English Votes for English Laws

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian C. Lucas]

No, I will finish this point.

The Labour Government provided that power because we thought it was right and proper to have balanced representation in Scotland and Wales on the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. We thought that that was fair. What does the Conservative party want to do? The measure is a partisan one because it increases the Conservative majority in Committee. Effectively, it gives English MPs, the majority of whom are Conservative, double votes. It makes no concession to the Labour party, the Opposition, or to smaller parties within England, which will not have any representation on the Legislative Grand Committee (England). It entrenches and strengthens the position of the Conservative party in England; it does not make any concessions to a broad-based Chamber such as those that were made to the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I applaud the hon. Gentleman for speaking up for the United Kingdom, which he has just mentioned. He is talking about fairness, so will he answer this question? My South Leicestershire constituents told me in the lead-up to the election that they have a problem with the current Labour form of the devolution settlement. What is his response to my constituents who are unhappy with the imbalance, but want to safeguard the United Kingdom, as he does, against the wishes of the Scottish National party?

[Ian C. Lucas]

My answer is: “Don’t support these proposals whatever you do.” I believe passionately in the United Kingdom, and I want to have a fair system that gives adequate representation to citizens in England, just as there is such representation in Scotland and Wales. In Scotland and Wales, we had referendums to establish the institutions, and it is entirely appropriate to have a far-reaching, straightforward discussion about how England is represented and how such difficult issues can be addressed.

[Alberto Costa]

The fact is that, at this election, the Conservative party put English votes for English laws in its manifesto, and my constituents voted for that, as did many of the constituents of Conservative Members. Given that we both value our United Kingdom, I again say to him that this measure at least safeguards the United Kingdom and establishes the fairness that we need against the threat posed by separatist Members of Parliament.

[Ian C. Lucas]

I do not believe that these measures will safeguard the United Kingdom, and I do not believe that they are the same proposals that the Conservative party placed before the electorate. That is why I oppose them so vehemently.

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[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, particularly to follow the maiden speech by the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas). In a debate that in many ways is about what it is to be part of the United Kingdom, it is fitting that the Member who represents the most southerly constituency in this House should be followed by the Member who represents the most northerly. The hon. Gentleman demonstrated a fine affection for his community, and I wish him well in his time here. I noted his description of himself as somebody who does “exactly what he is told”. I was Chief Whip for the Liberal Democrat party, which included his predecessor in the last Parliament, and nobody would ever have levelled that accusation at him. I hope that in time the hon. Gentleman will understand that sometimes the people who will tell him what to do will be those at home in St Ives, and on such occasions we must listen to those who are telling us what to do.

Let me start by accentuating a few positives. I join those who have commended the Leader of the House for turning today’s debate into a general debate. That is of enormous assistance to the House because it is already apparent from today’s proceedings and last week’s debate under Standing Order No. 24 that an enormous amount in these proposals still requires debate in the House.

I commend the shadow Leader of the House for seeking to proceed by building consensus. It seems to me that in neither of the debates so far have we heard anybody deny that there is a problem that requires a solution. In that context, it must surely be possible—if we are all acting in goodwill—to find a compromise and build a consensus that will allow us to go forward together. I am afraid, however, that we are not there yet, and the revised proposals from the Leader of the House bring us precious little closer to building that consensus than we were last week.

I commend the words of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) who spoke on behalf of the Scottish National party, and the House should listen in particular to two things that he said. First, he said that the Government are seeking to shoehorn an English Parliament into the United Kingdom House of Commons. That is a dangerous enterprise on which to embark, not least because it betrays a lot about the attitude of Government Members to this place. This cannot be regarded as a proxy English Parliament. If the people of England are to have a Parliament—I hope that they will have one, or some series of Parliaments or assemblies, or whatever—surely this should remain the United Kingdom Parliament and that principle should be inviolate.

The hon. Gentleman said that he was not in the business of saving the Union, and there will be little dissent about that. Let me tell the House—I hope it is accepted—that I am in the business of saving the Union, which is why I look on these proposals with genuine terror. These proposals and the language that they have already introduced to the debate are a genuine risk to the continuation of the United Kingdom. We have already heard in the debate today that it is “our issues and our votes” as opposed to “their issues and their votes”. That is the logical conclusion of a nationalist political analysis, but for a United Kingdom Parliament, it is a dangerous road down which to go.

[Alberto Costa]

Again, I make a similar point. My constituents in South Leicestershire repeatedly told me in the lead-up to the general election that they were unhappy with the status quo but that they did not want an English Parliament. They wanted simple fairness in the system. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least accept that these proposals go some way towards establishing fairness for the constituents of England?

[Mr Carmichael]

I will come to what the proposals do and what we can possibly do through the use of Standing Orders in a minute. As for this business that there is an unfairness but we only want to address it on our terms, the ship has sailed, I am afraid. We embarked on a process of devolution in 1999 that set up a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and, later, a Northern Ireland Assembly. More has been devolved to them and devolution has been good for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I want to see devolution for England, too, but it is about an awful lot more than simply what is on offer here.

