THE Joint Ministerial Committees, which bring together Ministers from the UK Government and those from the devolved administrations, "didn't really do very much," Lord Wallace, the former Scottish Deputy First Minister, has admitted.
Giving evidence to peers on the Lords Constitution Committee, the Advocate General noted how on one occasion Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, was "looking out of the window" while he chaired one of the high-level sessions in Downing Street.
The Liberal Democrat peer recalled how he attended three JMCs while DFM. "The first one in Edinburgh was novel and everyone was quite excited by it. The second one in Cardiff was less exciting, and the third one, which we had in No 10, my recollection is Prime Minister Blair looking out the window and we never had another one."
But he added that neither he nor Labour's Lord McConnell, the Scottish First Minister at the time, were "particularly aggrieved" by this as it "freed up time in the diary". Lord Wallace added: "They didn't really do very much."
Meantime, Ministers, who took part in a Joint Ministerial Working Group this week between the UK and Scottish Governments on transferring welfare responsibilities to Holyrood from Westminster in wake of the Smith Commission proposals, insisted theirs had been "a very useful meeting".
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