Online political debate in the UK this week has not so much revolved around parliamentary affairs, but rather about the goings on of a small Parish Council in Cheshire, the commentariat obsessed with answering one key question: Did Jackie Weaver really have no authority? (For the mercifully uninitiated I refer to a video making the rounds of a, ahem, somewhat fractious meeting of Handforth Parish Council’s planning committee). Outside of small country villages, the world carries on. So what’s been going on in the Westminster, Holyrood, Stormont and Cardiff villages?

Scotland

Scotland has over 900 offshore islands. Did you know that? I didn’t, at least not until I looked it up for this piece. I knew it had a lot (I’ve even spent some very merry holidays on some of them- here’s looking at you Mull and Islay), but 900 is by any count, a lot. I raise this point because there was a debate in the Scottish parliament this week about the construction and procurement of ferry vessels- a vital part of island life. As part of this debate, the Scottish Government made a renewed commitment to improve engagement with islanders on their ferry services. MSPs raised concerns that not only scheduling and routes needed engagement, but also matters of procurement and design, in order to better meet the needs of individual island communities. We don’t often talk about procurement consultations here, partially because a lot of them are incredibly run of the mill, with little of interest to commend them to us, but also because they straddle a curious boundary between the public law sphere of administrative matters and the private law sphere of contract issues.

The island ferries issue is a very interesting one though. It is difficult to see major decisions about ferries as being anything other than vital infrastructure decisions which should naturally take place with significant public engagement. The SNP administration has committed to improve this- but for some legislators they have not gone far enough, with some calling for a wholesale overhaul of the public engagement process. Needless to say, we’ll be keeping a close eye on how they go about it.

Wales

In Wales, we’ve seen further debate over taxation-based climate measures, in particular the ongoing consultations on the design of the plastic packaging tax. The Welsh Government has been trying to implement a plastic packaging tax for some time now, but has been somewhat clashing with the UK Government in Westminster, who have also been consulting on the same issue. With the two administrations now working together on the design consultation, there is some hope that an agreeable result may emerge. The focus of the Welsh Government has been to ensure adequate Welsh representation, with some members highlighting the difficulty of reaching small and medium-sized enterprises. This got us wondering, are Members right? Are there some organisational stakeholder groups that are more difficult to reach than others? We speak a lot about the seldom-heard, but these are usually individuals. We’d appreciate any thoughts diligent readers might have.

Northern Ireland

The NI Assembly this week has been looking at their education assessment provision for this year. Similar to the rest of the UK, the assessment of students last year was something of a fiasco with u-turns, quick consultations, decisions being made and unmade and many unhappy students across the country. In Northern Ireland, a similar series of consultations have been playing out to those discussed in the last couple of weeks in Westminster. Interestingly, the Minister highlighted the important role of public consultation in creating certainty amongst consultors, remarking that an internal process would only “create[s] a level of uncertainty”. Although consultation is by its nature a perhaps uncertain process (one never knows the outcome of it until it’s all over), as the Minister recognises, by using it to bring people into the decision-making process it can bolster not only trust in the system but confidence that the right decision will have been arrived at. It’s good to see politicians publicly acknowledging the key role it can play in policy-making as part of efforts towards transparency and reduction of wild speculation.

Westminster

The major story from Westminster I have covered elsewhere this week, so Westminster finds itself at the bottom of this brief. Perhaps the most interesting ‘other’ story to come out was during the debate on the National Security and Investment Bill, the Government’s legislative push to take firmer control of how foreign investment into national security-vital areas is handled.

The issue (and it’s not the first time we’ve seen it come up in recent times) revolves around what we might term pre-emptive legislation. One of the crucial aspects of the Bill is in choosing the correct sectors that require protection for national security reasons. So how are these sectors to be identified? Well, that’s an ongoing process, being done by a consultation that closed on 6^th January. The Government has proposed 17 sectors, the subjects of the consultation, and we eagerly await its results.

So, if they are still identifying the sectors that will form arguably the foundations of the Bill, why has the Bill made significant progress through Parliament? That was the question posed by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (who is, not incidentally, someone who appears frequently on my spreadsheet of parliamentary contributions as a staunch defender of consultation and public engagement). The Baroness highlighted that although the Government plans to put more detail into the secondary legislation that will be the result of the consultation, that legislation will be subject to much less Parliamentary scrutiny than the statute itself. We can but speculate why they have chosen to operate in this manner, but it is a good question. As I say, it’s not the first time we’ve seen this come up lately, and we’ll certainly be having a look at any more occasions as they crop up.