Working to make government more effective

Working to make government more effective

Case study

The Sewel convention in practice

Five case studies from the 2019–24 parliament

Briony Allen Akash Paun Gabriel Byrne
Read the report (PDF)
Nicola Sturgeon
As Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon clashed with the Johnson government over Brexit legislation.

Relations between the UK and devolved governments came under serious strain during the 2019–24 parliament, in particular as a consequence of the implementation of Brexit. This paper brings together five case studies from that parliament, each of which illustrate how the Sewel convention operates in practice in different circumstances

The Sewel convention is designed to give the devolved institutions a degree of certainty that their powers will not be overridden, and enables the UK and devolved governments to work together on legislation where their policy objectives are aligned. However, the Scottish parliament, Senedd Cymru and Northern Ireland assembly voted to withhold consent from UK legislation on 28 occasions, in relation to 19 separate bills, highlighting a growing divergence between the UK and devolved governments in this period (although overall, consent was granted far more often than it was withheld, with 99 positive consent votes in relation to 56 separate bills: see Annex 1).

Our case studies include examples of the legislative consent process operating consensually as well as examples of disputes.

Topic
Devolution Parliament and the constitution
Keywords
Parliamentary procedure Parliamentary scrutiny
Political party
Conservative
Administration
Johnson government Sunak government
Devolved administration
Scottish government Welsh government Northern Ireland executive
Public figures
Boris Johnson Nicola Sturgeon
Publisher
Institute for Government

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