The proposal is a curious beast that offers devolution within Parliament but not within the Executive. It does nothing to address the lack of proportionality in the representation of people in England and nothing about the virtual disfranchisement of 4 million people who voted for the UK Independence party, for whatever reason. It does nothing about the gross centralisation of power in England. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) should be talking to his constituents about all those things. If he does, in the same way as we did over a long time in Scotland, I think—

[Mr Carmichael]

I listened with courtesy to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and I ask that he does the same for me.

If the hon. Member for South Leicestershire does the same as we did in Scotland to build consensus, his people will realise in time that what is being offered here is pretty small beer and that they deserve something better.

[Alberto Costa]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. The truth is that he represents a constituency in Scotland, and I am also very familiar with the Scottish political environment, as he knows, but I represent a constituency in England and there is no appetite among my constituents for an English Parliament. I respect that his party has been a long-standing advocate of a federal United Kingdom, but these proposals merely go some way to meet the imbalance of Labour’s devolution and our devolved arrangements, which are clearly unbalanced and unfair. All that my constituents are seeking is a modicum of fairness, which is all that these policies establish.

[Mr Carmichael]

I do not doubt the good faith of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but essentially, if he stops and analyses it, he will realise that he is advancing an argument for English nationalism. The answer to Scottish nationalism is not English nationalism. In my view as a Liberal, it is federalism or Unionism, if he prefers to use different vocabulary. Ultimately, if he continues down this road, he risks putting a further stress on the Union. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said quite candidly, from one point of view he could welcome the proposals because they advance the case for separating Scotland from the rest of England.

The hon. Member for South Leicestershire must realise that if we are to maintain and preserve the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, proper constitutional reform across the whole of England is now absolutely necessary. As the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) said from the Opposition Front Bench, we need a constitutional convention to build consensus, so that people in England can decide what they want. I do not know whether that will be an English Parliament, a series of assemblies or whatever else, but that debate has to be had.

I wish there were an easy way to build consensus, but there is not and I say to the hon. Member for South Leicestershire that, because of the sentiments he is hearing on the doorstep, that must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. For him to pretend to his constituents, as he apparently does, that this complex problem has a simple solution does nobody any favours and ultimately puts the Union of the United Kingdom at risk. This House risks tying itself up in knots by using Standing Orders to achieve a complex and sophisticated piece of constitutional architecture. As has been said, a Joint Committee would be a sensible way to build consensus.

My biggest concern as a Scottish MP is the way in which the proposal would affect spending decisions. I am afraid that the Leader of the House came dangerously close to indulging in sophistry when he said that they would be dealt with purely through estimates votes and that legislation would have no affect on that. I am struck by two things. First, it is long overdue that this House took a much more forensic approach towards estimates, because I think we are the only Parliament in the world that allows estimates to go through on the nod. Departmental budgets are approved with little scrutiny by the House. Secondly, any legislation passed this year will inevitably impact on estimates next year and the year after. The proposition that it is somehow possible to divorce spending from legislation does not stand up to scrutiny.

What are the people of England being offered by Conservative Members? Essentially, they are being told that they will have a veto on legislation, but that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Members will also be able to engage a veto on money and Ways and Means resolutions. This is a constitutional muddle, and that gives more force to the idea that we should be proceeding with more caution.

I reiterate the point I made in the previous debate that, if these vetoes are going to be in play, the Government need to look again at the operation of the Sewel convention and legislative consent motions for the Scottish Parliament. If English Members are to have a veto on legislation, Scotland ought to have one as well. There is still time to make that change—the Scotland Bill is still going through this House—and I hope that, when she replies, the Deputy Leader of the House will confirm that serious consideration is being given to it.

I am mindful of your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to raise one final point: the position Mr Speaker that will be put in if we proceed with the proposal. My concern should be shared by everyone in the House. I do not envy Mr Speaker the position in which he will find himself. He will require the wisdom of Solomon if he is to make the necessary adjudications, and he will certainly need a lot of legal advice, which I suppose would be one of the upsides of the process.

It would be useful to know the view of the Clerks, Parliamentary Counsel and Speaker’s Counsel before we proceed. It seems to me that a whole body of legal advice will be required, not just for primary legislation, but for secondary legislation. The issue of most concern, however, is that when Mr Speaker makes an adjudication on a controversial case—perhaps one on which there is some doubt about the financial consequences—he will be forbidden from giving his reasons for doing so. We already know what will happen. On the day when he makes an adjudication, the aggrieved party, the one that is disappointed, is always going to be bouncing up. There will be points of order, applications for Adjournment debates and all the rest of it. The Speaker will be in a position where he or she has no option other than just to say, “That is my ruling and I am not going to give you any reason for it.”

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[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I am very pleased to be called in this important debate. May I too say how pleased I was to be present for the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas)? It was an excellent speech, which showed his passion for and commitment to his constituency. His constituents are very lucky to have him.

