A majority (51.6%) of voters supported the proposal, but an amendment to the Act stipulated that it would be repealed if less than 40% of the total electorate voted in favour.

Charles III William, Duke of Rothesay Swinney government The Rt Hon John Swinney MSP The Rt Hon John Swinney MSP Kate Forbes MSP Sixth session Alison Johnstone MSP Angela Constance MSP Dorothy Bain KC The Rt Hon Lord Carloway KC PC United Kingdom Parliament elections European Parliament elections Local elections Referendums Starmer ministry The Rt Hon Keir Starmer MP The Rt Hon Ian Murray MP Following the Scottish National Party gaining its first peacetime MP in the 1967 Hamilton by-election and Plaid Cymru's first win at the 1966 Carmarthen by-election in Wales, the United Kingdom government set up the Royal Commission on the Constitution, referred to as the Kilbrandon Commission, in 1969.

The commission examined various models of devolution, federalism and confederalism, on top of the break-up of the UK into separate sovereign states.

By 1976, the Labour government, now led by James Callaghan, had lost its parliamentary majority entirely following a series of adverse by-election results.

In February 1977, the Bill's cabinet sponsor Michael Foot tabled a guillotine motion to attempt to halt the delays.

[1] During the passage of the Scotland Act 1978 through Parliament, an amendment introduced by Labour MP George Cunningham added a requirement that the bill had to be approved by 40% of the total registered electorate, as well as a simple majority (50% + 1).

The former school hall was adapted for use by the Scottish Assembly, including the installation of microphones and new olive-green leather seating.

The Scottish Assembly would have had the power to introduce primary legislation to be known as "Measures" (rather than Acts) within defined areas of competence.

In the wake of the referendum the disappointed supporters of the bill conducted a protest campaign under the slogan "Scotland said 'yes'", officially launched in a Glasgow hotel on 7 March 1979.

This appeared to show that the register was so out of date that even in an area where major support for a "yes" vote might be expected, achievement of 40% of the electorate was virtually unattainable.