English Votes on English Laws

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I want to ask the Leader of the House a very simple question. As I understand it from his proposals, the Speaker will have to adjudicate on what is an English-only Bill. Where is the definition of an English-only Bill set down? The right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) raised the issue of tuition fees and its Barnett consequentials. Where in the proposals is the definition set out?

[Chris Grayling]

The test that will be used is very simple: is it a devolved matter or not? Health and education are devolved. If it is a devolved matter, it will be covered by the proposals. The premise is simple: given that education is a devolved matter in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and that MPs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland therefore cannot vote on education matters in their constituencies, they will not have the decisive say on education matters in the constituencies of English MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), a constitutional scholar who spoke with great authority.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Conservative party has a right to take action on this issue. It won a majority at the general election. It has a right to take action and it has the power to do so because it has a majority in this House. The question for Conservative Members is: what is the right way of doing this? That is what I want to talk about.

Government Members are in the Conservative and Unionist party. I suggest that the way the Leader of the House is going about this is true neither to the Conservative tradition nor the Unionist tradition. No good will come of the way he is going about his proposals, and I want to explain why. This goes to the point that the shadow Leader of the House made about how this is done: whether it is rushed through next week, through Standing Orders, or done in a considered way. I wish to focus on the issue of English-only Bills. This is not just about English-only Bills, because English-only clauses are mentioned in the Leader of the House’s proposals. You, Mr Speaker, will have to certify not only whether a Bill is England only, but whether a clause is England only. That will be an unenviable task.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset said that this issue has been around for 130 years. He is absolutely right about that, but why has it been around for that long? This is what Gladstone said in 1893 when he abandoned his second home rule Bill:

“it passed the wit of man to frame any distinct, thorough-going, universal severance between the one class of subject and the other”.

In other words, this is what is now the English-only question. In his time, it was a distinction between the Irish legislation and so-called “imperial legislation” .

Let us fast-forward to 1965, when Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister. He was furious because his Bill to nationalise the steel industry was defeated by the votes of MPs from Northern Ireland, so he told one of his Cabinet, “We’ve really got to do something about this.” The person in question said, “I think that is not very wise, Prime Minister, because it is really hard to make the distinction. Gladstone tried it.” Wilson therefore set up a royal commission, which reported in 1974, concluding that we could not distinguish between the so-called “ins” and the “outs”.

The reason I made the intervention I did on the Leader of the House is that this is at the heart of why this problem—it is a problem and an anomaly—has not been solved in 130 years. With all due respect, he proposes to do it on the back of a fag packet next week. I therefore intervened on him, following the intervention by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), to ask how you, Mr Speaker, were supposed to decide on what was an England-only Bill. The Leader of the House said it is simple—it is a devolved matter. But then we have to deal with the issue of tuition fees, as clearly a rise in tuition fees has Barnett consequentials. So goodness knows.

This is where I come to the real thing, and why I appeal to Conservative Members to think how they are going to vote next week. The question before us is: does this strengthen or weaken the United Kingdom? There is clearly an English question to address, as the general election illustrated to me very clearly, but the issue is how we address it sensibly.

Let us just fast-forward to this Session of Parliament once this proposal goes through, if it does. It is not as though the problem is going to be solved—the problem just begins, because the arguments made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and the right hon. Member for Gordon will be played out not just in this House but throughout the United Kingdom. People will be saying, “That is an outrage. The Speaker has ruled that is an England-only Bill but it affects us.” Other people will be saying, “That is an outrage. He said it is not an England-only Bill.” That takes me to the simple point: we are talking about something of such huge constitutional significance. I say to Conservative Members: you have the power, of course you do, but do not use it next week because it is not true to your traditions. Your traditions are to be the Conservative and Unionist party, but this is neither for Conservatism nor Unionism.

[Chris Grayling]

Let me simply ask the right hon. Gentleman something. If he feels so strongly about this, why did we not get a response when he was leader of his party and the invitation was extended for his party to participate in cross-party talks?

[Edward Miliband]

Because a few months before the election the Conservative party thought it was a useful weapon at the general election—it turned out that it was, but let us leave that to one side. This goes beyond the disagreements between us; this is about the agreement between us, because we are both Unionists. I find myself agreeing with the right hon. Member for Gordon, which does not happen very often—I totally disagree with him on the United Kingdom. Now, when I am agreeing with the right hon. Member for Gordon, the Leader of the House and Conservative Members should be thinking, “That’s not so good really. There’s something up here.” What is up here is how we make this change happen. I ask this question again: is this true to the traditions of Conservatism? No, it is not, because the last thing the Conservatives should do is rip up hundreds of years of constitutional practice in a Standing Order vote just before the House goes into recess. Is this for Unionism? No, it is not. That is my final point, because I wish to respect the time limit.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend concede that solving this conundrum cannot be done by moving the deckchairs inside the Westminster bubble and by changing Standing Orders? It can only be seriously addressed by looking at devolution for England, just as we want devolution for all the other nations in the Union.

[Edward Miliband]

Of course that is an issue that needs to be considered. My proposal is for a constitutional convention, which I know the Government will not take up. At least let us not go down this road of Standing Orders, because it will, all of a sudden, change the whole practice of the House of Commons.

Let us be frank in this House: the cause of Unionism has been going pretty badly since 19 September 2014.

[Mr MacNeil]

Well said.

[Edward Miliband]

Thanks very much. We won the referendum. My party was in alliance with the Conservative Party, as the Scottish National party has pointed out, but the cause of Unionism has not been well served since then. I will not start laying blame; people will know what I think about this. The question for the Conservative party, which has a majority, is how does it properly serve the cause of Unionism? Following this procedure in the way that has been proposed is frankly an act of constitutional vandalism. It is not true to the great traditions of the Conservative and Unionist party, which is why I urge Government Members to vote against this measure next week.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—