English Votes for English Laws

Lord Cope of Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)]

My Lords, until this week, we had a statement of principle from the Scottish National Party that its Members would not vote on or be involved in purely English or English and Welsh matters. That was effectively, in practice, English votes for English laws. I suppose that it might, in time, have become an accepted constitutional convention, as these things sometimes do in Britain. However, the SNP has abandoned that principle, as we know, and that makes other action necessary.

Polls for the McKay commission and others showed overwhelming support for English votes for English laws in principle. Most recently, Populus polled 10,000 people over the age of 50 for Saga plc on Scotland’s position in the UK. Of those polled in England, 75% supported the principle that English-only laws should be decided by English MPs—the principle that the SNP has now ditched.

The West Lothian question has, as we have heard this afternoon, been avoided, evaded and kicked about for far too many years. Of course we need to debate it, as has been said by all who spoke this afternoon, and a Joint Committee is certainly a good way to do that. However, we need to move and be seen to be moving towards a decision. The English need it to happen.