Legislative consent trackers
SPICe has developed two tools that can be used to track legislative consent at the Scottish Parliament. The trackers provide information on bills considered in the UK Parliament for which at least one legislative consent memorandum was lodged in the Scottish Parliament during Session 5 and Session 6. The trackers were last updated on 19 December 2025.
The Consent Compass includes a list of bills and provides information on whether consent was recommended and provided for each.
The Consent Lens provides more detailed information on individual bills, for example whether the UK Government and Scottish Government agreed on which provisions in a bill required legislative consent and consideration by committees in the Scottish Parliament.
You can find out more about how SPICe collates this information further down on this page.
What is legislative consent?
The Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament can both consider Bills which affect Scotland. Bills are proposals to make new law or to change existing law.
The Scottish Parliament has legislative competence – that is the power to make laws – in only some areas like health, housing and the environment. The UK Parliament can make laws on anything, including matters within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.
Where the UK Parliament wants to consider a Bill which is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, or which changes the powers of the Scottish Parliament or Scottish Ministers, it asks the Scottish Parliament for its consent (meaning its agreement). This process is called legislative consent.
A political convention, called the ‘Sewel Convention’ governs the process of legislative consent. According to the Sewel Convention, the UK Parliament should not normally make a law within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament unless the Scottish Parliament agrees.
The Sewel Convention is written into the Scotland Act 1998 but it is not legally enforceable. This means that if the Scottish Parliament does not give its consent, the UK Parliament can still consider the Bill in question and make a new law or change the law.
SPICe has published a fact sheet on legislative consent processes in the Scottish Parliament, which provides background information on legislative consent processes in the Scottish Parliament.
How is legislative consent considered at the Scottish Parliament?
When the Sewel Convention applies to a Bill, a member of the Scottish Government has to lodge a document called a ‘legislative consent memorandum’. This should happen within two weeks of a Bill being introduced in the UK Parliament. Additional memorandums can be lodged if, for example, changes are made to the Bill at the UK Parliament.
A legislative consent memorandum should explain what a Bill does and what it aims to achieve. A memorandum can also include a draft motion on legislative consent. A motion on legislative consent is a way for the Parliament to vote on whether it agrees to consent or does not agree to consent to the UK Parliament considering a Bill.
Before the Parliament votes on a motion on legislative consent, a lead committee considers the memorandum and produces a report on it. This helps the Parliament to decide whether or not it should consent to the Bill. After the Scottish Parliament has voted on a motion on legislative consent, the Clerk writes to the Clerks of the two Houses of the UK Parliament to inform them of the Scottish Parliament’s decision.
How does SPICe collect and categorise this data?
Information on legislative consent provided by the trackers is mainly based on the following sources:
- The Scottish Parliament’s webpage contains information on legislative consent memorandums, committee reports, and motions on legislative consent.
- The UK Parliament’s webpage contains information on bill progress and Explanatory Notes published alongside other bill documents.
The legislative consent trackers provide information on all bills considered in the UK Parliament for which at least one legislative consent memorandum was lodged in the Scottish Parliament during Session 5 and Session 6. This includes bills which were not passed or which are still under consideration in the UK Parliament (indicated as ‘not passed’ or ‘in progress’ on the trackers). To ensure accessibility, information on bills which fell and were reintroduced at the beginning of a UK Parliament session is listed under one entry with a disclaimer stating which bills the information relates to.
The trackers include information on whether the Scottish Parliament provided consent for bills to be considered by the UK Parliament by voting on one or several motions. The trackers include information on all motions associated with the listed bills, whether the motions seek consent to one or more provisions, refusal of consent to one or more provisions, neither, or both. You can find out more about a recent change to the rules governing motions on legislative consent in a SPICe fact sheet on legislative consent processes in the Scottish Parliament.
The Consent Compass includes information on whether consent was recommended and provided. Where several legislative consent memorandums have been lodged for the same bill or several motions voted on, the Consent Compass sets out whether consent was recommended/provided for all provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government across the memorandums/motions.
- Where consent was recommended/provided for all provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government, this is classed as ‘Consent recommended/provided’.
- Where consent was recommended/provided for some but not all provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government, this is classed as ‘Partial consent recommended/provided’.
- Where consent was not recommended/provided for any provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government, this is classed as ‘Consent not recommended/provided’.
- For memorandums and committee reports, this includes where consent is refused as well as where no specific consent recommendations are made.
- For motions, this includes cases in which motions refusing consent were approved, cases in which no associated motions were approved, and cases in which motions that made no specific consent recommendations were approved.
The Consent Lens provides additional information for individual bills, including:
- Information on whether the UK Government and Scottish Government agreed on which provisions in the bill required consent. If the governments agreed on some but not all provisions, this is classed as ‘No’.
- The section on legislative consent memorandums includes information on recommendations made in each memorandum as well as whether consent was recommended for all provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government. Recommendation measures for individual memorandums are snapshot measures, relating only to those provisions considered in the memorandum.
- The section on committee reports includes information on reports made by lead and other committees. Information on consent recommendations are only included for lead committee reports.
- The section on motions on legislative consent includes information on each motion as well as whether consent was provided for all provisions considered to require consent by the Scottish Government. Consent provision measures for individual motions are snapshot measures only relating to those provisions mentioned in the motion.
Please note that our trackers do not capture information on changes made to Bills after they have been considered at the Scottish Parliament. This means that Bills listed as passed may not have been passed in the version considered by the Scottish Parliament.
If you have found any issues with the information provided in the trackers, please e-mail spice@parliament.scot.