No, I will waive doing that because I know that the committee is pressed for time this morning. I am sure that we can just cut to the chase, so to speak. However, I put on the record my appreciation for Lord Smith and the party representatives who assisted him—I see that we have a couple of them here this morning—and for the secretariat.
I am pleased to be here today at this stage because, as you said, it is early days since the report was received. We are working to a tight timetable but I recognise that committee members want to give the report proper scrutiny as parliamentarians, so we all need to make a special effort in that regard. I anticipate there being further occasions of this nature for me and other ministers in the future.
One of the things that I thought was very useful in the Smith report was Lord Smith’s observation about the opportunity that exists for better joint working between the Parliaments. We have always had different mechanisms for joint working between the Governments and occasionally there have been instances like this one, when I am here as a minister talking to you as parliamentarians. In the past, we have also had Scottish Government ministers in London for parliamentary committees there. However, Parliament-to-Parliament dialogue is something that we have never quite got right, and that is one of the opportunities open to us.
I think that the answer to your question about entrenchment is contained in the question itself. De facto, the permanence of the Scottish Parliament is guaranteed by the will of the Scottish people. That was the claim of right that was signed up to in the 1990s as part of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, and for all practical purposes it is unthinkable that we would not now have within the United Kingdom a Scottish Parliament.
However, I fully accept that, whatever the de facto position, the de jure position is a rather more challenging prospect. In the current United Kingdom constitution, we only really have the mechanism of primary legislation. If nothing else is clear at the moment, it is pretty clear that there is an emerging constitutional position not only in Scotland but across the whole United Kingdom. You will be aware that the Labour Party and my party are both committed to having a UK-wide constitutional convention, and that is exactly the sort of issue that it could deal with. Ultimately, we might be required to come to a position in which we have some sort of written constitution, for which I have always been an enthusiast.
In the meantime, I would ask whether you really want to get hooked up on the de jure position, given that the permanence of the UK’s position in the European Union was due to a piece of primary legislation, the European Communities Act 1972, which has maintained our position, and the position of the Communities and subsequently the Union.
I am open to thinking about different ways in which that permanence could be achieved. It would be healthy, as part of a wider constitutional reform, if we could entrench it in legislation but, as I said, the biggest guarantee is the will of the Scottish people.