Thank you very much for your email regarding the possibility of an English Parliament. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

Electoral reform is the cornerstone of the Liberal Democrats’ constitutional agenda - the essential prerequisite for revitalizing our democracy.

In a democratic state it is essential to have democratic and fair means of electing representatives. In this context, our policy on voting reform presents no trade-off between principles and pragmatism. The overriding importance of any voting system is fairness. This implies that it must be both proportional and simple enough for any voter to understand. There is no reason why a system of PR cannot be both principled and pragmatic and it can easily be argued that FPTP is far from pragmatic in the distortionary and wasteful way that is transfers people’s votes into the seats.

The campaign for the reform of the voting system can never crowd-out other issues. A more proportional voting system would fundamentally improve the method by which all other policies are formulated and delivered. The Government of the day would not have such big majorities and would be fully accountable for its actions. Moreover in a proportional system the Party with the majority support would be in office, making is more likely that salient policies issues (e.g. health and education) actually implemented would be supported/favoured by more people.

The Labour Party’s manifesto for the 2001 General Election states the following:
” The government has introduced major innovations in the electoral systems used in the UK - for the devolved administrations, the European Parliament, and the London Assembly. The Independent Commission on the Voting System made proposals for electoral reform at Westminster. We will review the experience of the new systems and the Jenkins report to assess whether changes might be made to the electoral system for the House of Commons. A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster.

No indications have been given as yet about the nature or the timing of the review process and the issue has essentially been sidelined.

PR is necessary, however for the revitalisation of British politics. V oters do not have a strong enough voice or enough choice and it is no wonder that more and more people feel alienated from politics.

Devolution for Scotland and Wales, the Freedom of Information Act, the Human Rights Act and the move to reform the second chamber have all moved Britain’s constitution forward. With the establishment of more proportional voting systems for Scottish, Welsh, and European elections the argument in favour of fair votes is on the way to being won. Fair votes for Westminster are the missing part of Britain’s constitutional renewal.

For more information on electoral reform you might like to look at the Independent Commission on PR’s website; http://www.prcommission.org/ established to assist the review of Britain’s experience of new PR voting systems.

Our thoughts on devolution have been informed by two core beliefs. Firstly, we are a unionist party. That is to say that we believe that together, Wales, England and Scotland are more than the sum of their parts. The people of all three nations benefit economically, and in terms of their international influence, from being part of one state. We want to see the United Kingdom strengthened and reinvigorated. Secondly, we believe that government decision making should be exercised as close to the people whom it affects as possible, and always with their democratic consent.

The question of how to deliver the same rights to the people of England is a difficult one. How can we create English government that reflects local needs, and is closer to the people it serves? An English Parliament at Westminster does not seem to be the answer. The North East or South West of England often have concerns which differ from those of the Southeast and London. Yet, it is the Southeast and London that dominate so much of our political and economic discussion as a nation. Successive governments have recognised the diversity of English regions and tried to reflect this by creating regional departmental offices, regional health authorities and Regional Development Agencies. The result is that thousands of people have now been appointed to take decisions that affect us all. These are decisions that should be exercised by democratically elected and accountable politicians.

An English parliament at Westminster would still be centred on the needs of London and the Southeast, appearing remote to many other areas of England. It could not deliver more local, more responsive government, as it would still govern more than 50 million people. The regional, appointed bureaucracy would have to remain. We propose instead that England should develop regional government, so that decisions are taken as near to the English people as they are in Scotland and Wales. Westminster would devolve some power down, but most powers would be taken from the unelected and undemocratic regional bureaucracy and given to new democratic assemblies. Those assemblies would be established only with the clear consent of the regional electorate. With proper devolution of powers, the West Lothian question regarding the right of Scottish MP’s to vote on English matters would diminish in importance. Our other important proposal, to reduce the number of MP’s to 500, would also open a debate on representation at Westminster for the UK as a whole.

Thank you once again for taking the time to write to me with your concerns and the very best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Dami Bamidele.
The Rt. Hon. Charles Kennedy’s Office.

