English Votes for English Laws

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con) [V]]

I am coming to you from glorious isolation, Madam Deputy Speaker. Tonight, time and again, we have heard the Scottish National party’s representatives conflate their party and its MPs with the nation of Scotland. I think it is quite clear that the SNP is not Scotland.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, if the West Lothian question has an answer, EVEL is not it. In my opinion, English votes for English laws is the most ill-conceived, wrong-headed and damaging measure ever passed by any Government in modern times—well, possibly it comes a close second to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. I am grateful for the opportunity to outline why.

Devolution is often described as something that is new—as something that we are grappling with that has created an imbalance in how the UK is governed that has to be addressed. We have heard that repeated often, including today, but it is nonsense. Devolution has existed in the modern United Kingdom for more years than it has not existed. During this time, non-white boxers were barred from competing for a British boxing title. It seems impossible to believe it today, and it means that so many talented boxers were denied the right to compete for British titles purely due to the colour of their skin. Thankfully, progress was made with the lifting of that ban, and great strides have also been taken in other aspects of diversity through the nurturing of female boxing talent. I am sure that hon. Members will recall, as I do, their great pride in the first woman to win an Olympic boxing medal being our own Nicola Adams, back in London in 2012. Northern Ireland had a devolved Parliament from 1922 to 1972 and in that time no steps were taken to deprive Northern Irish MPs of their right to vote on areas that were seen to be devolved, even when those MPs deprived Labour of working majorities. And why? In the words of the then Conservative shadow Home Secretary Peter Thorneycroft,

“every Member of the House of Commons is equal with every other Member of the House of Commons”.

Peter Thorneycroft and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House are right, but I have heard the heartfelt arguments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) that the actions today are appeasing the separatists. I understand exactly where he comes from—he is a proud and passionate English MP —but I fundamentally disagree with him. In this Parliament, our sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom in which we are all privileged to serve, we representatives, drawn from across the whole of our United Kingdom, are equal and should be entitled to vote on every piece of legislation and at every stage of the passage of that legislation placed in front of us. As a Scot and a Unionist, I found it frankly offensive to be informed that I could not vote at certain stages of Bills on education or health, for example. As a Unionist, I care just as much about the welfare, health and education of people in Aldershot as I do about the people in Aberdeen. I have heard the arguments that EVEL does not prevent any MP from voting on a Bill before this House but only gives English Members the ability to veto certain legislation. We have already heard this evening that that is not true and in fact causes even greater issues.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, there is no such thing as English-only laws thanks to Barnett consequentials. Almost every single measure debated and voted on has financial implications for areas that appear on the surface to be wholly devolved. Therefore, EVEL is bad law. It does not work and it causes more problems than it solves. Let us have more devolution in England. It exists already through our regions and localities, but let us not divide even further down national lines. We are a proudly Unionist party and by repealing EVEL tonight, we are demonstrating that to the whole United Kingdom.