Summary

This article looks forwards to likely events on devolution, in the context of England in particular. In summary I think it likely that:

• nothing of significance will happen this year nor (probably) in 2011
• if there were to be a Conservative government with a working majority, either following the forthcoming election or (if there were to be a hung Parliament) on any subsequent election later this year or at the beginning of next year, by the end of that Parliament some form of restricted voting at Westminster will be introduced
• the Barnett formula will remain for the moment
• regional devolution though desirable is a lost cause
• there will be no English Parliament in the short to medium term, although one may well occur by default in coming decades

Constraints

It is difficult to chart the constitutional future over the short term – say, the next five years – because much depends on the outcome of the forthcoming election, or if that were not to result in a working majority for the government which then ends up in office, in the election thereafter which (in the event of a hung Parliament) would be likely to take place later this year or the beginning of next year.

So far as concerns the future, what I think will happen is different from what I would like to happen. In this article I will mention both. In doing so, I will first deal with the “big ticket” issue of the political representation of England (if any) within the UK, and secondly in a very limited way with the question of UK financial arrangements, although as I mention further below, the two cannot be wholly disengaged.

English votes on English laws

The Labour party went into its 1997 devolution proposals with no working plans for an English dimension for the UK constitution, and there will remain none whilst Gordon Brown remains leader of that party. For any incoming government, including a David Cameron government, the first priority will be the economy and the budget deficit. Nothing will happen in relation to the English Question/the West Lothian Question in the first session of a new Parliament, which will be a long session lasting until prorogation in November 2011 prior to a second Queen’s Speech.

However, I expect a Tory government to introduce some form of restricted voting within the term of any Parliament with a Tory majority, probably based on the proposals of Ken Clarke’s Democracy Taskforce. This will partly be through self-interest (it gives the Tories more opportunities to stake their claims in the event of a Labour government being elected in the future with only a small majority); partly because there is an inadequacy in the current UK constitutional arrangements which it seems difficult to consider can remain unaddressed for ever and the Conservatives do not want to end up with an English Parliament; partly because it gives David Cameron’s own back-benchers something that a number of them feel strongly about; and partly because he has previously publicly come out in favour of it and he cannot too often be seen not to be implementing what he has said he would implement.

In addition, this dovetails nicely with implementation of proposals similar to those of the Calman Commission recommendations for additional financial devolution for Scotland, and with any successful outcome of the referendum on whether the Welsh Assembly should obtain law making powers under Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 similar to (although slightly reduced from) those of the Scottish Parliament.

The required approval of two-thirds of the whole number of members of the Assembly has recently been given to the holding of such a referendum, although there remains some doubt about the outcome of the referendum, which would take place after the general election. However, it seems difficult to believe that the referendum would escape the gaze of those who already think the West Lothian Question is bad enough without adding a West Clwyd Question to it. It seems likely that Calman Commission implementation, Welsh law-making powers and the position of England will be treated together as a package by the Tories.

Furthermore, my own view is that the Tory calculation that introducing such arrangements for England would do less damage than doing nothing is the correct calculation. Not all of course agree with this. Professor Victor Bogdanor is probably the best known and most widely respected champion of the status quo, and has published a number of articles on the subject. The arguments that he and others of his persuasion have presented on this are twofold:

1. A scheme of English votes on English laws at Westminster is unworkable if a UK government were to be reliant on its Scottish, Northern Irish and (after the Welsh Assembly acquires law making powers under Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006) Welsh members for its majority. One of the pillars of the unwritten constitution concerning the Westminster parliament is the principle that the government must be able to get its business through and to whip the members of its own party wherever elected in the UK to any extent that it wishes in order to do so. A scheme of English votes on English laws would in practice (so the argument goes) collapse into a separate English Parliament and government within Westminster by another name, whenever the UK government did not have a majority in England.
2. Under the Barnett formula, decisions affecting expenditure in England on matters devolved elsewhere will feed through into amounts paid to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Consolidated Funds with respect to those devolved matters. This is sometimes referred to as the “Barnett consequential”. There is therefore no such thing (on this argument) as an “England-only” matter for which either an English parliament, English members at Westminster or regional parliaments for England could or should in practice take jurisdiction. Barnett and devolution for England don’t mix.

These conventional attacks on proposals to limit voting rights at Westminster are in part at least attacks on a straw man. Even if the Barnett consequential argument were decisive in precluding devolution in England (which for the reasons mentioned below I do not believe it is), no proposals emanating from the Tories involving an English Grand Committee, whether from Ken Clarke's Democracy Taskforce or from Malcolm Rifkind, would prevent members for the whole of the UK having a decisive say on whether laws affecting only England should pass both at second and third readings. Thus no Act could pass without the approval of all members, but an English Grand Committee could, depending on how it were implemented, prevent a repetition of, for example, the student top-up fees affair being forced on people in England. They could certainly not collapse into an English Parliament by another name.

The principle that the government must be able to get its business through needs to be considered more seriously. The calculation of opponents of restricted voting at Westminster is first that were there to be a government dependent on its Scottish MPs for its majority, less instability would arise from those MPs being able to decide matters in England which are devolved in Scotland than the reverse; and secondly that it is unacceptable if a government were to be unable to get its legislative program through for England on devolved matters without the agreement of other parties in such circumstances.

I think both ideas are challengeable. Whilst the present system may be able to accommodate the odd student top-up fees affair occurring, I do not believe it could survive it happening with regularity. Apart from it simply being undemocratic, it would be likely to generate considerable ill feeling between constituent parts of the UK. On the second point, which is super-Diceyan in its extremeness, we are not like the Aztecs who felt impelled to offer regular blood sacrifices of increasingly gross proportions in order to keep the sun providing warmth and the natural order of things in existence, nor should be believe that the earth will stop turning if Parliament does not churn out new laws. Laws on health and education which worked in 2010 are likely also to work in 2015 even if they do not match the UK government’s particular political agenda of the moment. A respite from legislative activism might be viewed as a blessing, particularly by those at the receiving end, and where something is required it will be for politicians to do what politicians do in order to reach a compromise: something that would be required in any event if proportional representation were to be introduced, which would normally result in no party having an overall majority.

For what it is worth, my own proposal for this is more limited than those emerging from the Tory party. By analogy with the power of delay for a year available to the House of Lords, if a Bill or separate Part of a Bill were not to have a majority in its favour in the Commons at third reading for the portion of the UK to which it applies as well as for the whole House, I propose that it could not be forced through against the wishes of the majority of those members representing that portion until the following session of Parliament. At all stages of a Bill all members would still exercise a vote; but people in England/Wales would get some protection at third reading against laws and decisions, applying to them only, being forced on them which are not approved of by their elected representatives. Where the government felt it really needed to force something through against the wishes of the representatives of those in England or England and Wales, they could do so, but after the same delay that could be imposed by the House of Lords. Possibly after a period of experience and the development of the processes of consultation and compromise that may be required, this power to delay could be transformed into a power to block.

For such arrangements to work, the extent of a Bill or separate part of a Bill would have to be certified by the Speaker. That used to be done before devolution for the purposes of the Scottish Grand Committee. Various new drafting conventions about how a Bill is divided into parts may be required so as to enable separate treatment in this way, but this is nothing that the flexibility of Parliamentary procedure (and the excellent drafting skills at the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel) could not manage. Those who say that there are insuperable technical difficulties are simply overstating or misunderstanding their case.

The Barnett formula

Lastly on this, I will turn again to the Barnett formula. I am not going to dwell on the supposed iniquities of the Barnett formula, except to say that despite all the hype emerging from the (UK) Scottish Office, the formula does not as some suggest result in an export of significant quantities of English tax payers’ cash north of the border (as opposed to the export of cash from the greater-south-east-of-England’s tax payers northwards and westwards, which does occur). Taking account of the geographical allocation of North Sea oil revenues based on what would be international boundaries, at present Scotland’s fiscal balances are no worse, and possibly slightly better, than that of the UK as a whole.

