Gove urged to publish results of Government devolution review

The UK Government has been told it is “disappointing” that a review of devolution was not published in 2020 as promised.

MPs on four Westminster committees have now written to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, calling for the Dunlop Review to be made public.

It was charged with looking at how the union between the four nations could be strengthened, and was commissioned by the then-prime minister Theresa May.

Former Scotland Office minister Lord Dunlop – who also advised David Cameron on issues of devolution – was put in charge of the work.

Now the chairs of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and the Scottish Affairs, Welsh Affairs and Northern Ireland Affairs committees, have all joined together to demand its publication.

The committees are due to question Gove on the issue on January 28, and they added that for this to “go ahead as planned” they needed both the review and the Government’s response to it to be available by Thursday, January 14.

They told Gove: “Our committees have been awaiting the publication of Lord Dunlop’s review and the Government’s response to it for some time.

“It was therefore disappointing to learn that, contrary to earlier commitments, these would not be published before the end of 2020.”

The committee chairs told Gove if the review and response could not be published by their deadline, ministers should “set out a clear alternative timeframe for publication so that we can arrange our scrutiny accordingly”.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “We will publish the Dunlop report in due course.”