ALISTER Jack told MPs that there will be another Scottish independence referendum when there is a “sustained majority” in favour of a vote. 

Speaking to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, the Tory minister said people would “know when they’ve reached that point.”

The Scottish Secretary was asked by the committee’s chair if it was possible for Scotland to “secure an independence referendum”.

He said “of course” it was, but that it would take a “sustained majority and a clear consensus between the [UK and Scottish] governments, between the political parties, across civic society”.

“There would have to be that sustained majority for there to be another referendum,” Mr Jack added.

He told the committee: “It’s the duck test. If it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck and it waddles like a duck then it’s probably a duck. People know when they’ve reached that point.

“They knew back then [in 2014] that they’d reached it. We don’t believe we’ve reached it now.”

Last week, after the Supreme Court ruled that Holyrood could not hold a referendum on independence without the consent of Westminster, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed she would push ahead with plans to use the next general election as a “de facto” referendum. 

Mr Jack told the committee that the SNP could not “have a mandate for something that we now know legally that you don’t have any power over."

He said: “In reinforcing my point, the Scottish Government can no more – although they put it in every manifesto that they want to remove Trident from Faslane – no more have the power to take away our nuclear deterrent than they do to break up our United Kingdom.”

“That’s very clear and the justices agree with me on that,” he added. 

Mr Jack said: “We believe that the majority of Scots do not want to have a referendum.

“Instead, they want us to focus on rebuilding the economy after Covid, on delivering on the structural funding we’re doing, on helping them with the cost of living, on tackling inflation.”

He told MPs that he did not think parties could “cherry pick” specific points from their manifesto and claim that every vote they’d won had been in support of that issue.

“It would only need a handful of people to say they were voting SNP but they weren’t voting for independence to undermine that argument,” Jack said.

The Scottish Secretary claimed that the Scottish Government was not respecting the “very precious principles” which underline democracy: “One is losers’ consent, and the other is the adherence of the executive to the rule of law.”

Mr Jack also told the committee that the role of the civil service in Scotland is being re-examined following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

He said Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and senior civil servants are discussing the issue with John-Paul Marks, the Scottish Government’s permanent secretary, the minister said.

Mr Jack also confirmed that the UK Government had spent £71,800 defending the case.

He said the court’s decision had confirmed the Government’s “long-standing view” that the constitution was reserved to Westminster.

Asked about the civil service, he said the top civil servants in each Government stayed in close contact about the parameters they operated under.

He said: “Those people: the Cabinet Office, the civil service led by the cabinet secretary, are working again on what this judgment means for the future role of the civil service in Scotland.”