That will not always be the case. Scotland’s over-reliance on public sector employment and the exhaustion of oil and gas reserves in 30 or so years’ time will give rise to new imbalances, but they do not exist significantly at the moment.

Instead I deal with the Barnett formula here for two reasons. First, in order to dispel the argument against devolution in England which is based on the Barnett consequential, and secondly to explain why I do not think it will be in any new government’s plans to replace it with, say, a needs based formula.

On the Barnett consequential, the point here is that the passing of an Act for a particular service in England such as education or health which normally exercises politicians (say, how schools are to be organised, or the role of parents within them, and so forth) does not of itself normally require expenditure. There may be additional expenditure implications, but compared to current spend on the service they are likely to be de minimis, and at the end of the day any service must cut its cloth to the amount provided for it in any year by the process of supply. Ministers bargain with the Treasury on annual spending reviews on calculations of broad brush political calculation and policy aims, not a detailed analysis of particular service legislation.

The amount available to spend in furtherance of these services (so called “supply”) is established annually by Consolidated Fund Acts. This is linked in to the annual expenditure estimates laid by the Chief Secretary of the Treasury before the House of Commons each year, drawn up following the Treasury's spending review. Once approved by the House, authority to draw on the Consolidated Fund to meet the estimates in the first part of the following financial year (beginning on 1st April) is conferred by a Consolidated Fund Act. In the summer of the year, usually shortly before the summer recess at the end of July, these are incorporated into an annual Appropriation Act listing and authorising the appropriations for each head of service of each department for the year, usually followed by a further Appropriation Act towards the end of the financial year which sets out any excesses for the previous financial year and any supplementary supplies necessary since the estimates were drawn up for the current financial year.

The essential point here is that the determination of the Barnett uplift (the percentage of the increase in expenditure in England which is to go in block grant to the other countries in the UK) follows directly from the spending review giving rise to the estimates and any supplementary votes for central government departments. There is nothing to stop members for, say, Scotland expressing a view and exercising their vote when the annual estimates or any supplementaries are put forward in the Commons for the resolution of the House, if they feel that the “knock-on” effects on Scotland under the Barnett formula are not to their liking. That is quite different from being able to force through what the money voted for any particular head of service must be used for at the detailed implementation level in England, or to decide everything else which happens to be going on in England.

Secondly, the Barnett formula itself. At the moment it undoubtedly favours Scotland in a way that a needs based formula would not. The report of the Richards Committee probably sets out reasonably accurately how any needs based formula would in practice work. Its main effect would be to transfer some of Scotland’s block grant to Wales (a point also made by the Welsh Assembly’s Holtham Commission). England as a whole would stay pretty much the same (although there might be some changes in distribution within different parts of England), and because of the gearing caused by the fact that England represents some 83% of the population of the UK there is no significant pot of money hiding there for the English taxpayer to enjoy anyway.

Any new government will have to cut public expenditure. It will also have to deal with the SNP and with Scottish elections in 2011. Given that these cuts in public expenditure will have a significant impact on Scotland because of its reliance on the public sector, the last thing the new government will want to do is to make things worse by cutting Scotland’s block grant. Bad luck Wales.

Regional government

One feature of the present devolution arrangements which sometimes worries me is the thread of tribalism that lies underneath it. The very existence of a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly has within it the implicit view that on matters of social provision such as health and education, and indeed in social democracy itself, people within the UK are no longer “in it together”. However, now that tribalism within Scotland and Wales has found an outlet it should be no surprise if, in due course, the light reflected into England from this tribal mirror also begins to make its mark.

Or put more prosaically, I think it will be some time before the full consequences of the 1997 devolution project have worked their way through, and the Labour party having begun that project are unlikely to be able to maintain ownership of it as one suspects they originally thought they could. Having begun the project of devolution and accepted the fracturing of social democracy that it entails, we now have to see it through. It is too late to look back.

With that in mind, I am a fan of regional devolved government within England. My view is that if people in England were offered three regional parliaments and governments for the North, the Midlands and the South, with powers similar to those of the Welsh Assembly and government, and with an opportunity to say which region they thought they were in, it might well find favour at a referendum, and in particular in the north. The botched attempts of John Prescott which ended up in overwhelming rejection in the north-east in 2004 are attributable, I strongly suspect, to the fact that first they did not offer any meaningful devolution at all (a few transport matters would have gone from the Government Office for the North-East to the assembly, but most of the transport and planning powers were to be lifted from the county councils and unitary authorities and on planning were to be subject to central government direction anyway), and secondly that the proposals had the practical effect of dividing rather than representing the interests of the north of England. People in the north-east saw through it.

Some argue that the kind of federal regional devolution to which I have referred would result in a situation where the laws in, say, Manchester could be different from the laws in London, and that is (so the argument goes) ridiculous. To this I would only say first that that is devolution, and secondly that at present laws in Belfast and Edinburgh are different from those in Manchester, and in due course those in Cardiff will become different as well. One of the purposes of devolution was to allow that to happen and it seems a curious criticism to level against federal regional government. Behind it lies the unspoken thought that the 1997 devolution proposals were either wrong, or are not to be taken seriously.

Having said all those things, regrettably I do not think genuine regional government will happen. The Westminster political establishment still sees England as the prize and will not readily cede any meaningful responsibilities to powerful regions and their representatives. Prescott’s quest may have been hopeless politically, notwithstanding the ineffective job he made of it. I am as strongly opposed to pretend regional devolution as were the people of the north-east, and the problem with the Prescott proposals is that they did not, in fact, deal with the West Lothian Question anyway. They would probably still have to be coupled with some form of restricted voting at Westminster.

An English parliament

I am not a great advocate of an English parliament. There is a respectable argument for one, particularly in establishing and legitimising a new identity for those in England. However, to construct a new political class for England to provide complete equivalence to those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seems to me to be overkill when a simpler solution at Westminster for the West Lothian Question is available; and compared to regional devolution it does not move down powers to any significant degree. It seems possible that if given the choice, even today a majority in England would vote for an English Parliament, and over time that number is likely to become larger, but equally the opportunity in the next decade to make that choice is not likely to be offered by our politicians. Furthermore, I suspect a system of restricted voting at Westminster is the preferred option for most – but again we are unlikely actually to find out. If restricted voting happens, as I suspect it will, it will happen.

Having said that, I also suspect that we may end up with an English parliament after a number of decades by default. It could emerge from a slow metamorphosis of UK power structures into England power structures on matters which will have already become devolved in the remainder of the UK. However, that will be some time in the future I suspect, and time will tell. An English parliament would also be almost certain to emerge if fiscal autonomy were to arise in Scotland, for the reasons I explore further below. Where such Scottish fiscal autonomy would leave Wales and Northern Ireland, and how cross-subsidies from England would continue to operate, would then become quite problematic.

In the absence of regional devolution, an English Parliament would also be a pre-requisite of any federal system within the UK.

Fiscal autonomy

There is a very good reason why the Calman Commission trod carefully on matters of fiscal devolution. Its recommendations on this are relatively modest: they are, in effect, that the Scottish Parliament may set its own rate of income tax provided that it is not more than 10% below that set by the Westminster parliament for the remainder of the UK, and provided that the differential between tax bands is not changed. All money raised above the rate which is 10% below UK rates would go directly to the Scottish Consolidated Fund, in exchange for which the missing 10% would be deducted from the annual amount paid into the fund from the Treasury from UK taxation. So, if the Scottish Parliament were to set the same rate as applying in the remainder of the UK it would find its revenues broadly the same as without Calman; and if it were to set it higher or lower it would get proportionately more or less.

