Whitehall lawyers get set for legal challenge to Scottish Brexit bill

WHITEHALL lawyers are already drawing up plans to challenge the Scottish Government’s Brexit bill in the courts, The Herald understands.

Before any Holyrood legislation can get Royal Assent it has to be considered by the UK Government’s legal team and can be challenged by either the senior law officer, the Attorney General, or the UK’S Scottish law officer, the Advocate General, or even the Scottish Government’s own senior law officer, the Lord Advocate.

Whitehall has four weeks to consider the Scottish Parliament’s Continuity Bill, which is the Scottish Government’s attempt to protect the devolved settlement from what it regards as a “powergrab” by Westminster, and file a legal challenge to the highest legal authority on the constitution, the UK Supreme Court.

Senior UK Government sources have suggested it was “a matter of course” that lawyers were now drawing up a legal challenge to prevent the Scottish Government’s Brexit bill becoming law.

Baroness Hale, the Supreme Court’s President, told the Lords Constitution Committee this week: “There might be challenges to or from the devolved legislatures and governments relating to the location of powers; that’s looking more and more likely as we speak.”

The four-week period is due to end on April 28. However, the UK Government’s flagship EU Withdrawal Bill is still going through the House of Lords and is not expected to reach the key vote at Report Stage until mid-may.

While the UK Government insists it is continuing to work hard to get agreement with the Scottish Government on the Withdrawal Bill, sources on both sides have expressed serious doubts that the gulf can be bridged.

Whitehall lawyers will lodge a legal challenge to the bill while their political masters will insist they are continuing to seek agreement on the Withdrawal Bill with Edinburgh.

Yet if the Continuity Bill went unchallenged and became law and the Withdrawal Bill passed through its parliamentary processes and also became law, then a power struggle between Whitehall and Holyrood would ensue.

Asked about the possibility of a legislative power struggle, a UK Government spokeswoman said: “Our focus continues to be on finding an agreed way forward with the devolved administrations.”

Sources on both sides have expressed serious doubts