The following article appeared in the Sunday Express
The former Father of the House Tam Dalyell may have left Parliament last May, but his famous – or indeed infamous – West Lothian Question is still a potent political issue at Westminster. In fact, the call to address the anomaly now has cross-party support, with senior Labour backbenchers and a candidate for the Liberal Democrat leadership all supporting it.
On Friday the House of Lords debated former Cabinet Minister Kenneth Baker’s Parliament (Participation of Members of the House of Commons) Bill, which seeks to stop Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on purely English legislation – what’s become known as “English Votes for English Laws”.
And he isn’t alone. Sir Menzies Campbell recently indicated his backing for such a move, as has Dalyell’s successor as Father of the House, Alan Williams, who recently grilled the Prime Minister during Westminster's Liaison Committee. Tony Blair ruled out any change, saying it would create “two classes of MPs” and create “all sorts of trouble”. So he favours the status quo, which is already beginning to cause its own brand of trouble in Parliament.
Since it was first aired during the devolution debates of the late 1970s, until the Scottish Parliament became a reality in 1999, it remained a rather academic debating point. But after nearly seven years of Holyrood rule and with a Westminster Labour Government now relying more and more upon Scottish Labour MPs, it has become a messy political reality.
Indeed the Constitution Unit’s recent report, ‘Westminster and the English Question’, presents an exhaustive analysis of exactly this reality and concludes that given the new electoral arithmetic, and controversial reforms in education, health and policing on the way, the West Lothian controversy is very likely to come to the fore in Labour's third term.
On that point at least I can agree with the authors of the Report, but I differ on their conclusion that there is no alternative, but to put up with the status quo and to ask those who challenge this patent unfairness to simply grin and bear it. That is the one thing guaranteed to play into the hands of both English and Scottish Nationalists, by allowing them to tap into simmering resentment amongst the electorate in England. The only equitable and practical, and, therefore, sustainable solution is to adopt the Conservative policy of Scottish MPs not voting on English legislation on the devolved issues.
In the eyes of many English voters, it simply boils down to this: why, now we have devolution, should Scottish MPs vote on legislation purely affecting England when English MPs can no longer influence equivalent Scottish measures? The answer, naturally, is that they should not. This came to a head in recent years following votes on foundation hospitals and top-up tuition fees, neither of which apply in Scotland, when the Prime Minister was quite happy to use loyal Scottish Labour MPs to force his legislation through.
Under our proposal, “English votes for English laws”, the Speaker would designate some bills as English-only, building on existing procedures which allow the Speaker to certify bills as relating exclusively to Scotland. These certified Bills would be considered as at present, but crucially Scottish members would not be allowed to vote on them. Initially, we would seek to establish this by voluntary convention. And to those sceptics who say that this could not possibly work, I say look at the May bury Convention which prevents the House of Lords from overturning manifesto commitments endorsed by the electorate, which has operated for many years.
Once Governments know what the limitations are on their influence and power, they modify their policy programme accordingly and do not push to a final vote (if they are well advised!) measures they know cannot be won. Just as at the moment even this Government shows restraint on clauses it realises it cannot get through the House of Lords (and increasingly the Commons), then it would have to adapt to the reality of the new arithmetic and number MPs able to vote on each measure. I have no doubt that pragmatic government would prevail over self-induced “constitutional crisis”.
Several critics have dismissed the whole issue with the bogus argument that under Conservative Governments English MPs voted for measures that only applied in Scotland. But that was all before devolution. The rules of the game changed with the advent of the Scottish Parliament and, conveniently, Labour seems to forget it was their Ministers who changed them. Things have moved on, the structure of the Union has moved on and it is high time Labour moved on too, and put sustaining the United Kingdom ahead of narrow party interest.
The former Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine said that now we have devolution, the best thing to do about the West Lothian Question is to stop asking it; I agree, but only once it has been answered properly and settled once and for all.