It seems highly unlikely that a Scottish Parliament would ever want to set a rate of income tax for Scotland more than 10% below that applying elsewhere in the UK, so the substantial effect is that Scots could set their own rate of income tax. The preclusion on changing tax bands may be as much in order to avoid arguments that, if MSPs can set their own rates of income tax, then their MP brothers in Westminster for Scottish constituencies should not be able to vote on income tax rates in the remainder of the UK, as it is to avoid unfair taxes on high earners in Scotland. In other words, the preclusion on changing tax bands is probably at least intended in part to avoid a West Lothian issue arising on taxation, where it would become serious.

Imagine then what would happen if there were to be financial autonomy for Scotland, under which the Scottish Parliament became responsible for raising its own taxation to meet its own expenditure. It seems inevitable that members of the UK parliament elected for Scottish constituencies would no longer be able to vote in connection with the fixing of rates of taxes such as income tax and corporation tax applying outside Scotland, to which their constituents would not be subject: were they to do so, it would fly against the constitutional links between taxation and representation, and be grossly unfair to people in the remainder of the UK. The link between taxation and representation, and the removal of the power of the Crown to tax without grant of the Commons in Parliament, formed one of the causes of the English Civil War (aka the Wars of the Three Kingdoms). We surely can’t and shouldn’t go back on this principle now.

If a UK government depended for its majority on its members for Scottish constituencies, it could be unable to raise the taxation for its own programmes. The only logical vehicle for introducing such fiscal autonomy in Scotland would be the creation of an English Parliament.

Other matters

One other “broad picture” point must be taken into account when looking at England.

On two occasions since the war, there has been a Labour government for the UK when England returned a majority of Tory members. The reverse happened in Scotland in the Thatcher governments and the Major government. If one is keeping score, Scotland has now moved ahead of England in the “we didn’t elect them” count. Given the current political complexion of Scotland it seems highly unlikely that at any time in the short to medium future Scotland would ever return more than a handful of Tory members, thus exacerbating this situation in times to come.

One might counter this legalistically by saying that this is what the Scots agreed to in the articles of union. One could also counter it politically by saying that this was one of the issues that the establishment of a Scottish parliament was intended to address. One should not underestimate the extent of the matters which have been devolved which, despite what the SNP say, are already very extensive – I personally regret the loss of a UK-wide national health service as something which binds us together.

I say this to illustrate the point that however aggrieved people in England may in the future think they have become, there is more than one point of view about representational fairness arising from the now multiple legislatures within the UK.

Where now for the Campaign for an English Parliament?

I hesitate to offer advice to the CEP because I have the reservations about their case which I have mentioned, and I am therefore not well qualified to do so. I suspect all they can do is sit it out, because as I have said I think time is on their side. Were the Scots to achieve any substantial fiscal autonomy, which is not impossible, that seems to me to require the establishment of an English Parliament in order to enable taxation to be raised legitimately with respect to the matters affecting England which are devolved elsewhere.

Perhaps my other main advice is to chill a little, and to spend less time aggravated by the fact that the Scottish parliament may have decided, by virtue of devolution, to offer some particular financial advantage for people in Scotland. Every pound that goes to, say, reduce prescription charges or abolish toll road charges in Scotland is a pound less which is available to the Scottish government to spend on something else. That is what devolution and the establishment of local priorities is about, and except when something like the student top-up fees affair arises, it has little to do with an English parliament.

Chris Vine blogs at The Withering Vine

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.

We’re now into the last week of the Power2010 online vote and there appears to be just one competition.

In fifth place with just under 4,000 votes is "A fully elected second chamber" and close behind is “English Votes on English Laws” (EvoEL) trailing by just 50. EvoEL had been in the top five for the entire duration of the online consultation until yesterday when a personal appeal from Peter Facey was sent out to all Unlock Democracy supporters calling on them to support just one reform, a fully elected second chamber. This followed on from last week’s email shot by the Campaign for the English Regions which urged their supporters to vote for any reform but EvoEL.

It is a short-sighted tactic by Peter Facey because our constitution needs to be addressed in the round, and the territorial – national – questions are vitally important not only to the future of our Union state, but also for the formulation and implementation of the other constitutional reforms on the Power2010 agenda. Taking Peter’s new favourite reform as an example, if we move to a fully elected upper house then the West Lothian Question is replicated in the second chamber which will increase England’s democratic deficit (see The Upper West Lothian Question) and make our democracy more unfair.

Short-sighted on not, those who are opposed to an English dimension to our system of government have mobilised. The question now is, do we care enough to rally to the cause of EvoEL?

It has been a tough sell to persuade the English Parliament lobby to vote for English Votes on English Laws. And with good reason. An English parliament is the ideal and EvoEL is a very poor substitute. But to those who do support an English parliament and who have not yet voted I say this: EvoEL at least gives voice to English discontent with the Status Quo and provides an English dimension to what is otherwise a very British affair.

The recent IPPR study into MPs attitudes to the English Question found that MPs are not satisfied with the Staus Quo.

“The overwhelming majority of MPs believe that it is time to reform the way that England is governed. Keeping things as they are is MPs’ least favoured option, attracting slightly less support than the radical option of establishing an English Parliament. However, while there is a clear mandate for reform on this issue within the House of Commons, opinion is divided over what to do.”

With a clear mandate for reform within the House of Commons, inclusion of EvoEL in the Power2010 Pledge would send a strong message to our politicians that the decade long statusquoism over the small matter of England is not acceptable.

From the Scottish Conservative Conference in Perth, the Times has brought us news that Ken Clarke’s solution to the West Lothian Question (dubbed English Pauses for English Clauses) is to be carried forward as Conservative policy and that these changes would take effect “in the first few weeks” of a Conservative government because they did not require legislation.

Ken Clarke’s solution will allow non-English constituency MPs to continue voting on English legislation, and to have a potentially decisive say on English-only legislation. Indeed, the proposed Tory reform would not have altered the outcome of the foundation hospital or tuition fees votes, had it been in effect. This watering down is despite Cameron’s vow to give English MPs the decisive say on English legislation, and despite the promises to England made by the three previous Tory leaders (Hague, IDS and Howard) who pledged to introduce English Votes on English Laws rather than English alterations at Committee Stage (for a fuller understanding of the Tory plans please refer to this pdf).

It is vitally important that the English Question is fully debated in the next Parliament and prior to the next General Election. Inclusion of EvoEL in the Power2010 pledge is a very good way of making this happen, and it is for that reason rather than any love of EvoEL that I urge you to vote for this reform. Otherwise, without debate, the Conservatives will tell us that they have a mandate, and that we should not complain, when they introduce a procedural change to the Westminster voting system as their answer to the English Question (they’ve never really understood the difference between the West Lothian Question and the English Question).

When I wrote to my prospective Conservative MP, Jason Sugarman, to inform him of my disatisfaction at Ken Clarke’s solution, he told me:

"I know one way of removing a Scottish born MP from Parliament. By voting Conservative in Lewes!"

Sugarman’s reference to Norman Baker being born in Scotland is a feeble attempt to make light of a democratic deficit that his party promised to fix and now will not. If Sugarman’s thinking is typical it indicates that the Conservatives believe that English nationalism is essentially based on anti-Scottish feeling. Much of it is, but it is an anti-Scottishness that springs from an inherent democratic unfairness that they promised to fix but have now reneged on that promise.

A Tory General Election win would remove much English resentment (assuming they were able to form a government) but it would not address the root cause of that resentment, and neither would Ken Clarke's attempt at mitigating the West Lothian Question. It is vital that we discuss this now, before more powers are removed from Westminster to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont, increasing again the English democratic deficit that gnaws at the heart of our constitution.

With the exception of EVoEL the Power2010 top ten reads like a Liberal Democrat's wet dream, or the Charter88 manifesto. The trustees at Joseph Rowntree House will all be nodding sagely at the wisdom of Joe Public if EVoEL doesn't make the cut. But if English Votes on English Laws doesn't make the cut it's all too predictable, too anodyne. It lacks credibility.

