Legislative consent motion

A Legislative Consent Motion (also known as a Sewel motion) is a motion passed by either the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, or Northern Ireland Assembly, in which it agrees that the Parliament of the United Kingdom may pass legislation on a devolved issue over which the devolved body has regular legislative authority.

The Scotland Act 1998 devolved many issues relating to legislation for Scotland to the Scottish Parliament. The UK Parliament maintains Parliamentary sovereignty and may legislate on any issue relating to the United Kingdom, with or without the permission of the devolved assemblies and parliaments.

The motions were named after Lord Sewel, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who announced the policy in the House of Lords during the passage of the Scotland Act 1998. Noting that the Act recognised the Parliamentary sovereignty of the British Parliament, he said that HM Government "would expect a convention to be established that Westminster would not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament".

The devolved governments have no formal say in how the British Parliament legislates on reserved matters.

There are two uses for a Legislative Consent motion:

As well as legislation about devolved matters, the convention extends to cases where UK bills give executive powers to Scottish Ministers, including in reserved areas, or which seek to change the boundary between reserved and devolved matters.

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