DELAYS to promised amendments to key Brexit legislation are “frustrating”, Ruth Davidson has admitted.
The Scots Tory leader will meet Theresa May on Monday to discuss hold-ups in changes to the EU Withdrawal Bill.
The UK Government has denied that the legislation, which would see EU powers over devolved areas returned to Westminster, is a “power grab”.
It says they would be released to the devolved administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast once common frameworks are created.
More than 100 European powers would be centralised in Whitehall under the terms of clause 11 of the bill.
However, the Scottish and Welsh Governments say they will not recommend that the legislation be granted consent without key alterations.
Scottish Secretary David Mundell had said changes aimed at addressing these concerns would be introduced next week during the report stage in the House of Commons.
However, the timetable has now slipped and the amendments will not be tabled until the bill reaches the House of Lords.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland yesterday, Davidson said the work needed was “complex”.
She said: “The Scottish Government and the other devolved administrations thinkt it needs replaced and rewritten. It’s quite complex to do that. I’m frustrated that it’s not happened already.
“The work that’s going on between the civil servants of the UK Government and the Scottish Government is taking longer than we had thought and anticipated and I find that frustrating.
“That also requires political input as well, so ministers are talking as well.”
Referring to senior members of the Scottish Government, she went on: “One of the very first phone calls that David Lidington made when he became the new Cabinet Office Secretary in charge of part of the guts of Brexit was to John Swinney to have that discussion.
“I know that colleagues have sat down with Mike Russell as well. I’m going down to see the Prime Minister to give my sort of talk about this.
“Even over the Christmas period work was going on. I had phone calls and talked to the cabinet office, I talked to David Mundell, I spoke to the chief whip.
“Why it’s taking the time that it is taking, that’s partly because it’s never been done before but partly because these things that I was talking about, these common frameworks, it’s not just about words on a bit of paper that politicians stick their hand up and say yes or no to. It’s about what this looks like after we leave.
“We had all hoped that that would be possible. It’s just taken longer than we thought.”
The Scottish Government said this week that it may introduce an EU Continuity Bill next month in order to prepare Scots laws for leaving the bloc if an agreement with Westminster over its Brexit bill cannot be reached.
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