Date that boy that your mum warned you about. Go out and buy that motorbike. Inhale. Throw a brick through an establishment window. Vote for the joker in the pack, vote for the one that will cause debate and controversy, vote for English Votes on English Laws.

Gareth Young is a member of the Campaign for an English Parliament and blogs as Toque. This is cross-posted on Our Kingdom

A referendum on an English Parliament was the most popular idea submitted to Power2010 during the public consultation phase. However, the idea did not receive enough support during the deliberative phase to warrant its inclusion in the public vote phase of Power2010's campaign to reform our democracy.

The Campaign for an English Parliament is formally opposed to the Conservative Party's 'English Votes on English Laws' policy (see Devolution for England: A Critique of the Conservative Party Policy "English Votes on English Matters").

In light of the CEP's historic opposition to EVoEL, should the CEP encourage its members and supporters to vote for EVoEL on the Power2010 website, to stimulate debate on the English Question prior to the General Election?

Yes

No

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In his book 'The Politics of Nationalism and Devolution' (1980), Gordon Brown speculated that given devolution to Scotland the Labour Party might consider a version of what has recently been referred to as ‘English Votes on English Laws’ (EVoEL):

...a revised Scotland Act could embody some form of the ‘in-and-out’ principle. Under such a principle the remaining Scottish MPs at Westminster would not be allowed to take part in the proceedings of the House when it was debating English or Welsh domestic matters. The ‘in-and-out’ principle ought to be attractive to Conservatives since it would ensure them a semi-permanent majority on most social issues at Westminster – no small prize. Labour remains formally committed to devolution and may be expected to consider a plan along these lines in the future.

Gordon Brown is now opposed to English Votes on English Laws. Why do you think he is opposed? (Please select all that apply)

Brown believes that EVoEL would weaken the Labour Party.

Brown believes that Scottish MPs have a right to vote on English matters.

Brown believes that there is no such thing as an 'English legislation' / it is too difficult to separate out English issues from issues that affect other parts of the UK.

Brown believes that EVoEL would damage Parliament because it would create two types of MP by ending the traditional reciprocity whereby all members can vote on all matters.

Brown believes that EVoEL would weaken our sense of Britishness / our sense of British national identity.

Brown believes that EVoEL is a stepping stone to an English parliament.

Brown believes that EVoEL would be the death knell to his favoured solution to the West Lothian Question, English regions.

Brown believes that EVoEL may result in a situation whereby a UK Government may not be able to command a majority for its English business.

Brown believes that EVoEL would make it more difficult for non-English constituency MPs to make it into Cabinet because it would be illogical for them to minister English portfolios.

Brown is anti-English.

Other (please leave a comment).

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Wales United: Partnership for Progress by Peter Hain and Rhodri Morgan (September 2007)

Devolution in Wales has been an unquestionable success. Whatever the fears that voters had in Wales at the time of the referendum ten years ago, our economy has been transformed, with employment at record levels. Education standards have risen while crime levels have fallen, Wales is a more self-confident and outward looking nation, and power rests more firmly in the hands of the people.

We have proved our critics wrong. Devolution opponents in the 1997 referendum cried that devolution would lead to the break-up of Britain, but instead the settlement has modernised the constitution to make it fit for the 21st century. The over-centralised nature of government in the 1980s and 1990s has been replaced by a system that reflects the diverse nature of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom, with models of devolution that represent the specific needs and aspirations of the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish people.

Ten years on since the referendum in Wales, we can rightly celebrate both the successes of devolution and the economic, social, cultural and political ties that bind together the countries of the UK – which are stronger than ever before. But we also need to champion, defend and reassert the principle on which Labour’s vision for devolution rests: that, while respecting the different nations and identities within the United Kingdom, we must preserve the advantages enjoyed from being united. Labour supports devolution within the Union, cherishing and strengthening both the diversity found within the nations and regions of the UK and our shared values and interests.

This message is now more pertinent than ever. The Tories’ renewed commitment to ‘English votes for English laws’ threatens the unity and equality of the House of Commons – and therefore of the United Kingdom itself – while Plaid Cymru’s new role in the Welsh Assembly Government has not at all dented their separatist aspirations.

Labour is unashamedly a party both of devolution and of partnership. The path we offer is one which builds on the early success of devolution and aims to go on creating a new Welsh self-confidence and modern identity by deepening the devolution settlements. We have delivered devolution and devolution has delivered for Wales. The Tories’ plans would serve as direct encouragement for those who want to see the United Kingdom broken up into its separate parts. That is why they must be rejected emphatically.

We are crystal clear that devolution within the Union is the only serious answer to effective and successful self-governance for Wales. We now need actively to communicate the reciprocal, two-way nature of Wales’ role in the Union – how we benefit and how we contribute. That Welsh identity is flourishing as never before in a United Kingdom based on shared values of equal opportunities, toleration and social justice. That the historic bonds between the countries of the UK are deepening to an extent that makes separation irrelevant to the daily lives of thousands of Welsh residents.

This argument has been made powerfully for Scotland by Gordon Brown and Douglas Alexander and we believe that the same principles apply to Wales.

The devolution settlements are among our Labour Government’s proudest achievements, and go to the heart of what Labour should always aim to achieve: putting power back into the hands of those it serves. By devolving power we shape democratic institutions around the values of the electorate, and by giving people a greater say over the decisions that affect their lives we strengthen representative democracy.

And for Welsh Labour the devolution settlement carries forward a tradition begun by those that created our party.

Keir Hardie, a founder of our party a hundred years ago, our first Welsh Labour MP, our first leader, and a passionate supporter of devolution – or “home rule all round” to use the language of the era – was a Scot who first represented the East London seat of West Ham South before becoming MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare in Wales at the time the Labour Party was founded. He embodied the Welsh labour movement’s British dimension from its earliest days, and the values Keir Hardie and his fellow Labour pioneers held dear remain so for Welsh Labour today.

Half a century after Keir Hardie’s death, it was Labour that first created the Cabinet post of Secretary of State for Wales in 1964 and established the Welsh Office as a separate Department of State. It was Labour that was elected in 1997 on a manifesto commitment to give the people of Wales an opportunity to vote for a new democratic Assembly. It was Labour that led the Yes campaign to victory in the 1997 referendum. It was Labour that legislated for a Welsh Assembly to be established in 1999. And it was Labour that steered the 2006 Government of Wales Act onto the statute book, giving the Assembly enhanced legislative powers and settling the constitutional argument in Wales for a generation or more by putting into place a process for attaining primary powers.

And so, as Britain’s leading pro-devolution and pro-Union Party, it can only be Labour who makes the case that, alongside a national minimum wage, record levels of employment and record economic growth and prosperity, the devolution settlements must be considered our finest achievements.

Partnership for Prosperity
As citizens of the United Kingdom we enjoy great prosperity thanks to the historic economic partnerships between the UK’s constituent nations; partnerships which helped to turn us into a world power. The economic integration of the United Kingdom has been and will continue to be central to the economic growth of both the individual nations and the UK as a whole.

The contribution of Wales to the industrial revolution, for example, was enormous. Two hundred and more years ago, it was Merthyr Tydfil where the most productive ironworks in the world were found, and the where the world’s first railway steam locomotive was developed. A century ago, Cardiff was the world’s largest coal-exporting port, handling the production from the massive South Wales coalfields, and the city where the world price of coal was set.

Today, Wales’ economy is making great strides and recent economic growth and development has been dramatic. With 72.3 per cent of the population employed, there are approximately 146,000 more jobs in Wales now in 2007 than there were in 1999 - a faster growth-rate than the UK average and above any one of the nine regions of England. Coming from a period during the 1980s when the aftermath of the pit and steel closures left the Welsh economy reeling and many believed that neither Wales nor Britain would ever see anything approaching full employment again, the last decade has seen a remarkably well-sustained turnaround.