There is, according to the old joke, no equivalent in Gaelic to the word mañana - nothing, as the crofter is supposed to have said to the tourist, "expressing quite that degree of urgency". By the same token, there is as far as I am aware no equivalent in Gaelic, or for that matter in English, to the word schadenfreude, a useful German expression meaning to take pleasure in the misfortunes of others. But it is not an emotion exclusive to the Germans.

Do I detect a certain schadenfreude among Scots at the apparent current turmoil among the English over their sense of national identity? If so, it is given extra savour because that crisis of identity is provoked at least in part by the creation of the Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales. Suddenly it is Scotland which is forging ahead in a grand constitutional experiment, and England which is poring over its national navel and asking: who are we ... and why?

Many in England once used the terms 'English' and 'British' interchangeably. Yet, in the wake of our constitutional revolution, the nature of Britain itself has changed. We no longer live in a unitary state, with a single common identity - representative bodies in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and growing interest in regional government in England are focusing attention on the different ways we see ourselves. Britain is now more diverse than ever, with diverse identities: to be British today is more to accept values of tolerance and decency, and a spirit of innovation, rather than being about ethnic origin, religion or even language.

We are increasingly celebrating diversity, and this has implications for several policy areas. In particular, Britain needs much clearer rules for regulating relations between the constituent parts of the Union. Liberal Democrats have long argued for a written constitution for the UK. Now, more than ever before, this is an urgent need, if we are successfully to cope with the tensions that will inevitably arise from the existence of powerful bodies in Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and London.

Supporting diversity also means that we should be taking action through a coherent race relations policy when harmony in this area is undermined, and providing refuge for genuine asylum seekers. We should be proud of the heritage of our isles, but we are an innovative and resourceful people who are not restrained by tradition. The idea of Britain now encompasses the Londoner whose grandparents came to Britain from the Indian sub-continent, and the Welsh man or woman whose family has tended the same farmland for generations. And we will all feel at different times that we belong to different groups - as someone who feels himself to be a Highlander, a Scot, a Briton, and a European, I am more comfortable in the new diverse Britain than I ever have been. The Britishness of the modern United Kingdom is a picture painted with a broad brush, but it is no less a work of art for that.

Yes - these are indeed remarkable times in the relationships between the nations of our isles. For a significant part of the twentieth century, and indeed during the latter years of the nineteenth, British politics has been beset with the problem of how to govern the non-English nations of the Union. First, we had the Irish Question, which exercised Westminster politicians for well over forty years until it was 'settled' in the early 1920s, only to re-emerge nearly fifty years on. By that time, of course, we also had Scottish and Welsh Questions to answer. It was many years until those of us asking those questions received a satisfactory answer.

Yet today, the Scottish and Welsh Questions have been answered basically to the satisfaction of all but the nationalists. We may even be on the verge of an answer to the Irish Question.

So the most remarkable feature of British politics today, is not that politicians are finally dealing with 'Questions' about Britain's non-English lands. It is that there is a new question - and it deals with England. The English Question, put simply, asks how England should be governed in the light of Britain's constitutional revolution. South of the border, people have suddenly realised that England has no democratic structure of its own, and that its affairs are dealt with through a British Parliament in which MPs from outside England sit. Some, most notably Teresa Gorman, have said that a separate English Parliament is the answer to the English Question.

I do not want to rule out an English Parliament, but there are problems with that approach. First, it is simply not true that an English Parliament would entirely solve the English problem, for the situation is not as simple as advocates of an English Parliament suggest. Under the current devolved framework, the Scottish Parliament has more powers than the Welsh Assembly, and they both have different powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. This means that there are certain areas where Westminster legislates for England alone, but others where it legislates for combinations of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. To tackle this problem we might not need just one extra Parliament, but, conceivably, several - dealing with English, English and Welsh, English/Welsh/Northern Irish, and conceivably English/Northern Irish matters. Would this really make sense to the British people? Would it in any way reflect the identities of communities within the Union?

