English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Graham Stuart and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow the performance of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), which I think fully reflected the quality of the contribution of the Scottish nationalists to this debate.

English votes for English laws is a constitutional proposal of fundamental importance, necessary to deliver fairness for England and vital to safeguard the future of the United Kingdom. It is interesting to reflect that the hon. Gentleman said that he was not in the saving the Union business; he was in the ending the Union business. That might explain the impassioned way he put over so many of the arguments that he either had not researched or knew to be false. He made out that he would become a second-class MP and that his constituents would lose out, whereas it has been made clear that giving English and Welsh MPs the ability merely to consent to something will in no way diminish his right or that of other Scottish Members to vote and play their normal part at every stage other than in Committees where every last single provision of the Bill applies only to England and can pass the “has it been devolved” test. In an intervention on the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said how complicated and onerous a task that would be, but it is a fairly simple question: has it been devolved to Scotland? If so, the issue is clearly outwith Scotland. We would then have to check whether it had been devolved to Wales, which, again, would not be an onerous task. It is something that the Clerks and the Speaker, who will be taking this decision on advice, do as a matter of course for every amendment and proposal.

In truth, despite all the efforts of the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who is no longer in her place, despite the brilliant performance of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, and despite the complexity that the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) outlined, we are simply talking about consent: this is an injection into the system to allow English MPs to give their consent. That is it. It is no diminution of the hon. Gentleman’s ability to vote on Second or Third Reading, or at any other stage of a Bill. He would love it if there were proposals that he could use to make his constituents feel that the Union was no longer working, that the rug had been pulled and that the English, and the Tories in particular, were creating an unfair settlement, but the truth is the exact opposite, and he knows it.

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman did not bother to read the proposals or whether, when he did read them, he edited them to make them what he wanted them to be, but it was clear from his speech that he did not understand the processes we are talking about. Yet there he was ferociously condemning this appalling assault on our constitution. This is the mildest possible change to the procedures of the House simply to allow for consent. It is a tiny correction of the imbalance caused by the devolution introduced by the Labour party all those years ago. It in no way undermines or affects the interests of his constituents.

It is interesting to note, notwithstanding the ferocity and passion displayed by SNP Members here, on the instruction of Nicola Sturgeon from Edinburgh, that poll after poll shows that the Scottish people feel very differently from the hon. Gentleman. They recognise that strengthening the English voice is a simple matter of fairness.

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman answer this question? In what way does injecting consent—not initiative or, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, any kind of English Executive with 85% of Members—into the system undermine his constituents’ interest in this place?

[Stewart McDonald]

I do not think the Scottish people are that out of step with what we are saying. Not only did they give us 50% of the vote at the recent election, but an opinion poll out yesterday has us on 56% ahead of next year’s Scottish Parliament elections, giving us not 69 seats, but 71. The people of Scotland sent us here with a clear mandate. English Members vetoed all the amendments we tabled. You really ought to understand the issue you are dealing with and the potential—this is why Labour Members are correct—this has to make us much more excluded from the Union.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

To be helpful, I say to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart McDonald) that “you” is directed at the Chair. He wants to speak to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), not to me.