The UK government said that "significant lessons" have been learned in relations with Scotland after the row over the Lockerbie bomber's release.
The Tory-Lib Dem coalition said it wants to build more "positive relations" with Edinburgh after the fallout from the freeing of Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
The comments came in a response to a recent Scottish Affairs Select Committee report into relations between the two administrations.
"We believe that there are significant lessons from this disagreement that have already been learnt," the UK government response said.
"The government's priority is to build more positive relations with the Scottish Government in all areas."
The SNP Government clashed with the previous Labour administration at Westminster over a controversial "deal in the desert" agreed with Libya three years ago without Edinburgh's knowledge.
The Memorandum of Understanding paved the way for a prisoner transfer agreement, which Megrahi unsuccessfully applied for to Scottish ministers.
Yesterday's response states: "In future the government will consider carefully the appropriate balance between interests of confidentiality and the responsibility to keep the Scottish Government informed of international agreements made on its behalf.
"This includes consultation with the devolved administrations on matters relating to international relations which touch upon devolved matters."
[From a report in today's edition of The Scotsman.]
Cynical little me reads the subtext of that as saying, rather than ignoring the Scottish government and either pretending it doesn't exist or assuming it will meekly do as it's told (depending on SNP or Labour administrations respectively), they intend to keep a tight rein on it in future and ensure it doesn't do anything independent or out of line.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that....
I also think they're just desperately trying to move us all on Rolfe. Isn't it incredible that the obvious solution - a proper investigation into Lockerbie - is one being soundly ignored by the lot of them.
ReplyDelete