed Scotland Bill arising from the Report of the Smith Commission. In advance of giving oral evidence on this matter to the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I have made the following written submission to them.
The paper argues that clauses 1 and 2 of the proposed Scotland Bill are likely to be of limited, if any, legal effect; that the drafters of these provisions could, if they had wished, have attempted to implement the relevant provisions of Smith Commission’s report more fulsomely; that, however, the legal enforceability of more ambitious provisions would at the very least be open to question; and that the real significance of clauses 1 and 2 is likely to be political and symbolic rather than legal.
The paper can be downloaded as a PDF document via this link.
Public Law for Everyone 