MSPs have urged Tory ministers not to impose “common frameworks” after Brexit.

Holyrood’s finance and constitution committee has said any new rules brought in by the UK Government should only affect Scotland if there is agreement from Scotland.

Last year ministers in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff agreed the need for UK-wide frameworks that would govern the powers coming back to Britain after Brexit, but there was dispute over who should have final say.

The Scottish Government insisted that Holyrood must explicitly agree any changes, but the UK Government believed that would give ministers north of the Border an effective veto.

There are 111 areas of EU law identified as falling within the devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament. Though Whitehall analysis claims just 24 of those will require some form of legislation.

In its report, published today, the committee recommends that all legislative and non-legislative frameworks go before the Scottish Parliament for “consultation and agreement”.

It also said the frameworks must be reached through a process of “negotiation and not imposed on devolved governments.”

Bruce Crawford, the SNP MSP who convenes the committee (pictured above), said: “If the UK exits from the EU, under whatever the terms, common frameworks will be required to deliver common policy and regulatory approaches in some areas currently governed by the EU.

“The Parliaments and Assemblies of the UK are key to providing transparency, scrutiny and accountability, so we’re firmly of the view that the Scottish Parliament should have a formal role in relation to the process for developing, agreeing and implementing legislative and non-legislative common frameworks.”

Crawford said there was “progress being made”.

He added: “We strongly believe that common frameworks must be arrived at through agreement and not imposed. Key to this is resolving by negotiation the extent to which policy divergence can exist within common frameworks.”

“Whilst work is underway to define the UK internal market, a key purpose of frameworks, we are clear that enabling such a market to function must not be at the cost of adjusting devolved competencies without consent from the Scottish Government and Parliament.”

While giving evidence to the committee last month, Scottish Brexit secretary Michael Russell said cross governmental talks on the frameworks had effectively been suspended, while Whitehall prepared for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

Russell told MSPs: “It’s hard, unless you spend time as I do in Whitehall, to realise how the entire machinery of government has been captured by the issue of no-deal and the chaos that presently exists.”

The committee’s deputy convener, Tory MSP Adam Tomkins, agreed that there needed to be “a robust and trusted process of intergovernmental relations”.

He said there was consensus that “the Joint Ministerial Committee mechanism” for dealing with frameworks was “not fit for purpose”.