English Votes for English Laws

John Lamont Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

EVEL was a genuine attempt in good faith to answer the long-lasting West Lothian question on the asymmetric nature of devolution. However, EVEL is a cumbersome and ineffective constitutional innovation that has won few friends in its short life. Its abolition would simplify our procedures and remove a source of resentment. It would reaffirm the fundamental constitutional principle that we are one United Kingdom with a sovereign Parliament comprising Members elected on an equal basis, representing every community in the land and able to make laws for the whole kingdom. It would be the Unionist act of a Unionist Government.

EVEL has introduced a layer of complex and time-consuming bureaucracy into the legislative process. It has also, as we have heard, given our nationalist opponents a pretext to degenerate the UK Parliament. Worse still, as the procedure is set out only in Standing Orders, it would provide no meaningful protection in a hypothetical situation in which a UK Government lack a majority of English MPs.



My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is the first Prime Minister to be Minister for the Union. He is abolishing EVEL on Unionist grounds. The principle underlying his decision to become Minister for the Union and underlying that this Government’s whole approach to the Union matters is that this Government are for the whole United Kingdom, accountable to a Parliament representing the whole United Kingdom. This is a qualitative difference that separates the UK Parliament and the UK Government from the devolved legislatures and Administrations. On this basis, the Government have a constitutional and democratic mandate to serve the whole UK, as they do in the exercise of reserved responsibilities and through measures such as the UK Internal Market Act.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I am following the hon. Member’s argument as closely as I can, and it seems to be that he is arguing that the Government brought in EVEL to strengthen the Union and now are scrapping EVEL also to strengthen the Union. Does he realise that this just makes it look like his Government are clueless, directionless and, when it comes to the constitution, simply making it up as they go along?

[John Lamont]

I do not accept the hon. Member’s analysis. The introduction of EVEL was an attempt to answer the West Lothian question, which many people have struggled with for many years. But listening to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), it is very clear that he loves this place so much and wants to participate. I sometimes wonder whether he really does want independence for Scotland, given his great love of taking part in parliamentary activity here at Westminster.

The existence of a parliamentary procedure that separates English or English and Welsh MPs from Scottish and Northern Irish MPs offends this core principle of acting for the whole of the United Kingdom. As we have heard, it allows our nationalist opponents to misrepresent the treatment of Scottish MPs at Westminster as second class. In the very short time available to me, let me say that, however well intentioned, the severe limitations of the EVEL procedure are now very apparent for us all to see, and retaining it would serve no practical use whatsoever. The time has come to put it out of its misery.