Lords Constitution Committee to hear a full day of evidence in Edinburgh
The House of Lords Constitution Committee will on Friday hold a full day of public evidence sessions at the Centre on Constitutional Change, based at the University of Edinburgh as a key part of its inquiry into devolution and the Union.
The evidence sessions will start at 09:30 on Friday 11 December with evidence from the Scottish Government. The sessions are open to a limited number of members of the public and journalists to attend.
The full schedule is:
09:30:
Fiona Hyslop MSP,Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs, Scottish National Party, and Ken Thomson, Director-General Strategy and External Affairs, Scottish Government
10:30:
Claire Baker MSP, Scottish Labour Party; Baroness Goldie MSP, Scottish Conservatives; Maggie Chapman, Scottish Greens; Cllr Robert Brown, Scottish Liberal Democrats
11.45:
Sir John Elvidge, former Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government
13:15:
Professor Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen; Professor Neil Walker, University of Edinburgh; Professor James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh
14:15:
Willie Sullivan, Director, Electoral Reform Society Scotland
15:15:
Owen Kelly, Chief Executive, Scottish Financial Enterprise; Garry Clark, Head of Policy and Research, Scottish Chambers of Commerce
16:00:
David Moxham, Deputy General Secretary, Scottish Trades Union Congress; Martin Sime, Chief Executive, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
The sessions will cover a wide range of constitutional issues including: whether a new agreement or statute is needed to define the relationship between the devolved nations and the UK government; the extent to which Scottish politics has become separate from politics in the rest of the UK; and how the increasing devolution of tax raising powers to Scotland will affect the UK government's role in redistributing wealth across the UK.
Other topics that will be discussed include how further devolution will affect the ‘social union' in the UK; and how differences in policy between the UK and Scottish Governments will have an impact on business, trade unions and civil society.
