Brown says Scotland promises ‘must be kept’

Promises made to Scotland on further devolution will be upheld, former British prime minister Gordon Brown insisted, as he urged the country to come together after the bitter independence debate and find "unity against the odds".

Mr Brown, who has spearheaded an accelerated timetable for Holyrood to get more powers, said he would ensure the commitment given by the leaders of the three main Westminster parties is adhered to.

Nationalists have already raised concerns that the schedule Mr Brown set out for further devolution will not be met.

But speaking just two days after the referendum, in which 45 per cent of Scots voted for independence, with 55 per cent wanting to remain in the UK, Mr Brown said: “The promises that were made last week about change, about the delivery of further devolution, must be, and I believe, and will ensure, will be delivered.”

After David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg all made a public vow on this, Mr Brown added: "The eyes of the world have been upon us and now I think the eyes of the world are upon the leaders of the major parties of the United Kingdom.

“These are men who had been promise makers, and they will not be promise breakers, and I will ensure that that these promises that have been made are upheld.”

Mr Brown, the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said a resolution had been issued which would be placed in the House of Commons on Monday, which had been signed by him, the prime minister, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg.

This calls on the government to lay down a command paper taking in the devolution proposals from the three different parties by the end of next month, and for draft clauses of a new Scotland Bill to be ready by the end of January.

Mr Brown told an audience at Dalgety Bay Primary School in Fife: “I can ensure to you that this promise that people were doubting on the airwaves and on the Twittersphere last night, the civil service are already working on the proposals.

“Decision day was Thursday, delivery day started on Friday. They are working on the timetable but also on the detailed plans so that the publication will indeed be the end of October.”

He added: “To ensure that they are locked in and ensure that there is proper scrutiny, so everybody knows this deadline will be adhered to, I have called, with the permission of the Speaker of the House of Commons, a debate in the House of Commons which will take place in the first week back at Westminster on Thursday October 16.

“In that debate I will want to ensure that the instructions to deliver have become a plan to deliver and not just a timetable to deliver but a certainty that we will deliver.”

He insisted: “I am utterly convinced that whatever else happens, I am absolutely sure that unconditionally the timetable that I set out, that will be delivered.”

In the closing phase of the referendum campaign, prime minister David Cameron and other party leaders made detailed promises to Scotland, about future funding and new tax and spending powers - a move some of his own party described as a “panicky” response to opinion polls which suggested the vote was too close to call. It will be difficult for him to renege.

“The genie of a more devolved UK can’t be put back in the bottle,” a senior source in the Liberal Democrats, Cameron’s coalition partner, told Reuters after Cameron set out his plans.

“The world has changed.”

Mr Cameron, who might have been cast aside by his party as the leader who lost Scotland had the vote gone the other way, said the constitutional changes should be agreed as a package by the main political parties before the next election, so that they could be implemented in the next 2015-2020 parliamentary term.

Mr Brown's latest comments come after Labour leader Ed Miliband said plans for change needed to be put to members of the public through a constitutional convention, rather than be "fixed solely by politicians or prime ministers trying to shore up their position in their own party".

Labour proposed the constitutional convention for autumn 2015 - after the next general election - which David Cameron’s Conservatives said amounted to kicking the issue “into the long grass”.

Across the political spectrum, politicians said Mr Cameron had opened up a question that will be hard to solve quickly because of partisan political differences and could hand an electoral gift to populists such as the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Such wrangling also risks political paralysis. Failure to deliver greater powers to English lawmakers could leave Cameron vulnerable to the electoral threat of UKIP, whose leader Nigel Farage promised to champion English voters.

Agencies