There remains a long way to go to put right the social damage inflicted by the mass unemployment era of the 1980s – numbers of incapacity benefit claimant households are disproportionately high in Wales, for example – but progress has been admirable. Labour’s unsurpassed record of macroeconomic stability, with the longest run of continuous noninflationary economic growth since records began, record inward investment, low interest rates and low inflation, has resulted in Gross Domestic Product increasing to £41 billion in 2005 – compared to £28 billion in the last year of Tory government – while the proportion of Welsh families in ‘workless households’ has fallen to a record low.

Including the block grant from UK Treasury Welsh public spending amounts to almost £1,000 per head (or 14 per cent) higher than in England, which reflects our historically-high levels of ill-health and economic deprivation, in part a function of our industrial legacy. With our Labour Government, the budget of the National Assembly has doubled over the past eight years, from £7 billion to £14 billion. And as a result of the decisions made by the Welsh Labour-led Assembly Government, we now have 500 extra doctors, 8,000 extra nurses, 1,700 extra teachers and 5,700 new teaching assistants in Wales, as well as record investment in school buildings and new hospitals to raise the standards of public service delivery across Wales.

The close economic relationship between Wales and Britain is due to our Governments’ shared social and economic objectives: to reactivate the labour market, reduce social and economic deprivation, combat social exclusion, strengthen social cohesion and to reduce poverty, in particular child poverty. Partnership between the UK Government and the Assembly Government is essential to delivering the policy answers to meet these objectives. Wales benefits from playing a part in UK Government programmes to combat unemployment, child poverty and pensioner poverty - the New Deal, child tax credits and the statutory national minimum wage have had a huge impact on Wales and have raised the standard of living for thousands of low-paid Welsh workers and residents.

The New Deal has helped over 46,000 unemployed young people in Wales back to work, as well as thousands of older long-term unemployed people and lone parents. The programme was financed by a British-wide levy on the windfall profits of the privatised British utilities, and is continuing to develop through a combination of British-wide incentives and opportunities linked to Wales-specific and local initiatives. This reciprocal relationship is at the heart of our Union’s strength.

A further illustration of the advantages for Wales of inter-linking Labour governments in both Westminster and Cardiff can be seen in the UK Miners’ Compensation Scheme for emphysema and Vibration White Finger, which has paid out well over £600 million in compensation to ex-miners or their dependants in Wales. Another would be the pension credit; Wales has a higher than average number of pensioner households and the pension credit benefits over 160,000.

Wales plays its full part in UK-wide, British policies, because co-ordinated action between the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly Government is the only way of meeting some of our more ambitious targets. We have set, for example, the goal to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020. Already, 50,000 children in Wales have been helped out of poverty, and it is only through schemes led by administrations both in Wales and at Westminster – whether free school breakfasts, or increases in child benefit – that we will be able to build on this.

In many instances Wales is better placed to meet its social and economic demands and objectives acting within the collective Union. To take a recent example, the extra one-penny increase in National Insurance introduced by Gordon Brown in 2003 to provide further funds for the NHS has been delivering hundreds of millions of pounds of extra public investment for Wales each year. Through National Insurance we each contribute to a system of social protection against sickness, incapacity and bereavement for any insured family or citizen in every part of the UK. This is only made possible by sharing risks across a UK population of 60 million and is a far more effective way of combating poverty and securing social justice than sharing risks among just three million people in Wales. It is perhaps no coincidence that it was a Welshman, Jim Griffiths, who laid the foundations for our modern system with the National Insurance Act of 1948. Drawing on his experiences of the deprivation suffered by South Wales miners and their families in the 1930s, he noted that “a unified and comprehensive scheme covering the whole nation” would be most effective at tackling the poverty he had witnessed. The same remains true today.

Such a unified approach was apparent in the effective negotiations by the UK Labour Government in Europe that brought Objective One funding for the two-thirds of Wales that lies in West Wales and the Valleys. This has been and continues to be of huge significance in helping the large swathes of Wales for so long behind in economic prosperity to catch up with the more prosperous areas of East Wales, the UK and the European average. Funding in the 2000-2007 period was £1.3 billion, with total project value well over £3 billion, boosting investment and job creation.

This hugely beneficial deal for West Wales and the Valleys was first made at the EU Summit meeting in early 2000 and then repeated in December 2005. Had the UK failed to find an agreement here the West Wales and the Valleys region would have missed out drastically. There may be no more crucial an illustration of how an effective partnership between the Labour Government in Westminster and the Labour administration in Wales can and will deliver for Wales and the less well-off two-thirds of Wales in particular.

Economic development in Wales will further progress by Labour continuing to implement a dispersal policy for civil service jobs out of London and the South East of England to Wales, with the assistance of the Assembly Government in co-ordinating the process.

Following the precedents set by the Labour Government in the 1964-1970 era, when Jim Callaghan determined to relocate the Royal Mint to Llantrisant, and Barbara Castle set up the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea, the relocation of the headquarters of the Office of National Statistics from Central London to Newport, the Shared Service Centres of the Department for Transport in Swansea and of the Prison Service to Newport have brought thousands more jobs to Wales. The Lyons Review will lead to further public sector jobs being relocated in Wales as a direct consequence of Government policy to spread such employment from the South East of England across the United Kingdom.

The Government’s recent announcement of its largest ever investment in Wales, the £16 billion Defence Training Academy at St Athan, is perhaps the best example of this. This is a 25-year contract with the Metrix consortium and when completed late in the next decade will bring 5,000 jobs to South Wales, with great benefits to the local and regional economy. The Westminster Government and the Assembly Government are working jointly to make this project succeed; the Ministry of Defence is the customer who is in the process of awarding the contract to the Metrix consortium and the Assembly Government is the landowner and the key partner in the scheme.

Projects based on UK partnership of this nature and scale are central to Wales’ economic development and highlight how Wales’ economy is playing an increasingly important role in that of the UK as a whole. Airbus’s plant at Broughton in Flintshire, for example, is at one and the same time Wales’ and the UK’s largest factory. The plant draws its huge workforce from a staggeringly wide catchment area from Colwyn Bay to Manchester - of the 6,000 employees in Broughton, 62% live in Wales and 38% in England. It is the jewel in the crown of the Flintshire economy, the Welsh economy, is highly important to the UK as a technological base, and is critical to the European economy, reinforcing the economic reality that the Welsh economy is part of a wider British and international economy.

Wales’ economy is increasingly global by nature - in 2006-07 Wales attracted projects from overseas that will create nearly 3,400 jobs, although it remains firmly inter-linked with the UK – over 3,100 jobs will be created in the same period by investment projects from within the UK. Wales’ largest trading partner has long been England, and we should all be clear that Wales’ economic future lies within the UK. Wales now hosts world-class high technology business operations like GE Healthcare, General Dynamics, Logica CMG and EADS, developing intellectual property in Wales to make Wales fully engaged in the knowledge economy. The foundation of this success is the stable macro-economic climate resulting from decisions made by the UK Government since 1997. Independence to the Bank of England and maintaining fiscal discipline have given rise to 10 years of continued economic growth, providing the right climate for sustained investment in technology and machinery as well as in skills and people.

If Wales is to have a truly international role, competing with the likes of China and India in a globalised economy, we must do so together, through partnership between the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly Government, as we have been doing successfully up to now. As demonstrated, Wales derives significant advantages from being part of a Member State which plays a full and positive role in the European Union and international economic community. Wales was in at the beginning of globalisation and as this process deepens and intensifies Wales should have full confidence in its ability to compete in the globalised 21st century economy.

