Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Helen Goodman and Mark Lazarowicz

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I stand corrected. I am sorry, I was seduced by the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald).

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the issues raised by the amendment, my hon. Friend said a minute ago that she suspected that the real motivation behind the Bill was not just to specify whether a Bill applied to England, Scotland or Northern Ireland only, but to lead to a situation where certain MPs could not vote on those Bills. If she has any doubt about that, the BBC reported yesterday that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin)

“hoped that this would allow it to become accepted practice that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would not vote on England-only bills.”

If that is what she really wants, would it not be better to have a Bill to that effect for us to discuss and debate, rather than one that tries to introduce such a measure through the back door?

[Helen Goodman]

That is exactly right. This is a campaigning Bill; it is not a serious Bill. The hon. Lady cannot possibly expect the House to support this ill-conceived Bill, which would not even do what she wants.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I must stay in order while answering that question, Mr Deputy Speaker. I referred to the “so-called” West Lothian question because it is not simply about West Lothian; it applies also to west Belfast, west Cardiff and even west London, in that certain matters relating to Greater London have been devolved to the London assembly. I accept that the hon. Gentleman is asking a reasonable question, but the Bill does not provide an appropriate way of dealing with it.

The Bill, rather than creating constitutional symmetry that would apply beautifully to all parts of the UK, would seriously affect the way in which the House operates and the ability of all Members to participate in debates. This question deserves an answer. I represent a Scottish constituency, and I am interested in how these issues apply to the UK as a whole, but if Members in England really feel strongly about this, I would argue again that the answer involves another measure, rather than creating two kinds of Member in this House.

[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another technical defect—I hope the amendments made this clear, but perhaps they did not—is that the hon. Lady has not done with her own Bill what she is suggesting that Ministers should do with every Bill? There is no explanation of how her Bill would apply in each of the jurisdictions, or of what financial burdens it would create. She cannot do that for this tiny Bill, yet she intends to impose a massive bureaucratic burden, which is something that I thought the Government were opposed to.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have sympathy with the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, given the difficulties involved in introducing a private Member’s Bill; I introduced three over the years, having been lucky enough to come up in the draw. We are obviously in a different position from Governments in the level of support available and the amount of information that we can put before the House. I do not want to criticise her too much, but it would have been helpful if she had provided a background paper to support the Bill, rather than simply relying on the material supplied by the House of Commons Library. I apologise if she did produce such a paper and I have not seen it.

In regard to amendment 6, there are a number of important issues about how the Bill would work. A great many pieces of legislation that pass through the House simply cannot be categorised as English-only, Scottish-only, Welsh-only or Northern Irish-only Bills. A large number of Bills overlap in various ways. Most Bills on transport affect transport in England but are likely to have knock-on effects on other parts of the UK. We debated the Health and Social Care Bill this week and although it primarily covers England and Wales, the provisions on abortion would have applied to the United Kingdom. Every measure that has spending implications will have consequential effects on every part of the UK because of the Barnett formula.