How to save the Union
Iv hen Nigel Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he liked to say that the problem with tax simplification was that you always end up complicating tax, too. The same is true of much constitutional reform: any attempt to remove an anomaly will often create another.
New Labour's devolution experiment responded to the desire of the Scottish and Welsh people for greater autonomy. In so doing, however, it has created new and growing grievances among the people of England. It is this sentiment that Sir Malcolm Rifkind's deposition to the Tory party's Democracy Task Force is meant to address: Sir Malcolm proposes that an English Grand Committee be established in the House of Commons to consider English business in which only the members for English constituencies would be able to vote. This would tackle the longstanding 'West Lothian question', labelled as such by Enoch Powell after the constituency represented by the Labour MB Tam Dalyell, who raised the issue forcefully in the devolution debates of the 1970s: why should a Scottish MP be able to vote on matters relating to England when an English MP cannot vote on matters relating solely to Scotland?
New Labours answer to the West Lothian question has been to ignore it. 'Now that we have devolution up and running,' Lord Irvine said when still Lord Chancellor, 'I think the best thing to do about the West Lothian question is to stop asking it' The government's sole response has been to cut the number of Scottish MPs from 72 to 59 — a gesture which does not address the heart of the matter at all.
Gordon Brown and his colleagues should recognise that there has been a change in the landscape of public opinion south of the border and that this cannot be dismissed (as it was at the 2001 and 2005 elections) as a matter raised vexatiously by wicked Tories. What was once a debating point for constitutional theorists is now — as a direct consequence of the government's reforms — a live political issue.
Since the introduction of the Scottish Parliament, opinion polls have suggested that two thirds of English voters agree or strongly agree that Scottish MPs should no longer be allowed to vote in the House of Commons on legislation that affects only England (and indeed that Scottish voters acknowledge the fairness and sense in this, too). Now, the English, who cast more votes for the Tories than for Labour at the last general election, see a Scottish Prime Minister, a Scottish Chancellor, an increasingly assertive SNP executive in Edinburgh and the survival of the Barnett formula, which guarantees advantageous funding for Scotland. If the opinion polls are right, there is a real chance that Labour might still be the largest single party at Westminster after the next election, with the Tories holding the majority of seats in England. At that point, the West Lothian question would become the stuff of constitutional crisis. That is one of many reasons why it should be addressed now rather than later.
It is ironic to hear Labour reduced to the very scaremongering and misrepresentation it so condemned in those who opposed Scottish and Welsh devolution. Responding to Sir Malcolm's proposals, David Cairns, the Scotland Office minister, told the Observer: 'Once you breach the principle that all MPs should vote on matters before them in Westminster you get constitutional anarchy . . . Taken to its logical extent it would create multiple categories of MPs. Where does it end?'
Quite apart from his absurd alarmism, what Mr Cairns carefully ignores is that there is already a two-tier system at Westminster. Scottish MPs have more authority over English affairs than English MPs do over Scottish policy. The 'in and out' principle first proposed by Gladstone during the Home Rule debates is already in place in the sense that English MPs are already excluded from crucial decisions now delegated to the Scottish Parliament. The Westminster Parliament has already been fundamentally changed by devolution. The Rifkind plan would simply remove a glaring injustice.
The government also warns of terrible conflict between (say) a Labour government and a Westminster Parliament in which the English Grand Committee had a Tory majority. Sir Malcolm points out that the government would still maintain control of the parliamentary timetable, the right to initiate legislation, and command of the Civil Service.
Indeed, Labour's anxiety on this score is revealing. It has relied on the votes of Scottish MPs to force through controversial measures which did not affect Scottish voters, notably the establishment of foundation hospitals in 2003 and tuition fees for students in England in 2004. The real opposition to an English Grand Committee system comes not from the voters north or south of the border, but from English Labour.
Sir Malcolm's proposal would involve the Speaker or an independent committee 'certifying' bills or parts of them as specifically English. It is often claimed that this would be impossibly difficult. This was certainly not the view of Parliament's own Procedure Committee (dominated by Labour members) in the 1998-99 session, which declared it 'appropriate to retain special procedures for bills relating exclusively to one of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, as currently apply to bills relating exclusively to Scotland or Wales'. Yes, this would sometimes be complex. But it was Labour that set this process in train with its devolution legislation: the Rifkind answer would simply correct some of the gross asymmetries created by that original reform.
The PM's interest in Britishness is an honourable pursuit, at a time when the nature of allegiance, citizenship and shared national culture is being questioned as never before. But if Mr Brown is serious about preserving the Union, he must accept that the sensitivities of England are no less important than those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The fuel of separatism is neglect. It is those who cover their ears when the West Lothian question is posed who are truly jeopardising the United Kingdom.
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