Do we need an English Parliament?
The failure of the Scottish voters to back full independence but the promise of more powers for the Scottish Parliament has led to a whole host of constitutional questions being posed, perhaps the most controversial being the so-called West Lothian question: why should Scottish MPs be allowed to vote on English laws? Some – especially in the Conservative Party – are suggesting that we need either an English Parliament of at least English days in the UK Parliament.
In my view, this is one of those cases where all solutions are more undesirable than the problem and, in the best spirit of British pragmatism, we should just learn to live with a degree of inconsistency in our constitutional arrangements. Do we really want the cost of an extra parliament? Or do we really want two classes of MP? And can we clearly define what is an exclusively English matter with no consequences for other parts of the UK?
The idea of an English Parliament – or even English votes on English laws – has a superficial neatness about it because then the UK would become a truly federal state in with each part of the UK has a sub-national legislative forum. But, in my view, federal states only work when either the country consists of a small number of roughly even-sized geographical components (such as the six states of Australia or the 10 provinces of Canada) or the country is comprised of a large number of components of variable size (such as the 28 states of India or the 50 states of the USA).
The problem with the UK becoming a federal state is that the four nations – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – are very few in number and very unequal in size. England consists of 84% of the total UK population and London alone is almost twice the population of the largest of the other nations (Scotland). So almost everything that happens in England is likely to have some sort of impact on the other three nations and therefore their MPs are entitled to have some sort of say.
To illustrate this, consider a few political issues that geographically are quintessentially English issues: the expansion of Heathrow Airport or the building of the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link or the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations in England. Decisions on these matters will have consequences direct and indirect for all parts of the UK.
There are interesting proposals by Sir William McKay, the former clerk of the House of Commons, who has suggested that only English MPs should sit on the committee stage of a parliamentary bill that related just to England. Such legislation could then only be passed through a double majority voting system, achieving support of the majority of English MPs and the majority of the Commons as a whole.
As Will Hutton put it in this article in the weekend’s “Observer”:
“The Conservative party is an important part of the national constituency, but it is not the national constituency. It has not won a national election since 1992 and has only one MP in Scotland. English MPs should certainly get differential authority on those few issues that are English concerns, but within the context of a wider constitutional settlement involving more power for our cities and a reformed House of Lords.
There needs, in short, to be a proper constitutional convention. Keeping this island together is a task for all, not the opportunity for David Cameron and the Conservative right to exclude MPs from those parts of our country where they cannot win an election.”
September 29th, 2014 at 10:08 am
Well said