I have my post all prepared for as soon as the Tory Conference gives their opinion on the "English votes for English Measures" question, (give you a clue, "Betrayal" may well feature in the title!).
In the meantime, this is an interesting suggestion from Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who by a happy coincidence actually has his main residence in "East Lothian"!
So his "East Lothian solution" would be:
"the creation of an English Grand Committee. It would be similar to the long-established Scottish Grand Committee, which hardly ever meets now that the Scottish Parliament is in existence.
Made up only of English MPs, it would consider English domestic legislation and although, theoretically, whatever it decided would be subject to the will of the entire Commons, Sir Malcolm suggests that there could be a convention whereby parliament would agree never to overrule decisions by this committee."
Rifkind is a genuine Unionist, who believes that the restricting of votes on English laws to English MPS in the House of Commons would create two classes of MPs and ultimately damage the Union, perhaps irrepareably. As such, this suggestion by him is a genuine attempt to solve the present democratic deficit caused by the devolved parliaments/assemblies in N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales, whilst, at the same time, keeping the integrity of the United Kingdom intact.
But to all intents and purposes, he would still be creating two classes of MPs at Westminster and the practical complexity of operating such a system doesn’t bear thinking about.
Meanwhile, sounds of ominous drumbeats can be heard in the distance...
His solution, ably advocated as it was yesterday, is much less draconian than the option favoured by the majority of Tory representatives. They are completely fed up with the manifest unfairness of devolution as it has affected England and are looking for blood.
3 comments:
Unfortunately they haven't really given their opinion have they?
Just more of the same old soundbites. The Democracy taskforce has been considering this for 20 months now.
David Cameron could be the fourth Conservative leader in a row that becomes an ex-leader without ever coming up with a policy to address the WLQ.
Yes, it looks like I'll have to can my rant for another time!
As a complete outsider, it seems to me that there is serious division within the Tories on this that Cameron isn't prepared to bring out into the open yet, as he did with the grammar schools question. On one side, pushing for the EVEL or even an English parliament, you've got a fair few of the modernisers/opportunists within the PCP...they see it has one way to obtain permanent electoral advatage over Labour by excluding their heartlands in Wales and Scotland.
On the other, you have the One-Nation (in the Thatcher/Bonar law sense of the term as opposed to the Disraeli one)Grandees (like Rifkind and Clarke),many of the traditional grassroots who still value the concept of the UK and Britishness and a fair few Welsh and Scottish Tories who would see this measure as the final betrayal of the Unionist cause.
Interesting times ahead I reckon
If Brown doesn't call the election (and given that the Unions are playing up he may not) then the Tories will be under no pressure to say what they will do.
The threat of an English Grand Committee, or some form of English Votes, can be left hanging in the air.
But I'm sure the WLQ will be back in the news just as soon as Brown tries to legislate on English matters.
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