ALEX Salmond will be warned not to call for more powers for the Scottish Parliament when the body set up to act as a bridge between the devolved administrations and the UK government reconvenes for the first time today.
The first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will meet Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, and the secretaries of state for the devolved parts of the UK in London.
This will be the first time the joint ministerial committee has met
for six years. It was reconvened to appease Nationalist fears that problems and disputes between the devolved administrations and the Westminster government were not being dealt with properly.
However, a senior Westminster source said Mr Straw would insist that all those involved stuck to the agreed agenda – renewable energy and the Marine Bill.
The source said that Mr Salmond would be told not to raise any wider issues and, if he did, he would be told to present his arguments on more powers for the Scottish Parliament to the Calman Commission instead.
The commission was set up by Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to examine the case for more powers for the parliament and has been endorsed by both the Scottish and Westminster parliaments.
The source said: "If the SNP don't stick to the agenda then they will get nowhere. There is a process for discussing these wider issues and it's called the Calman Commission and they will have to decide whether they want to bring their concerns up there."
So far, the SNP-led Scottish Government has chosen to champion its own national conversation on independence rather than getting involved with the Calman commission, which does not have a remit to look at independence.
The full article contains 295 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