A recent survey found that Swansea University has attracted more public and private sector funding for collaborative research with industry than any other university in the UK, forging links with companies such as IBM and Motorola. It is as a member of a collective union of nations that Wales is progressing fast and is best placed to gain the world class investment so vital for future prosperity and success, and so necessary to address the challenges of the 21st century. Through this partnership Wales is progressively developing expertise in research and development, and in high-tech manufacturing such as biotechnology and aerospace, contributing increasingly to the overall success of the UK economy.

The Welsh higher education sector will have a vital role to play in developing our knowledge economy in this new global environment. Recent figures show that in 2005-06 nearly 29,000 students came from other parts of the UK to study in Wales, and that nearly 21,000 Welsh students sought university education in other parts of the UK in the same period. Such crossborder exchange of information, skills and experience irrevocably deepens cultural, economic and social ties throughout the UK. Current and future generations will live in greater prosperity thanks to Wales’ role in the UK, and will have their formative years shaped by the opportunities provided by the Union, rendering separatists’ arguments increasingly eccentric and disconnected from the realities of people’s daily lives and experiences.

Welshness and Britishness – A Sharing of Values
Partnership within the United Kingdom is far more than an economic arrangement; it rests on the shared values of social justice and equality.

The sharing of these values throughout the UK means that today personal and family ties are stronger than ever before. In the decade to 2003, for example, 85 per cent of people migrating into Wales were from the rest of the UK, and over the same period 87 per cent of those migrating out of Wales went to another part of the UK. Around 600,000 people born in England are now living in Wales – more than one in five of the entire Welsh population – and there are almost the same number of people born in Wales living in England.

Wales’ history of migration, coupled with our strong trade union tradition, demonstrate the roots of the common identity and solidarity which run through the United Kingdom. Welsh trade unionists joined their fellow union members in England and Scotland to fight for rights at the workplace, realising workers needed decent pay and conditions whichever side of Offa’s Dyke they resided. Through cross border solidarity and, over the past ten years, partnership with our UK Labour Government, Welsh workers have secured major improvements in employment rights; entitlements which apply right across Britain and are therefore more entrenched as a result.

Key to modern Welsh political identity is that the indissolubility of these links within the labour movement, in business and in the labour market, lies comfortably alongside a deepening recognition of the value of a Welsh political institution, the Assembly, elected by and democratically accountable to the people of Wales.

Today, a common British identity is very much a reality, and is expressed by institutions such as the NHS, and the BBC. These show us what we have achieved together, how deeply Britishness is ingrained in our shared values, and how Wales has helped define a modern British identity.

The NHS embodies the essential values of solidarity, care and community, expressing a progressive sense of Britishness probably better than any other institution. The NHS came out of Wales, defined by Welsh experience of ill health for the many under private care. Its architect, a Welshman Nye Bevan, as a UK Cabinet Minister drew on his experiences growing up in Tredegar to establish arguably Britain’s most progressive institution; one which remains a model for the world.

The BBC embodies the values of inclusion and fairness, with Welsh produced success stories like the BBC’s Doctor Who and Torchwood showing not just what Wales is contributing to Britain but how Britishness contributes to Welsh success and helps elevate that success globally. This would not have happened without a deliberate decision of the BBC to outsource these programme productions to Wales, with Welsh multimedia talent benefiting UK television, and the BBC’s UK and global reach benefiting Welsh talent. Again this highlights the reciprocal benefits to both Wales and the UK that result from the shared values that lie at the heart of Britishness and Welshness.

The BBC also provides output for S4C, the Welsh-language public broadcaster. Both the Welsh language and the Welsh economy have benefited from the work of S4C, which is supported through an annual grant from the UK Government. S4C broadcasts a majority of Welsh language programmes, but also Channel 4 content which is shown across the UK.

The Wales of today is a Wales which, far from shrinking into isolation, is stronger because it is partly British, European and internationalist too. For example, whilst people in Wales are passionate about our rugby and football teams, they have found no contradiction in travelling the world to support the British and Irish Lions to cheer all their players, not just Welsh internationals like Scott Gibbs, Martyn Williams and Gareth Thomas. They have stood in the heat of the Australian summer or the damp of an English summer, with Welsh flags and cheered the “England” cricket team, not just Simon Jones. They urged on every member of the European Ryder Cup golf team, captained by Welshman Ian Woosnam, to their magnificent victory over the United States in 2006. And a recent survey has shown that support for the 2012 London Olympics is higher in Wales than in any other part of Britain.

The cultural boundaries between England and Wales have long been porous. People watch the same television programmes, read the same books, watch the same films, read the same national newspapers, all the time remaining loyal to the cultures of their home nations and towns. There is in many ways a strengthening common culture in which British and Welsh identities are shared and cross over on a daily basis.

The vast majority of people in Wales feel part of their local community, and they feel Welsh, British and increasingly European too. Loyalty to one should not mean denial of the other.

Comparing Scotland’s relationship to the rest of the UK ‘south of the border’ and Wales’ relationship with the rest of the UK is instructive, partially because the equivalent phrase of ‘east of the border’ is virtually unknown in Wales. That is not to say that there is no such thing as clear Welsh identity – there obviously is. It is just different. Modern Wales combines a deep respect for its ancient language, literature, eisteddfodic traditions and heritage, with strong pride in its early industrialisation and absorption of globalised trade and cultures.

What makes the Welsh national identity special is its diversity. For example, the degree of integration of the eastern half of Wales with adjoining regions of England is very high indeed, especially North East Wales with North West England, where the Airbus plant is a notable example of practical day-to-day integration of the labour market. Conversely it is arguable that, linguistically and culturally at the very least, the western half of Wales is more distinct from the homogeneity of Britishness than most other parts of the UK. The Welsh identity spans both of those widely differing degrees of integration, and this divide leads to distinct political identities between the east-facing and the west-facing halves of Wales, as was very evident during the devolution referendum 10 years ago.

But when Wales enjoys success – for example beating another nation at rugby or football – we all share in the sense of exhilaration. There is nothing wrong in celebrating national achievement, a common national culture and a sense of national pride and identity. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in identifying with your common culture of nationhood. We should all be proud to be Welsh - and proud to be Welsh patriots. Our Welshness is self confident and secure.

Patriotism is a noble value. But true patriots are also internationalists because they respect others’ patriotism too. And whereas patriotism cannot be confused with jingoism and national chauvinism, separatism can. Whilst we welcome and encourage the increasing sense of Welsh identity in the post-devolution climate, our new sense of Welsh citizenship is not based upon a sense of inferiority or superiority but upon the inclusive, egalitarian principles that define twenty-first century multiracial, multi-cultural Britain.

These principles that define Britishness have always been a hallmark of Welsh society. Wales has one of the UK’s oldest multi-ethnic communities in Cardiff, where Somali, Yemeni, Chinese and Indian seamen were drawn from the mid 19th century onwards to work in the thriving docks or as merchant seamen.

So let us celebrate our cultural differences and the fact that modern Wales is made up of so many different cultural strands that together richly enhance the life of the community. But let us never fall into the trap of claiming superiority over others, based on where you live or where you are born, what language you speak, what if any faith you hold, what your skin colour or sexuality is, or whether you have a disability. Socialists have a progressive vision based on our common humanity as citizens of the world which defines us; separatists a regressive and reactionary vision of nationality.

The essence of a progressive Union is a democratic, devolved framework in which we can express our diversity, take decisions for ourselves, and at the same time work together for the common good, recognising we are stronger together within the UK than isolated and alone.

A Political Union
Labour delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales in settlements designed to reflect the individual and specific circumstances of each country, implemented in 1999 after successful 1997 referenda. As a result of the devolved administrations’ increased political freedom to innovate we have since seen political cultures and identities flourish and in turn renew political integration across the UK, which had been severely jeopardised by the centralised English dominance of Tory government in the 1980s and 1990s. The truth is that our political union is stronger than ever before, and today no-one – not even erstwhile Tory opponents of devolution – credibly suggests that we should go back on these historic settlements.