The second problem is that an English Parliament would do nothing to give voice to the serious regional differences within England. The population of England is vast compared with other parts of the Union. A national Parliament within the UK is all very well for the Scots with a population of five million, but will the forty-six million people of England really get something much more accountable than Westminster if an English Parliament is established? And, if an English Parliament was established in Westminster, as it surely would be, would the people of Newcastle, or Cornwall really feel that it is any less remote than the current UK Parliament? Within England, there are serious concerns in areas such as the North-East and the South-West, that the current Westminster Parliament treats these areas as peripheral. The regions of England are not bothered about Scots and others voting on English matters - they are far more concerned about decisions being taken in a far away place which seems to know nothing of huge swathes of England. An English Parliament would do little to meet these regional concerns.

The third problem with the idea of an English Parliament is that the English Question is itself misphrased. Surely we should instead be focusing far more on a new British Question - how do we create fluid structures which allow new relationships to develop between the different nations and regions of the Union? Instead of assuming that cities such as Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle want to look towards London all the time for their next level of government, we could be much more imaginative. If you live in Bristol, it is, by and large, far more easy to reach Cardiff than London. If you live in Newcastle or Sunderland, your nearest capital city is Edinburgh, not London. And if you live in Leeds, you are probably far more likely to think of that thriving city as the centre of a bustling region with international strengths, than you are to feel like a junior partner to London.

We need in other words, to rethink the idea of Unionism, so that it is no longer associated with the Conservative Party, or one community in Northern Ireland. A new Unionism in Britain should not be about treaties between capitals and crowns. It should be about relations between the regions of England, and the other nations of the UK, in which the North-East works with the Scots, and the South-West works with the Welsh, and both work with Europe, just has much as they feel subject to London. The new Council of Isles to be established as part of the Good Friday Agreement already offers exciting opportunities for liaison between the various UK capitals and Dublin. The English Regions should be added to this equation.

There was much wrong with the old Britain. It was the most centralised democratic state in Europe; it assumed that there was little regional diversity within England; and it gave the non-English nations of the Union with a profound sense of being ignored. In the past three years, the sweeping away of that old structure has been truly a sight to behold.

Yet we must not throw the idea of Britain itself out with the proverbial bathwater. The diversity of the Union gives us many strengths. Centuries of success and innovation have shown the British together to be a resourceful, tolerant and open-minded people, with much to learn from each other, and much to give to the wider world. Michael Ignatieff recently argued that "there is something intrinsically good about multi-ethnicity", and that this applied to the nations of the UK as much as anywhere else. "Let us remain together" he said, "so that we can continue our argument together". There are certainly great arguments to be had within our own nations in the United Kingdom. Yes, this means tackling the English Question. But, just as importantly, it means rethinking the way Britain as a whole is governed, and giving it new meanings in the next century.

Charles Kennedy: Lecture to the Scottish Council Foundation by Charles Kennedy MP, 30 June, 1999

Charles Kennedy's speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference, Dunfermline, 16th October 1999

It’s good to be home.

Coming home as the Scottish leader of a British party.

It’s a thought-provoking position to be in.

Thoughts of the great Scots who have led us and our predecessors over the century.

David Steel.

Bob Maclennan.

Jo Grimond.

Archy Sinclair.

Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

Men who made a decisive impact on the politics of their times.

It’s a privilege to follow in their footsteps.

But there’s another reason why it is thought-provoking to be a Scot leading a British party.

And that is that the relationships between the nations of the Union have changed in a revolutionary way since 1997.

Scotland has a Parliament.

Wales an Assembly.

Northern Ireland, soon I hope, a working Assembly too.

In England, regionalism is growing as never before.

Calling into question, as it happens, the idea of England itself.

In the process of devolution, we are creating throughout Britain, a new way of doing things.

Just look at what I can’t talk to you about today.

In the past, a Federal leader could come to Scottish conference and wax lyrical about all the dreadful things that were being done to our education system in Westminster.

No more.

MSPs, in a Scottish government, in a Scottish Parliament, answerable only to the people of Scotland, decide our education policy.

So you’ll not hear anything from me today on that subject.

And that’s as it should be.

Instead, what I want to talk about are federal matters.

UK-wide policy.

And there are exciting changes that we are living through.

British politics is now based on a new set of diverse relationships.

