English Votes for English Laws

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am loth to disagree with my right hon. Friend, who understands these issues very well, and had a better scheme of his own, which would have been called EVEN—English votes for English needs—rather than EVEL. We could be having a very different debate this evening had EVEN been adopted rather than EVEL.

There is of course devolution within England, but it is different. It is not to England as a country, because England makes up 85% of the total of the United Kingdom. As far as I am aware, there is no federal system in the world where one part makes up such a great proportion. The size of England—and of course the influence that comes from that—would unbalance any settlement we tried to create.

It is not just the ability of this place to legislate effectively that has been constrained. More fundamentally, the EVEL procedure has undermined the role of Parliament as the Union Parliament in which all parts of the United Kingdom are represented equally. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has made that point very eloquently, and I greatly agree with him that there should be equal representation of all Members. I have spoken elsewhere about the ways in which the UK Parliament has become a more important place in our national life following the return of powers from the European Union. Since our departure, we have once again begun legislating properly in areas touching on devolved matters, including trade, health and safety, employment laws and state aid. All of these are now powers returned to the United Kingdom, and we are able to legislate properly because all MPs are equal once again in a Parliament that considers the matters put before it from the broadest possible Union perspective.

Rather than returning to an unhappy, asymmetric answer to the devolution question, the evolving operation of this Parliament has made this much less of a black and white issue than it would have felt in 2014. That is good news, because it reflects the way in which Brexit has strengthened the Union. We have now restored authority in this Parliament to address the problems of voters in every part of the United Kingdom. That is in all of our interests, because our country is much more than the sum of its parts. Just as George III gloried in the name of Britain, so do I, for our global influence together is far greater. Take, for example, our security relationships; the nuclear deterrent, based in Scotland; our shared history as brothers in arms; the economic successes that we have had; or the global reach of the empire builders. One may visit Argyle Street in Hong Kong, the Glencairn suburb of Cape Town, the Aberdare national park in Kenya, or even sunny Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California to see our past shared influence writ large across the world.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Will the Lord President give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Of course; it would be a privilege.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The Lord President is making a magnificent speech, as one would expect, but how would he feel if hypothetically, the outcome that was depicted back in 2015—with Alex Salmond having the shadow Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), in his suit pocket—had come to pass, and the Lord President’s constituents in North East Somerset faced a situation in which they were having laws made for them without there being a majority view in Parliament in England?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We are one country, and I accept that voters in Gloucestershire can have an influence on what happens in Somerset—that is a much greater thing for me to confess to than that voters in Scotland should have a say. We are one nation, and I accept the basic principle of democracy that the overall will of that nation must be observed. However, I put it to my hon. Friend that that poster had an effect in the campaign, because it made people think about what the consequences of voting Labour could be, and they did not particularly want to be ruled by Alex Salmond.

I have mentioned all those places around the world that are named after places in the United Kingdom, and I have not yet had the chance to mention Belfast. There are many Belfasts around the world, but there are many English place names, too: there are 22 places in the United States called Somerset, in addition to the one in Wisconsin, and there is also a Somerset in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Bermuda, and of course Pomeroon-Supenaam. There are Somersets everywhere; there are Scottish place names everywhere, Welsh ones and Northern Irish ones, as part of the success of our country as global Britain before the term “global Britain” was invented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Well, I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that that is democracy. There is a Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish people elect its Members. At the moment, Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, and long may that continue.

If the Government want to reform the constitution, they are going about it in an odd way by doing things piecemeal. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was repealed last week; the boundary review is happening at some point, when it may suit the Government to put it in the legislative timetable; and there is the outrageous, anti-democratic, totally unnecessary, using-a-wrecking-ball-to-crack-a-wholly-imaginary-nut legislation on voter identification. If the Government want to reform the constitution, perhaps they could return to the McKay commission report, and emphasise the need for a national consensus-building approach to constitutional reform.

Once again, the Labour party is happy to oblige the Government with news of our constitutional convention. Over the past 15 months, EVEL has been suspended. The Leader of the House himself said in an evidence session with the Procedure Committee that

“EVEL has been suspended for a year without any loss of effectiveness to the way the House operates, any loss to the constitution, or any loss to MPs’ ability to represent their constituents.”

I quite agree, and would go further in saying that I very much doubt that anyone outside the House has even noticed. He added:

“I think the EVEL Standing Orders take up more than 10% of all our Standing Orders, for a procedure that has not had an effect on our business once in the time in which it has been available.”

I really am struggling to avoid the “I told you so” dance. Given that the Government strongly supported EVEL six years ago and have now decided to think again, I have to ask the Leader of the House what changed? What have the Government learned about EVEL in the past 15 months that has led to this devastatingly obvious conclusion that the Labour party was, in fact, right all along? What plans do the Government have for developing devolution and constitutional reform within the context of a strong and united United Kingdom?

