The question of whether devolved assemblies should be established for Scotland and Wales dominated considerable parliamentary time in the 1970s and became a key pillar of the Labour Government’s legislative agenda after the two 1974 General Elections. The main building blocks of the Government’s devolution proposals for Scotland and Wales were in place from 1975 with the publication of the White Paper, Our Changing Democracy. The White Paper outlined proposals for a primary law-making Assembly for Scotland and a Scottish Executive, operating under a ‘conferred powers model of devolution’. For Wales, the Assembly was to be a body corporate (with no split between Executive and Assembly) exercising only executive functions and able only to pass secondary legislation. With some important modifications (including crucially the requirement for a referendum, which was then further amended to require a Yes tally equating to 40% of the electorates in both nations), these proposals were eventually incorporated into law as the Scotland and Wales Acts 1978. While the political debates surrounding devolution in this period are well known, less attention has been paid to the practical plans undertaken by the Civil Service for devolution to become a reality. As this article demonstrates considerable time was spent drawing up, from an early stage, detailed preparations for devolution, particularly in Scotland. In Wales, planning was more tentative, yet nonetheless was taken seriously by Welsh Office. These plans never materialised in the way envisaged, with neither Welsh nor Scottish devolution able to pass the referendum thresholds put in place. However, as this article also demonstrates, both the Scotland and Wales Acts had a constitutional legacy when devolution became reality under New Labour in the late 1990s.

中文翻译：

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“老鼠和男人的最佳计划”？1970 年代权力下放的提案、计划、失败和遗产 *

是否应为苏格兰和威尔士建立权力下放议会的问题在 1970 年代的议会期间占据了主导地位，并在 1974 年两次大选后成为工党政府立法议程的关键支柱。1975 年，随着白皮书《我们不断变化的民主》的出版，政府对苏格兰和威尔士的权力下放提案的主要组成部分已经到位。白皮书概述了关于在“权力下放模式”下运作的苏格兰主要立法议会和苏格兰行政机构的提议。对于威尔士来说，议会是一个法人团体（行政和议会之间没有分裂），仅行使行政职能，只能通过二级立法。经过一些重要的修改（包括至关重要的公投要求，然后进一步修改为要求相当于两国 40% 的选民是“是”），这些提案最终被纳入法律，成为 1978 年的苏格兰和威尔士法案。虽然这一时期围绕权力下放的政治辩论众所周知，但很少有人关注公务员为实现权力下放而采取的实际计划。正如本文所展示的，从早期阶段起就花费了大量时间来制定权力下放的详细准备工作，尤其是在苏格兰。在威尔士，规划较为暂定，但威尔士办公室仍然认真对待。这些计划从未以设想的方式实现，威尔士和苏格兰的权力下放都无法通过公投门槛。然而，正如本文还表明的那样，当权力下放在 1990 年代后期在新工党的领导下成为现实时，苏格兰和威尔士法案都具有宪法遗产。