Standing Orders (Public Business)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Despite all the bluster we have heard about English votes for English laws being the No. 1 issue on the doorstep, this is a fudge of a solution to a problem that does not exist. [Interruption.] It is true and I will tell Government Members why. Since 2001, only 0.6% of votes have been affected by Scottish MPs. They can tell their constituents that there are only 59 Scottish MPs out of 650 MPs in this House, so clearly we cannot impose our will on the House. It is the other way about and we have had to put up with it for years. It has been estimated that under the last Government, there were only two England-only Bills that would have fallen under EVEL.

The issue cannot be that important because in the last couple of debates most Government Members did not even bother to turn out. Sadly, the same is true today on the Labour Benches. The No. 1 story that we have heard over the years has been about the introduction of student fees. If that was such an issue to all youse guys, you could have abolished student fees in the last Parliament. Instead, you voted to increase them. If the Government introduce a Bill to abolish student fees, believe me, we will back them.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

On the issue of what SNP Members will or will not back the Government on, the hon. Gentleman will be aware of their self-denying ordinance, as they call it, not to vote on England-only issues. The First Minister of Scotland restated that in 2008, using the example of foxhunting. Of course, that self-denying ordinance was broken in revenge, torpedoing all their arguments.

[Alan Brown]

It is good to see that the welfare of foxes is such a big issue that the Government want to stop SNP MPs voting on it. As a matter of fact, we did not vote on it—we just said that we might do and that was enough to have them running scared. The First Minister has said that we will vote for progressive policies in this House and that we will vote with other parties for those policies.

This is a mess of a proposal and I will outline why. It introduces further processes, delays and costs into the democratic process, when we are meant to be cutting costs. Earlier today, I mentioned that 44 new Lords have taken up their position in the other place since my election, and that is where we should be trying to cut costs.

This proposal does not take account of the Barnett consequentials. Despite what the Leader of the House said earlier today, he does not understand how policy links to finance. He says the two are different, but I can guarantee that if a policy decision is made in this House and the actual budget does not align with it, he will be back here trying to change the Standing Orders again, saying, “That’s not fair.”

As we have heard, using Standing Orders to make such a significant change is pretty undemocratic—this should be done through normal due process. We all know, as this has been said, that the approach being taken compromises the Speaker’s position. The Speaker will be asked to make decisions but has no obligation to explain them, and that lacks transparency. Despite Labour sending second-class MPs down here from Scotland for many years, this measure will make us second-class MPs and we do not want to be viewed as that.

This is supposed to be about addressing a democratic deficit, but the real democratic deficit is the fact that with only 15% of the vote in Scotland the Tories have consistently vetoed every proposed amendment to the Scotland Bill. That is the democratic deficit that we are living with, not to mention the fact that there is an unelected House of Lords that gets more and more bloated all the time. That is where we should start dealing with the democratic deficit, and we would be saving money and bringing transparency to the democratic process.