The most disappointing element of this whole completely pointless process is the disdain that the Government repeatedly show for the people of this country and for the concept of national identity and national pride. We have seen that very recently when many senior Cabinet Ministers so badly misjudged the public mood on the England football team taking the knee in solidarity as a team with their black teammates and to show their opposition to racism everywhere. It is time that the Government looked at the leadership qualities shown by Gareth Southgate, so inspiringly set out in his incredibly patriotic letter, “Dear England”, which I have read many times, despite the fact that I have very little interest in football. It sets out a richly layered, values-based patriotism.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is rather digressing from the subject at hand in the 60 minutes that we have available. Will she accept that both the 2010 and the 2015 Conservative manifestos pledged to address English votes for English laws and that we are able to implement that because we won a majority in 2015? She talks about respecting democracy. She should respect that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am entirely respecting it by helping to abolish EVEL right now. If we are talking about digressing from the subject, may I refer the hon. Lady to the Leader of the House’s very interesting geography lesson, which I rather enjoyed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I do not have time to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

It satisfied absolutely no one. All it did was infuriate Scotland. Instead of securing the near federalism that was promised, Scotland instead saw its MPs become second-class Members in the Parliament that they had just been invited to lead. There were signs in the Division Lobby saying, “England only.” They would have been better saying, “Scots out.” That is what the Government did with this procedure.

The Government knew it would never work. From the first moment when they suggested this nonsense, we have told them again and again that it was madness and that, at some point, they would be here—as they are this evening—to withdraw it. Now under pressure from the SNP, EVEL is to be abandoned. This is a spectacular victory for the Scottish National party, and I congratulate all my hon. Friends on bringing down this nonsense. This is one victory that we have secured this week in the United Kingdom and, by God, we are going to celebrate like it is 1966. Believe me, we will be banging on about this for the next 55 years and we will enjoy every minute of it.

There is a part of me that will miss the entertainment of it all and the laughs that it gave us. It was designed to quell this tartan menace, but I ended up making the most contributions in the Legislative Grand Committee. With 57 contributions, not only was I the most committed and dedicated Member of the English Parliament but I beat all the English Members combined two times over.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Given the hon. Member’s digression on to football, which team did he support on Sunday night?

[Pete Wishart]

I supported the best team on Sunday night. I enjoy my football, and I can say quite clearly Forza Italia.

English votes for English laws started its sorry and doomed journey just hours after the Scottish independence referendum result was announced. Instead of the statesmanship and consensus required at a sensitive and raw moment in Scottish constitutional history, David Cameron announced that the English question should now be addressed. With that, as well as bringing us to this point, he ensured that the campaign for Scottish independence started once again almost immediately. That campaign will soon be concluded with a victory for the Scottish National party and a victory for Scotland.

We believe it is legitimate for English representatives to secure the outcomes they want, and SNP MPs do not vote on English-only legislation or business that does not affect Scotland. If it is not in the Scottish interest, we take no interest in it. If there are financial consequences or an inadvertent impact, we will represent our constituents—but it is us who will decide that, not the diktat of a Tory Government. We commit not to participate in legislation that does not impact on our nation, but, please, let us never, ever do anything like this again.

Instead of going on about KwaZulu-Natal, the Leader of the House should be apologising to the House for wasting hours of the House’s time on a stupid experiment that went absolutely nowhere. Let us now work together to resolve this and ensure that our nations get what they want. We are on different trajectories and we want something different. Let us now give our nations what they want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is good to be one of only two representatives of middle England objecting to the proposals to abolish these Standing Orders. My 2011 private Member’s Bill, the Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill, put pressure on the coalition Government to set up the commission that put forward the EVEL proposals, and I well remember the Lord President of the Council—in those days he was merely the Member for North East Somerset—making his speech. He is noted not only for being a great historian but now for being a seer and someone who can foretell the future, because he said that one day, a Government would be able to come in and simply abolish these Standing Orders. I very much regret that it is he who is doing it.

I think that we can all see the mood of the House this evening—we can all see that the motion is going to carry—but we must recognise that this was a pledge in the Conservative party manifesto in 2010 and 2015. It was a pledge that was there for a reason: because, at the time, our constituents were raising this on the doorstep as something they were very concerned about. A solution was put in place through the Standing Orders. As the Lord President said, it has not necessarily been needed in the interim, but it is not impossible to envisage a scenario in which its absence really would cause constitutional problems in this country. I regret very much that these Standing Orders are being abolished without a proposal for any kind of replacement to deal with that.