The 1880 edition of “Encyclopaedia Britannica” famously contained an entry reading, “For Wales, see England.” Looking at the title of this debate, I wonder who prepared it. It seems to me that it should read, “English and Welsh votes for English and Welsh laws.”

I would like to commend my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. He is entirely right to seek to address the West Lothian question. This is an issue that this House—in fact, the whole nation—has been aware of for many years. It was certainly an issue that was well known before devolution. Notwithstanding that, the then Labour Government decided to proceed to create devolution settlements for both Scotland and Wales without seeking to make arrangements that would accommodate the West Lothian question. So here we are, some 16 years later, trying to find a way of reverse-engineering the whole process.

This is clearly a problem, one that is now beginning to cause real resentment. Whatever one’s views about foxhunting, I have to tell the House that I have some Welsh upland farmers who are really bemused as to why the governing party of Scotland should suddenly show a previously unevinced interest in their pest control methods when the issue of hunting with dogs is a devolved issue in Scotland. These are issues that cause resentment.

[Alberto Costa]

My right hon. Friend should not be surprised at all. This is all part and parcel of the Scottish National party strategy, which is to foster grievance upon the nations of the United Kingdom. There will be more to come.

[Mr Jones]

That may be the case, but my constituents in upland north Wales are still bemused as to why it is happening. It needs to be addressed. I commend my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for trying to address an issue that has been put off for far too long.

I believe that the method of addressing the problem, through a change in Standing Orders, has been handled sensibly. My right hon. Friend has told us that it will be reviewed after 12 months. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) pointed out, a change in Standing Orders is a fragile and tentative means of addressing the issue. We are going through an extensive consultation at the moment, and again I commend my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for listening to the concerns expressed on both sides of the House. It is right to give the process the benefit of the doubt and to road-test it and see where we are in 12 months’ time.

That said, there are issues I want to address. The principal one concerns the test applied to determine whether the new procedures should apply to a particular legislative proposal. This is a matter of certification by the Speaker, who will be required to carry out a double test. He will be asked to consider whether the issue is devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales and to determine whether it relates exclusively to England or to England and Wales. I have sympathy with the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who pointed out that approximately one third of patients at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital in Shropshire came from Wales. This issue is repeated in various other areas. For example, economic development is devolved to Wales, but north-east Wales is very much part of the north-west economic area, so arguments will arise about whether, under the new proposals, north Wales MPs should be excluded from proposals relating to the economic development of the north-west.

The issue that causes most concern, however, is that of health, which is why the hon. Member for Wrexham lighted upon it. North Wales is almost entirely dependent on north-west England for specialist services, as is a good part of north Wales for general hospital services. For example, the constituency of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) is served by the Countess of Chester hospital, the local general hospital. I remember a few years ago an issue occurred in my own constituency. The Welsh Assembly Government decided that all elective neurosurgery should be dealt with on an “in-Wales basis”, as they called it, meaning that patients from Colwyn Bay would be required to go to Swansea or Cardiff for treatment, which was nonsense. At the time—and to this day, thank goodness—north Wales patients travelled to the Walton centre in Liverpool, an internationally renowned centre of excellence and the local neurosurgery hospital for north Wales, which has Welsh-speaking staff to accommodate Welsh patients. The Speaker, when deciding whether to issue a certification, could not possibly decide that a measure relating to health in north-west England related exclusively to England, because of the heavy dependence of the people of north Wales upon those services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

I am, which is why I think the Government should take more time over this. Historically, there is not a problem. Indeed, the Leader of the House told us today that there is not even a problem for the immediate future. The only Bill that he believes will be an English-only Bill is the buses Bill. Does he really believe that the constitutional and parliamentary Picts and Celts from north of the border led by Robertson the Bruce will somehow draw out their claymores and dirks and shred his legislation? Does he really believe that that is the threat he faces? There is no immediate threat, so why do we need this ill-thought out, ill-conceived and rushed piece of legislation—it is not even legislation—which will enable Members to conjure up grievances?

I cannot attribute a motive for this fancy footwork, and for these shortcuts. I cannot understand why the Government have rushed this through. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) talked about how concerned his constituents were, when he talked to them on their doorsteps, about English-only legislation and the way in which it might be interfered with. As there is no immediate threat, why can we not have proper discussion, proper consultation and a plan for the future that finds some consensus?

[Alberto Costa]

The talk we have heard from the Opposition is that our policy might be fanning the flames of English nationalism. Actually, it does the very opposite precisely because my constituents in South Leicestershire, and the constituents of hon. Friends, have been saying that they simply want fairness. They are not seeking an English Parliament. All they want is a simple resolution to a problem that the Labour party created in 1998, and that is what we are providing for the people of England.

[Sammy Wilson]

If that is the case, and if all that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want is a simple resolution of the issue, surely the best way to achieve that without unnecessarily fanning the flames of nationalism is to do exactly what the Opposition spokesperson said and take an approach that will lead us to consensus.