Brexit will bring about fundamental changes to the devolution settlement across the UK, making possible the return of “significant powers” from the EU to Scotland, according to the Scottish secretary.
Speaking on BBC1’s Sunday Politics Scotland, David Mundell suggested that Brexit negotiations could result in new powers for Scotland relating to agriculture, fisheries, the environment and criminal justice.
“The focus has been on the single market and migration, but one of the most significant differences that we could feel in Scotland post-Brexit is in the changes to the devolution settlement,” said Mundell.
“What I think hasn’t been fully understood and is only just beginning to be debated is that by leaving the EU, that will have a fundamental change on the devolved settlements here in Scotland, and indeed elsewhere in the UK, because these settlements were predicated on the basis that the UK was in the EU. Therefore there are a number of powers and responsibilities that are currently exercised by the EU which will have to return to the UK or Scotland.”
In a separate interview with the Sunday Times, Mundell stressed that no powers would be “re-reserved” to the UK government.
“We need to work out how the UK will work best after powers are repatriated to the United Kingdom, and which powers will be repatriated to Scotland. Whatever the circumstances, no powers will be re-reserved to Westminster.”
Mundell’s intervention will be welcomed by a new cross-party group of MSPs in Holyrood – including the former health secretary Alex Neil – which is now pressing the Scottish government to maximise the potential “Brexit dividend”.
Neil is the most senior SNP figure to have revealed that he voted to leave the EU in June’s referendum, and has warned his party’s leader, Nicola Sturgeon, against alienating the estimated 400,000 independence supporters who also backed Brexit.
In October, the Scottish parliament committee investigating the impact of leaving the EU heard from Prof Alan Page, an expert on public law at Dundee University, who advised that Scotland stood to gain significant levels of independence over farming, fisheries and areas of industrial policy if it could strike the right deal with UK ministers.
Page suggested that Holyrood would be able to decide its own fisheries, farming and pollution policies, and control all food safety and agricultural funding rules for genetically modified foods, because these areas are already devolved to Scotland but currently overseen by the EU.
The Scottish government previously confirmed it was investigating in particular the possible return of powers over agriculture and fisheries in a Brexit deal. Sturgeon, the first minister, has said she will bring forward her own proposals for maintaining a separate trading relationship with the EU by the end of the year, confirming last week that a Norway-style model was being considered.
But Sturgeon continues to focus on the importance of the single market, as she prepares to travel to Dublin on Monday for a series of meetings with senior Irish government figures and business leaders, during which she will become the first serving head of government to address the Seanad, the upper house of the Irish parliament.
However, the Welsh first minister expressed doubt over the idea of a separate Brexit deal for Scotland as leaders of the devolved administrations – who had up to that point presented a remarkably united front over Brexit negotiations – met at a summit of the British-Irish Council last Friday.
While Sturgeon again made it clear that she wanted Scotland to continue to be part of the single market even if the rest of the UK left it, Carwyn Jones said such a move could not work and would lead to border posts being set up between England and Scotland.
Speaking ahead of the visit, Sturgeon described Ireland as a “strategic partner” for Scotland.
“Scotland and Ireland have a long history of co-operation based on our shared values, close historic and cultural ties and the deep links between our people. The relationship between Scotland and Ireland is more important than ever.
“I’ll be stressing the Scottish government’s commitment to the principle of European solidarity and the benefits Scotland receives from membership of the European single market.”