Gone are the days of the man in Whitehall knowing best.

Centralising.

Dictating.

Not listening.

And with that, we have a new rationale for Britain as an idea.

A new set of reasons for being together in the Union at all.

In the past, Unionism was a term that conjured images of monarchy, Empire, tradition.

That’s all changing.

Those of us who recognise the value in Scotland playing a full part in Britain are creating a new Unionism.

A Unionism based on diversity not uniformity.

Based on a belief that we have more to learn from each other together, whatever our differences,

than we have to gain by pulling up a drawbridge and mingling only among ourselves.

The new Unionism in Britain should not be about treaties between capitals and crowns.

The Liberal tradition is a proud one,

and a philosophical one in terms of its analysis of individuals being more important than the sate.

Communities being more important than the nation state.

So the new Unionism should be about relations between the regions of England, and the other nations of the UK.

In which the North-East of England works with Scotland, and the South-West works with the Welsh.

After all, Bristol is nearer Cardiff than London.

Newcastle is nearer Edinburgh.

And of course, all parts of England need to work with Europe, as well as being allied to London.

The new Council of Isles to be established as part of the Good Friday Agreement already offers exciting opportunities for liaison between the various UK capitals and Dublin.

The English Regions should be added to this equation.

Fluid, challenging, and exciting times indeed.

So I stand before you today as a Scot.

But also as a Highlander.

And a Briton too.

There’s no contradiction in being all three.

So I’ll be supporting the British team when our athletes next compete in the Olympics.

But before that, we have another sports fixture coming up.

I know who I’ll be supporting there too.

We’re all looking forward to that.

Won’t it be great?

But seriously,

let me say something about that match.

When Scotland beat England, and we earn our place in Euro 2000, we’ll have an almighty celebration.

It will go on for days.

But let’s be gracious in victory.

Scotland is a proud nation, proud of its own strengths.

Not for us the vitriolic anti-Englishness that we see from some of our opponents here.

That’s not an adult approach to life.

It’s certainly not the way forward as we try to build a Britain based on respect for diversity.

And it’s personally important for my leadership of our party that there is a healthy and constructive dialogue between all parts of the UK.

I want our achievements in Scotland to be a lesson for the rest of Britain about what devolution can mean.

When I was elected as the federal leader, I said that I wanted our party to be become a serious party of government throughout the whole of Britain.

The best guide to that is here and now, in Scotland.

We are in government, making a difference.

Showing that we’re winners.

Changing the lives of people in Scotland for the better.

Acting on the principles we came into politics to advance.

If we carry on as we’re doing, a successful Liberal Democrat presence in the Scottish government is the first step towards taking our party into government throughout Britain.

There’s one particular message I want to take into England and Wales from Scotland.

It’s a message about one of our long-held goals in politics.

Fair votes.

Fair votes in every election throughout the land.

And the message I want to take from Scotland is this.

Not only do fair votes deliver representative government on a national scale.

But fair votes work in local government too.

We’ve got that concession from Labour.

It’s going to happen in Scotland.

We’ve had it for many years in Northern Ireland.

And when it’s implemented in Scotland, I believe that Labour will have to concede the logic of having it in England and Wales.

It used to be said that the Tories used Scotland as a test-bed for their most unsavoury policies.

To see just how much they could get away with.

Remember the Poll Tax.

Well it’s going to be different this time round.

Changes will be made in Scotland that work so well, and are so popular, that the rest of Britain will be crying out for them.

Of course, our mission to be a serious party of government,

making a difference,

doesn’t end in these islands.

If I’m a Highlander, a Scot, and a Briton, I’m also a European.

That’s why I was delighted to give our party’s support to the launch of the Britain in Europe campaign on Wednesday.

That was quite a gathering.

The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary, Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine.

And myself.

All on one platform.

Representing the mainstream of British politics.

What a contrast to the rag-tag bunch of yesterday’s men and women the eurosceptics will gather when we have a referendum on the euro.

Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn, Ian Paisley, Norman Tebbit,

David Owen,

Just William – yesterday’s man before his time.

