English Votes on English Laws

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way twice more, then I will sit down.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that he is muddling up process and substance? Process is one thing, but the substance is that he wishes to strengthen the Union—something I really agree with him about—by creating a division within a Parliament that is meant to represent the Union. In that sense, the proposal is half-baked. It is neither fish nor fowl, and he should go back to the drawing board.

[Chris Grayling]

The Labour party has a decision to take over the next few days on whether it will back these proposals or oppose them. It is now as near an English party as anything else. If Labour Members are going to go back to their constituents, who are undoubtedly saying the same thing as my constituents and my colleagues’ constituents, and say, “When we had the chance to give you fairness in the constitutional arrangements, we said no,” then bring it on.

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[Ms Eagle]

I tried to ask the Leader of the House that question during his statement last week, but answer came there none. I agree with my hon. Friend’s interpretation.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Does my hon. Friend know whether the Leader of the House has consulted the Procedure Committee? My understanding is that the Conservative party manifesto proposal involved consulting that Committee before putting it to the House.

[Ms Eagle]

I have no knowledge of whether that is the case. However, I am sure we will hear from the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker). He can give us any answers, because he was there at the time.

Today’s debate is about process rather than content, so I will confine myself to observations of the process the Government have chosen to use. I note in passing that the Government have gone much further on English votes for English laws than the McKay commission suggested would be wise. They have not explained why they have chosen to do so, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) has just observed.

The McKay report contained serious warnings about the effect of creating an English veto, a double majority and two classes of MPs. The Government’s proposals ride roughshod over those warnings and instigate all three. They also extend the application of the rules to Finance Bills and create the extraordinary probability that a measure passed by a majority in both Houses can be vetoed by a minority. It is possible to concoct a procedural fix to introduce major constitutional change, as the Government have done, but my contention is that it is not wise to do so. In fact, it is a constitutional outrage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this debate, Mr Speaker. It is my first speech in the new Parliament and I rejoin the fray in another highly charged debate in this Chamber.

First, may I say that the Leader of the House has met me on a number of occasions in the past six weeks to keep me informed of the Government’s proposals? The problem we have, which afflicts the whole House, is that at this moment we have no Select Committees. Not a single Select Committee is meeting yet, because the relevant orders have not been laid.

The politics of what we are debating today and what we will debate next week are for the Government and this House to decide. I very much want to focus on a few areas that the Procedure Committee will want to cover later in this Parliament. As I said, the Committee is yet to meet. I hope we will meet before we rise for the summer recess, but that is not guaranteed. I will be sending a letter, as the elected Chairman of the Procedure Committee, to the Leader of the House later this week.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Is it therefore not distinctly odd that the Leader of the House wishes to take great pride in sticking to his manifesto commitment, when that commitment said he would consult the Procedure Committee before he brought the proposals to the House? He is trying to bring the proposals to the House before the Committee has met.

[Mr Walker]

The pursuit of perfection is always to be desired, but it is not often achieved. That is the best answer I can give to the hon. Lady.

If the House votes for these changes next Wednesday, the Committee will want to consider how future Bills are drafted and whether their scope might be narrowed to enhance their Englishness. Will there be a temptation to narrow a Bill so that England comes to the fore and other parts of the Union are excluded? In due course, we will want to take evidence from Clerks and parliamentary counsel. In the last Parliament, there were some hard-won successes to make Report and programming more effective.

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[Pete Wishart]

No, I will not.

We could do our own thing and decide what we want, English Members could decide what they want in their own Parliament, and Welsh Members could decide what they want. I see that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) agrees with all that I am saying. What is wrong with it? We could then come together in the House to decide on important matters such as foreign affairs, defence, international relationships, the monarchy and the currency. That would resolve all the outstanding issues, and would deal with some of the unhappiness on these Benches, on the Government Benches, and on the Benches to my right. Why can we not do it? I will tell the House why we cannot. It is because English Members do not want to pursue a logical solution to a question that is deeply hard to answer.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s argument about federalism. Germany is often cited as an example of a federal structure that works, but it did not work until Prussia was broken up. If one component of federalism is disproportionately larger than all the others, that imbalance cannot be overcome. I think that federalism in England may not be possible, given the current structure of the United Kingdom.

[Pete Wishart]

I say this to the hon. Lady: we will put up with it. We will deal with it. I know that it is difficult, but it is better than what we are securing now, because that is not working.

This places you, Mr Speaker, in the most unenviable, pernicious political situation—a situation that is almost intolerable. Given what was said by the Leader of the House, I think that you will be receiving your orders about certification from him. That is very much what seemed, from his remarks, to be intended. He will tell you what is English-only legislation, and you will have probably the most political role in the House. You will either have to stand up to the Leader of the House as he attempts to bully you, or you will have to—