Mundell has ‘lost control of Scotland Office’

David Mundell has been told to “consider his position” after facing questions on two fronts over his management of the Scotland Office.

The Scottish Secretary was accused of a “lack of judgment” after telling MPS that the interim chief executive of the collapsed public contractor Carillion will stand aside as a nonexecutive director of the Whitehall department.

And Mr Mundell took “full responsibility” for the failure to amend the EU Withdrawal Bill in the House of Commons after opposition MPS said it was unacceptable that peers would have more input than Scotland’s elected representatives at Westminster.

But the Scottish Secretary dismissed calls for him to stand down, saying he remained committed to fixing claims of a “power grab” at the heart of Brexit legislation.

At Scottish Questions in the Commons, Mr Mundell told MPS that Keith Cochrane was stepping aside from his advisory role on the Scotland Office board “in order not to become a distraction at a time of very important work”.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Lesley Laird said: “Rather than removing Mr Cochrane as an adviser, [Mr Mundell] has waited for his position to become untenable and for him to voluntarily stand aside.

“He has lost his grip on his department, his advisers and cannot even keep his band of Scottish Tory MPS content. Perhaps it is time for him to follow Mr Cochrane out of the door.”

In the Commons, with one Scottish Conservative MP nodding in agreement, the SNP’S Mhairi Black asked Mr Mundell to explain “how it can be OK that Michelle Mone and Alan Sugar are going to have more of an impact on this bill than Scotland’s members, some of which are on his own side.”

Mr Mundell said: “The bill will be debated, the clause amendment will be debated in the House of Lords. I regret that it’s been brought forward in the House of Lords but we simply did not meet the timescale we aspired to.”