Those of there on the Britain in Europe platform,

Together with business people, trade unionists, and voluntary organisations across Britain,

Have begun an unstoppable campaign.

A campaign that will once and for all change the way that Britain thinks about Europe.

You know, for me, the name Britain in Europe says it all.

Britain can’t be anywhere else.

Britain is in Europe.

We are part of its rich culture and heritage.

We are part of its history.

The eurosceptics like to talk about 800 years of Britain’s independent history.

But we have an equally long and proud history of constructive engagement in Europe.

Go back even to the Middle Ages.

When the east coast had far closer links with the Low Countries by sea, than it did with the rest of Britain.

Those trading contacts began an 800 year long story of Britain in Europe.

Of cultural dialogue.

Of shared values.

Of common struggles.

It’s a story of music, and art, and literature.

Of blood spilt by Britain and France on Flanders fields to save the continent from tyranny.

A story of a fifty year mission, through the European Union, to ensure that Europe is never again ravaged by poverty, unemployment and war.

For the future, we have a new mission.

To explain why Britain is in Europe.

To explain that it is good for British business.

Good for British jobs.

Good for British people.

People need to know that thanks to Europe, we've got progress on paternity leave

Thanks to Europe we've got progress on equal pay for men and women,

It was thanks to Europe that the invalid care allowance was eventually given to married women.

So it is patriotic to be pro-European.

With colleagues in other parties, and people in none,

It will be a personal priority to take this message to the country.

At the same time, I want all of us here to hit the eurosceptics hard,

To put them under the spotlight.

We all know how destructive withdrawal from Europe would be for Britain.

That is why we must ensure that the British people reject the views of anti-Europeans.

There’s a clear question to put.

When you talk about renegotiating treaties, will you admit that you are advocating either British withdrawal from Europe, or at least disengagement by 90%?

That’s the reality of the case.

And it needs to be shown up for what it is.

The penalties for staying on the sidelines are too great to risk.

Not only will we lose out in Europe, but we will risk losing influence throughout the world.

On this case, I am always struck by the comment made by the former US Ambassador to Britain, Raymond Seitz:

"If Britain’s voice is less influential in Paris or Bonn, it is likely to be less influential in Washington."

To hear some eurosceptics speak you’d think that America was waiting to welcome us as an equal partner if only we would leave the EU.

That’s utter nonsense – 51st state stuff.

If we can point out the problems in the Conservative case.

we will be doing much to show the country that we are a serious party of government.

And why the Conservatives are not.

They have lost touch with the people.

They have lost touch, when we are reconnecting with the people of Britain.

We are doing that by starting to involve more of our members in decision-making.

I began my first conference speech as leader by praising the way we did that – one member, one vote.

Well I would, wouldn’t I?

I was very happy with how it worked out.

But it wasn’t just me.

All the candidates thought it worked well.

And that’s why I announced that the federal party would be looking at ways of spreading one member one vote.

More democracy for our members.

So that they can have a bigger say in the way the party is managed.

You will all be hearing more of that during the year to come.

Because I am determined that the federal party takes more notice of what you are want.

That’s the way to persuade the public that we hear their concerns.

That we will empower communities.

That we trust people to decide their own futures.

That Liberal Democrats want to win power so that we can give it away to the people.

That is what we are doing in Scotland.

Liberal Democrat MSPs.

Liberal Democrat ministers.

A Liberal Democrat Deputy First Minister.

All delivering.

All making a difference.

All showing what a Liberal Democrat government is like.

What it can do.

Scotland stands today as a shining example of the new politics.

Devolved power.

Government close to the people.

Fair votes.

Parties working together.

Recognising that people from different traditions can learn from each other.

That they can sometimes be greater than the sum of their parts.

This conference is a first for me.

My first as leader.

But it is also the first time that a federal leader has addressed the party in government.

As I lead the Liberal Democrats in Britain as a whole, I will have one eye always on Scotland.

Because you are doing so well,

and because you offer an example to our colleagues throughout Britain.

Scotland has waited long for the chance it now has.

Our party has waited too.

Now the wait is over.

Do your best for Scotland.

And show the rest of Britain how it’s done.