Reading about Malcolm Rifkind’s proposals for a Grand Committee which would have the sole right to legislate on English affairs, something stirred at the back of my memory about a clause in similar proposal that I’d learnt during my Irish History classes all those moons ago.
The Second Home Rule (for Ireland) Bill introduced by Gladstone in 1893 contained the condition that although in the event of an Irish parliament being set up, Ireland would still send 80 MPS to Westminster, they would only be entitled to vote on bills which directly affected Ireland.
In the event the bill got pass the Commons, but failed by a large margin (419-41) in the Unionist-dominated House of Lords.
Now there are obvious differences between Gladstone's (and it was essentially all his own idea) Irish “bicameral parliament” which had basically a carte-blanche to control and legislate on all of Ireland’s “domestic affairs”, and the present powers of the N.Irish/ Scottish/Welsh Assembly/parliament, but I think there are also obvious comparisons between our present situation and that envisaged by Gladstone in 1893.
So, how about, instead of setting up the English Grand Committee, Scottish (and Northern Irish,Welsh) MPs’ remit would be limited basically to voting on those matters which affect directly them; the English representatives however would have unlimited voting rights on any topic which passes through the Commons (including matters which deal specifically with N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales).
Bear in mind I’ve just written this after my lunchtime pint and probably there are enormous gaps of logic here which are not immediately apparent to me….. but if we are stuck with devolution for the foreseeable future is this not a system which would:
1.Swing the pendulum of constitutional fairness back towards the English?
2.Prevent one more division of legislative power (ie the English Grand Committee)?
3.Give the English a right to jointly determine policy (and more importantly budget) in N.Ireland,Scotland and Wales and also solely in the United Kingdom as a whole*?
4.Bearing in mind the last half of point 3), might provide a wake-up call for unionists in the other three parts of the Kingdom, deliver them the stark choice-to keep pushing for further and further devolved powers or move back towards the common parliament of the United kingdom that has served us all pretty well since 1801?
*Which taking into consideration the number of English MPS in parliament presently, would only be codifying what is already the practical reality.
7 comments:
You have your parliament in Northern Ireland (whether you personally wanted it or not) so the question has to be asked: Why are you so keen that the English shouldn't have the same constitutional privileges?
The same question should also be asked of Malcolm Rifkind who supported devolution to Scotland.
No form of English Votes will work. Not Ken Clarke's, not Rifkind's, not yours.
You cannot have an executive that is English and British with different parliaments voting on different parts of the same legislative programme. It is completely unworkable no matter how you dress it up.
There is one workable solution: Symmetry, and that entails each nation of the UK having the same instruments of government. It's democratic, it's fair and it's logical. Besides which English nationalism will not be vanquished by simply resolving the West Lothian Question, it's the English Question that needs to be answered, namely how do the English wish to be governed?
I can tell you now that they won't want to be governed by a Scottish PM.
You may not like that but I'm afraid it's a fact.
Toque
"Why are you so keen that the English shouldn't have the same constitutional privileges?"
It's not so much that, more I believe devolution will eventually prove to have been a very costly (in terms of both finance and the integrity of the UK) failure. I don't think Scotland or Wales are any better governed now than they were pre 97..I know for a fact NI isn't. So I'm anti-devolution full-stop, not solely anti-English devolution. But unlike Brown, I believe that England should be at least given the same option as the rest of the UK, that is to say referendum on the question.
"You cannot have an executive that is English and British with different parliaments voting on different parts of the same legislative programme. It is completely unworkable no matter how you dress it up."
No more unworkable or chaotic than the present situation, but in the perfect world, yes I'd go back to one sovereign parliament for the whole nation. As I said in my post, it worked well enough for 200 odd years, or at least a lot better than the present shambles.
"I can tell you now that they won't want to be governed by a Scottish PM."
Simply because he's Scottish, or because he represents a Scottish constituency?
As far as I can understand it, O'Neill, the devolved parliaments operate under a block grant from Westminster and within the confines of this grant they can determine policy. If English MPs start voting on English matters, their actions will have a very direct effect on the grants available to devolved parliaments (especially given the 85 % figure). Therefore matters which financially do pertain to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will not be scrutinised by the MPs for these regions. I think that is a fairly fundamental problem with this plan. I have to confess though, I have no great solution to the problems raised by assymetrical devolution.
But under this plan (and I'm still working on it;)) the days of the almost automatic block grant would be over. NIrish,Scottish and Welsh MPS would be determining and voting on the budget for their own region, but jointly with English MPs; in other words, instead of the present undemocratic and unfair system, MPs representing the devolved countries would have to argue why their part of the UK, as opposed to the more deprived regions of England should get priority to finance.
Interesting side-point, under Gladstone's plan Ireland would have had its own revenue-raising powers, but also would have been required to contribute a net 300,000 GBP a year back to the UK exchequer, a kind of Barnet formula in reverse!
Who would determine what was a solely English bill? The speaker? Whoever had this role would be under a great deal of political pressure. It would be an extraordinary feat of draftsmanship for each bill to have it neatly subdivided for the composite nations.
"Who would determine what was a solely English bill? The speaker?"
That would be more of aproblem under Rifkind's Grand Committee scheme.
With the Gladstone alternative, I suppose anything which fell directly outside the scope of that devolved to the their own parliament/assembly could not be debated on by the N.irish, Scottish, Welsh MPs.
But yes, the bureaucrcay would probably one of the main drawbacks
"Simply because he's Scottish, or because he represents a Scottish constituency?"
In Brown's case both. Though there are some Scottish politicians who I would be happy to be Prime Minister if they had an English seat.
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