The devolved administrations’ freedom over policy has seen the emergence of distinct cross-border policy differences coupled with more active UK-wide exchanges of ideas. Policy ideas that arise in constituent UK nations are now often borrowed and developed elsewhere - if Bill Clinton’s America had ‘fifty living laboratories’ the UK, perhaps, now has four. This process enables different administrations to learn from each others’ experiences to the ultimate benefit of individual UK countries, at the same time as strengthening the sense of political partnership across the UK. The Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government pioneered, for example, the creation of a Children’s Commissioner and free bus travel for the over 60s which were soon copied in England, whilst Wales has learnt from experience in England of how to reduce waiting-times for hospital treatment. This flow of political innovation across the UK has also led to new channels of political interaction and dialogue opening up, like the regular Finance Ministers Quadrilateral Meetings, and we must continue to strengthen the links between MPs, AMs, MSPs and MEPs.

Wales’ diverse, modern culture impels us to look outward and play our part on the international stage. Wales has a strong internationalist tradition, influenced by the outlook of the labour and trade union movement. In the 1930s, poor mining communities across Wales raised huge sums of money to support the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War, and volunteers from the Welsh Labour movement fought with distinction against Franco’s fascism. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Welsh activists were prominent in the fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The best way to further our desire to see justice and human rights upheld across the globe is as a partner to the UK on the international stage. It is as the UK Labour Government that we have more than doubled Britain’s overseas aid and led the international drive for debt relief and trade justice.

Today the UK sits on the UN Security Council, the top tables of the European Union, Nato, the World Bank and the Commonwealth. Wales alone would be without such influence. This point was aptly illustrated recently when the Foreign Office Minister and MP for Pontypridd, Kim Howells, chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the Middle East peace process. He was supported by Sir Emyr Jones Parry, then the UK’s Ambassador to the UN. Both men were brought up in the same South Wales valley, both are fiercely Welsh yet equally internationalist.

Devolution within the Union has allowed Welsh Assembly Members to utilise the levers in place to exercise their political will and design Welsh specific policy, alongside Welsh MPs shaping policy around Welsh interests in Westminster. It is critical that hand-in-hand with increasing the legislative scope and freedom of the National Assembly of Wales we weaken in no way at all the key linkages between Wales and the UK Government at Westminster.

Wales’ representation in Cabinet by the Secretary of State for Wales ensures that Welsh interests are fully taken into account in Government. 40 Welsh MPs give Wales a strong voice in Parliament. Responsibility for Home Affairs and the Justice system resides with Parliament and is not devolved in Wales unlike the Scottish model. There is no case at all for reducing the total number of Welsh MPs.

Strong representation for Wales at Westminster is vital to safeguarding and promoting the interests of the people of Wales, in particular in relation to the legislative programme and the Welsh budget. Calls to reduce Welsh representation in Parliament would jeopardise Welsh influence over key decisions over finance, defence, energy, foreign policy, pensions and welfare so vital to Welsh citizens.

Welsh political influence and representation has come under assault from another and constitutionally even more dangerous direction, with David Cameron the latest Tory leader to advocate dividing up MPs’ voting rights according to the territorial impact of legislation. Essentially Cameron wants to place a limit on Welsh and Scottish MPs’ voting rights with his badly judged and opportunistic proposal to introduce so-called “English votes for English laws”. His blatant opportunism is underlined by his refusal to place Northern Ireland MPs under the same strictures, possibly because the majority of them are unionists and have historically sided with the Tories. It is up to us to take this argument head-on. ‘English votes’ is a deceptively seductive idea for many, and in a recent poll for Newsnight 61 per cent of English voters questioned said they were in favour of establishing an English Parliament’. In a campaign initiated and led by Jack Straw, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, our Government plans to expose the myths surrounding this proposal and underline its potentially disastrous impact on our Union.

The Tories’ idea is neither new nor innovative, and whenever explored in depth has without exception been declared complex to the point of being completely impractical. It was first introduced in the Government of Ireland Bill in 1893, and it was Gladstone who remarked that devising an ‘in and out’ solution for MPs “passes the wit of man”. The 1973 Royal Commission on the Constitution declared the idea “unworkable”, but, despite this, a commitment to ‘English votes’ formed part of William Hague’s 2001 manifesto, which remained official party policy under Michael Howard, and is now being pursued by David Cameron.

This may be more to do with Tory marginalisation in Scotland and Wales than any high-minded sense of English parliamentary nicety, but it has very serious implications for the future constitutional stability of the Union.

Because we stand as both a party and a government for the Union, Labour must remain unreservedly committed to a United Kingdom Parliament: the UK is a single state and its Parliament must remain sovereign on all matters, representative of the nation as a whole.

It can only be so if each MP is equal, whether from Wales, Scotland or England. If at any point Welsh or Scottish MPs became second class within Parliament, Wales and Scotland would become second class nations within the Union; a virtual incitement to separatism.

There is a clear assumption by Conservatives that legislation can be simply carved up into purely English, Welsh or Scottish categories. In an interview for the Western Mail in July 2007 David Cameron said: “I don’t think it is complicated... it’s relatively straightforward to look at a piece of legislation and ask if it only affects English constituencies, or which bits of it only affect English constituencies.”

This highlights once again David Cameron’s reliance on unplanned statements of intent and the disregard for detail that questions his fitness for government. Proper examination of the practicalities of allocating voting rights on specific areas within a Bill to the MPs whose constituencies are affected reveals hugely problematic and complex technical issues and significant unanswered questions.

The Education and Inspections Act 2006, for example, shows how flawed Cameron’s judgement is, and his casual disregard for the disruptive damage to the parliamentary process.

The Act contains 116 Sections that are England-only, 57 that apply to England and Wales, 6 that are Wales-only, and 10 that are UK-wide. How, then, would the Public Bill Committee process work, when specific clauses of a Bill are considered in detail? On average 18 members sit on a Bill Committee, their numbers broadly reflecting the party composition of the House. How would the Cameron proposal reflect the territorial impact of this Bill? Would there be separate Committees for the separate Sections of the Bill – in this case four separate Committees to look at different Sections?

In the case of England-only clauses, would the Committee reflect the party balance amongst England MPs only? And would Report stage – where the House considers fresh amendments – be confined to only those MPs whose constituencies were affected by the Section under discussion at any one time?

To carve up the Committee process in this way would be hideously complicated to the point of generating parliamentary gridlock. Although there may be practical ways to overcome this, such as changing drafting practice to more strictly define territorial coverage, this would likely result in more bills, more time and resources, more votes in an already packed parliamentary schedule and less time for proper legislative scrutiny on the floor of the House.

Dividing legislation in this way is virtually impossible to do in the case of the Welsh devolution settlement. The Government of Wales Act 2006 retained powers to pass primary legislation for Wales in both devolved and reserved areas at Westminster, and in general England and Wales have a common statute book which means that often legislation designed to apply exclusively to Wales commonly also extends to England. The result of this intricate cross-over is that you often have elements within a single Section of a bill which relate to one country but not another. In this case, who would be eligible to debate the subsections? Do you create separate Committees to debate subsections of a bill, of which there can be hundreds?

Shaping the process of parliamentary debate and scrutiny according to the territorial extent of legislation results in what has been described as “legislative hokey-cokey”. We prefer John Major’s assessment of it as causing “constitutional chaos”.

But this just scratches the surface of the troublesome issues posed. For example, there are numerous cases where Welsh MPs representing constituencies close to the border will have constituents using public services in England. NHS foundation trusts based in England, for example, already provide health care to Welsh citizens living in border areas. Would the Welsh MPs whose constituents were users of this service be able to participate in deciding over this policy area? Could Welsh MPs whose constituents are affected continue to table Early Day Motions or ask Questions; the Cameron logic suggests not, in which case those constituents would be disenfranchised. What about the position in reverse where Welsh provided public services are used by English residents?

