THE UK Parliament should “not simply accept” Scottish devolution proposals, a House of Lords report has said.
The new report states that the referendum was not a “clearly justifiable reason” for the new approach in which Scotland will receive new powers, claiming the process has been conducted with “undue haste”.
It went on to say that the Lords believe people across the “UK as a whole” should have to accept the proposals and it should not be down to “simply one part of it”.
The legitimacy of the last- minute Vow by the three Unionist party leaders was also brought into question, and described as an “abrogation of their responsibility” to set policies.
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP claimed the House of Lords was being “grudging” about what he described as “underwhelming”, “watered-down” powers.
Robertson said: “The Smith Commission’s recommendations were already underwhelming and were then watered down further by the UK Government’s paper.
“Now we have unelected Lords being grudging about even these reduced powers.
“The Lords report concludes with a call for the UK Parliament to ‘not simply accept’ more powers for Scotland.’
“This follows on from a similar House of Commons report, and is the kind of out-of-touch approach that is doing such damage to all of the Westminster parties, and for which they may pay a heavy price for at the General Election.”
The 56-page Constitution Committee (House of Lords) report on the ‘Proposals for the devolution of further powers to Scotland’ said: “We are astonished that the UK Government do not appear to have considered the wider implications for the United Kingdom of the proposals set out in Scotland in the United Kingdom.
“We do not consider that the Smith Commission process, its conclusions, and this Command Paper represent sufficient engagement and consultation with the public for these significant constitutional changes.
“The government should consider how ongoing public engagement and consultation, so far conducted only in Scotland, could now be extended throughout the United Kingdom.”
The report ends with a call for the House of Commons to “not simply accept these significant constitutional changes as a fait accompli but to ensure they receive the detailed scrutiny they require and any amendment that may be necessary.”
The proposals from the unelected House of Lords come a day after the system of selection of prospective Lords and Baronesses came under scrutiny.
A study from Oxford University found the “relationship between donations and nominations (for peerages) has been found to be significant”.
The study is the most detailed cross-party examination into peerages that has ever been conducted. The report did stress that no “cast-iron” proof was found. However, it was found that a group of 92 peers had donated a total of £33.83 million to their political parties.
Of the report, SNP MP Angus MacNeil, who campaigned for the investigation into the Lords, said: “You would have to be a willing idiot not to see the correlation.”
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