Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Patrick Grady
Mr Jenkin
It is a fact—I make no comment on it, as an impartial Chairman of my Committee—that referendums are constitutional matters and therefore are reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. I recognise that there is some demand for a new referendum in Scotland, but even the Good Friday agreement says that there should not be a referendum more than once every seven years. There needs to be a respectable interval between referendums, otherwise they just become meaningless. How many times in the European Union have we seen another referendum called when the first gave the wrong result? I do not put the Scottish National party in that category, but calling referendums too often is actually a contempt for democracy.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Was there any discussion in the Committee about the franchise for the referendum? If 16 and 17-year-olds and EU citizens had been allowed to vote, we might have had a very different result. They will be allowed to vote in the Scottish council elections in two weeks, but they will be denied a vote in the UK general election about four weeks after that. Would it not be appropriate to have consistency, and for the franchise to be as wide as possible?
Mr Jenkin
I ask the hon. Gentleman: why stop at 16? Why not 14 or 12? These are subjective judgments made by different bodies in different parts of the constitution. That franchise is a devolved matter; it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Personally, I favour maintaining the status quo in the UK.
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Patrick Grady(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Jenkin
I do not think that we are within reach of such a settlement. I think we are a very long way from such a settlement, such is the chaos inflicted by these piecemeal and bitty reforms. Many of them, such as the Scottish Parliament, we now accept as permanent parts of the constitution, but we are a long way from a common understanding of how everything should be knitted together again to preserve something like the United Kingdom. We are even a long way from agreeing, with an open mind, on the kind of relationship that the four parts of the United Kingdom should have with each other. We are just starting those conversations. We are talking in terms, and with openness, to people of whom we have been implacable opponents. That fresh approach will lead to renewed trust and understanding, on which we might eventually frame a new settlement of some kind, but I think we are a long way from that.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
In the SNP, we have never objected in principle to the concept of English votes for English laws, not least because it is a logical consequence of independence for Scotland. However, the Committee’s report confirms, as we have said all along, that the current Standing Order procedure is a guddle, a bùrach and, in short, a complete mess. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the system is further complicated by the complete lack of transparency in the estimates process, as confirmed today by the Leader of the House, which effectively means that Scottish MPs will have no real say on how Barnett consequentials play out in Scotland, and therefore the entire system of EVEL must be urgently reviewed?
Mr Jenkin
Our report does not use the kind of language that the hon. Gentleman adopted, and I think that we are in danger of getting trapped in conversations that will not get us anywhere. That is why we are trying to have a different sort of conversation with Members of the SNP, north of the border as well as down here. That is the future direction in which we would go. One problem that he and I will have to wrestle with is the nonsense that the spending of the Holyrood Parliament and the Scottish Executive is determined by what we decide for ourselves in England. The Barnett formula was designed for a different United Kingdom, and it is not fit for purpose for the United Kingdom that we have or for the hon. Gentleman who, if he gets the full fiscal autonomy that he wants, will be deeply out of pocket as we will not be paying anything.