The duty that would be placed on the Speaker to identify whether or not a Bill can be considered national, or who would appropriately vote on it and who not, would inevitably weaken the independence of the role and risk the politicisation of the Office.

Furthermore, if the principle underpinning ‘English votes’ is that only the MPs representative of constituencies directly affected by proposed legislation should be entitled to vote, would we suggest that in future only London MPs should participate in votes such as that on the Greater London Authority Act 1999? Surely MPs from the rest of the UK have a right to determine what powers are ceded to London? And at what point does all this stop?

Presumably in a completely balkanised Parliament. Advocates of ‘English votes’ have not thought through the detail or consequences of their dogma.

They have also overlooked the system of funding for the devolved administrations, which again highlights fundamental flaws in their arguments.

Due to the Barnett formula, which allocates devolved administrations a proportion of planned UK Government spending according to population size, any legislation that impacts on the expenditure of UK Government Departments in England proportionately impacts also on expenditure available to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish administrations. In essence this means that virtually all legislation passed in Parliament must be considered UK wide. Even if a policy applies, for example, only to schools or hospitals based in England – seemingly making it a piece of ‘England-only’ legislation – there will be a cross-border impacts on funding and taxation.

Good examples are the bills on foundation hospitals in 2002-03 and higher education in 2003-04, both of which have been used by the Tories as examples of English and Welsh-only legislation that Scottish MPs should be excluded from voting upon. Both, however, had funding implications for Scotland, making them UK-wide, and it was right, therefore, that they were treated as such, with all MPs in the national Parliament in Westminster given the opportunity to vote.

‘English votes for English laws’ would fundamentally reform how our parliamentary democracy functions and would have potentially fatal implications for the Union of the United Kingdom. English MPs would be elevated in status and power compared with their Scots or Welsh counterparts. To introduce a system that gave Members varying functions and limitations would be to fundamentally undermine the principle of equality that should run through Parliament.

The result would be Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislatures, an English Parliament, and essentially an overarching federal parliament in charge of national issues such as defence and the economy. What would happen when a government had a parliamentary majority including Scotland and Wales but not in England? A UK Government which could not carry English legislation could not effectively govern since without a majority in the House Prime Ministers may well be forced into unstable, minority coalitions dependent on where their majority was held. This would profoundly alter the whole basis of our constitution, potentially sidelining Welsh and Scots from being able to influence the composition of the Government whilst at the same time leaving what would be tantamount to an ‘English Government’ without a majority across the whole House.

Representing about 85 per cent of the population the resultant ‘English Parliament’ would not just be numerically dominant as English MPs have obviously always been, but all-powerful. Our Parliament would no longer be truly ‘national’, but fractured and forced to follow where the newly created English Parliament led. Instead of a partnership between nations of the Union, there would be a two-tier parliamentary system which would irreparably damage the unity of the United Kingdom. Playing to the populist gallery of English nationalism opens up a constitutional Pandora’s Box.

What future would people from the Celtic nations see in the United Kingdom if they were barred from full citizenship? Denying the people of Wales full representation in Parliament would hardly be helpful or healthy for the future of the United Kingdom and would prove a constitutional disaster.

Revealingly, when the Ulster Unionist parties supported the Conservatives in 1964-1967 in opposing the nationalisation of the steel industry, although the measure would not affect Northern Ireland, there were no protests. The then Shadow Attorney General, Peter Thorneycroft, said of an ‘in and out’ solution: “every Member of the House of Commons is equal with every other Member of the House of Commons, and that all of us will speak on all subjects”. Conservative outrage at the current constitutional set-up can perhaps best be understood as a partisan response to their limited appeal to the electors of Scotland and Wales.

Our Union is strongest when based on devolution and decentralisation, with policies to bring decision-making close to people in England too, and not just Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Gordon Brown has launched a wide-ranging programme of constitutional reform to reinvigorate our representative democracy. This includes, critically, creating Ministers and Committees of MPs for the English regions, and initiating a national debate on developing a British statement of values in modernising our constitution.

Labour’s commitment to regional government across England must be part of our answer to the ‘West Lothian Question’. Most English regions are larger than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and indeed deserve more powers than the government offered in the North East referendum in 2004.

It was apparent then that the strongest negative was the cost of more politicians in a regional structure that had insufficient powers – nothing like London’s, still less Wales’ and certainly not Scotland’s. Without a structure of universal unitary local government, like in Wales, it was also hard to dispute the charge of adding an ‘extra layer of bureaucracy’. Labour needs to remain committed to English regional government with more resources and powers, though it would be sensible for this to evolve organically and not necessarily either uniformly or on the same boundaries.

Decision-making on issues such as skills, transport, planning and housing can be decentralised to regions and local authorities, which need to adopt flexible, innovative and incremental approaches to strengthening democratic accountability.

The devolution discussion currently revolves around power between the nations of the United Kingdom. By giving executive roles to Regional Ministers, increasing the responsibilities of Regional Development Agencies and by setting up fully functional Regional Select Committees to oversee their work, we can bring together local and national government to form a sub-national tier of devolved governance which will give English voters a stronger voice in Parliament. This is the alternative to the Tory proposal to balkanising Parliament, and the next natural reform in Labour’s programme of devolving power.

Conclusion
Devolution has delivered for Wales and United Kingdom. Our constitutional reforms have given newly formed national governments the freedom to tailor political solutions around the needs of their electorates while enhancing the bonds at the heart of UK partnership.

Economically Wales is flourishing, with the Assembly administration working closely with the UK Government to make the economic decisions to realise their social objectives and attracting record investment, ever-developing Wales’ role as a true partner in the international economic community. Socially, the values of solidarity and equality which underpin the pride felt in both our patriotism and our partnership are as strong as ever. And politically, the Assembly’s freedom over policy development contributes to a more diverse and innovative but equally intertwined United Kingdom.

There can be no compromise with those who propose to turn this process backwards or threaten the deepening of these ties. Our task now is to face up to the challenge of the 21st century, not to revisit the old arguments of past centuries. The challenges of climate change, of international terrorism, of poverty across Britain and abroad, require a full Welsh contribution working across different tiers of government. That will involve ever closer co-operation.

We need to concentrate on delivering the people’s priorities; increasing employment, improving our health and education services, and tackling crime.

Whatever other political parties may offer as solutions, we are clear that Wales gets the best of both worlds from devolution. Wales – as a partner in Britain – is economically fit, culturally vibrant and politically confident, increasingly global and must now be looking outwards towards the future.

The past ten years has been a period of unprecedented success, not least the huge constitutional changes in the United Kingdom, of which devolution for Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London are among the main advances.

The United Kingdom constitution is based on shared values of tolerance and democracy, community and solidarity, of equality and diversity. Within the framework of devolution and decentralisation, we can self-govern yet work together for a common purpose – a Wales United to ensure advancement for all based on those shared values.

Previous Conservative maifestos have included a pledge to resolve the West Lothian Question with a policy of 'English Votes on English Laws'.

Ken Clarke's Democracy Task Force recommendations (dubbed 'English Pauses for English Clauses') has diluted the original proposals, to suggest that the entire House of Commons should vote on the First and Third readings of an English bill. Malcolm Rifkind has further suggested a "double majority" requirement at Second Reading and Report Stage of English bills.

Prior to the release of the Democracy Task Force recommendations, the Conservatives fell silent on the West Lothian Question and their policy of English Votes on English Laws, and now after its release the silence is deafening. If the Glasgow Herald is to be believed this is because David Cameron "has ordered his troops to stop talking about it" (The Herald, 12 July 2006).

Will a majority Tory Government introduce a form of EVoELs, or will, as Prof Robert Hazell has suggested, they forget all about it as soon as they are in power?

Yes, they will introduce a form of EVoEL

No, they will not introduce EVoEL

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