Devolution and the Union

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raab]

This may be the easiest intervention I get today, but I do agree that everything is on the table and that everything is possible. In fact, if the hon. Gentleman listens closely as I develop my speech, he will find that I am rather sympathetic to taking further steps toward financial devolution, which the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have proposed.

Equally, there needs to be recognition that with greater financial freedom and power, Scotland must expect to bear some additional responsibility. I am sure that as a matter of principle—regardless of the practicalities—all hon. Members would agree with that. A new deal for Britain must be fair to all parts of Britain. In my view, that means two things. First, if we went down the road of devo-max or fuller financial devolution, it would eventually render utterly untenable the Barnett formula used by the UK Government to subsidise the devolved Administrations. That formula is based on outdated spending patterns and population numbers and is already divorced from any objective assessment of real need across Britain. If Scotland now wants greater powers to tax and spend—as I said, I am sympathetic to that—it cannot expect the Union and taxpayers across the Union to keep subsidising them to the hilt on such an arbitrary basis, without fuelling resentment in other parts of the UK. I note that that is also the logic of the SNP submission to the Smith review. I have it here and will happily read it later.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not find it curious to hear these sotto voce interventions of SNP Members defending the Barnett formula, which is recognised as unfair to Wales and is vehemently opposed by Plaid Cymru, the SNP’s allies in the House?

[Mr Raab]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes a cogent and eloquent point. That point is actually made by the SNP in its submission to the Smith review—that the logical consequence of full financial devolution would indeed mean the overhauling of the Barnett formula. I thus say to SNP Members that there may be potential for a nascent consensus on some of this—if it can be reached and grasped.

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[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing the debate. Like him, I welcome the result of the Scottish referendum. However, Members should be under no illusion. The way in which the UK is governed has changed, and we cannot change it back. These issues are more important than the Barnett formula. Promises were made about devolution max to the people of Scotland, and those promises have to be honoured. It would be inconceivable—and political suicide—not to do so. Once those promises have been honoured and powers have been transferred to Scotland, however, there will quite rightly be demands from the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly for the same powers to be transferred to them. If those powers were not transferred, the people of Wales and Northern Ireland could rightly say that they were being discriminated against.

[Jonathan Evans]

May I caution the hon. Gentleman about saying that exactly the same powers should be offered to Wales? Wales is not Scotland. Speaking as the chairman of the Welsh Conservative party, I must tell him that the Conservatives are the official Opposition there. That is not the position in Scotland. We are two very different countries.

[Mr Godsiff]

I did not say that the powers would automatically be transferred. I said that they would have to be offered to the people of Wales and Northern Ireland, because if they were not, the people of those countries could rightly say that they were being discriminated against.

Once Scotland has been given devo max, if Wales and Northern Ireland choose to go down that path as well, there will in my opinion be an unstoppable momentum for an English Parliament to be set up. That is, and has always been, the logic of devolution, and we have to live with that. This raises other questions as well. If we have four Parliaments responsible for a whole range of services, the role of the Westminster Parliament will have to change. Westminster could of course retain its role in foreign affairs, defence and international trade matters, as well as a whole range of residual responsibilities, but such a change would automatically mean that there would be no need for such a large House of Commons, because many of the services would have been devolved. We would need a much smaller House of Commons.

As part of the new constitutional settlement, we are going to have to ask other questions. Would the Westminster Parliament continue to need two Chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, or could we have a unicameral Parliament? Would we need to retain the House of Lords in its present form, or could it be abolished? If these changes were to happen, the four devolved Parliaments, together with the Westminster Parliament, would also have to decide on the role of the monarchy in the new constitutional settlement. On the front page of The Guardian newspaper today, Prince Charles’s spokesman is suggesting that King Charles III would have a much more activist role in British politics, so it might be appropriate to have such a discussion.

The Scottish referendum has changed politics in the United Kingdom completely, and we cannot turn the clock back even if we want to. Once we started down the road of devolved government in this country, we were always going to be faced with the prospect of referendums on independence. Such referendums will be won only by winning hearts and minds, as happened in the Scottish referendum. There will be more of them in future. The reason that nationalist parties exist—in Scotland, Wales and indeed in Northern Ireland—is to seek to achieve independence for their countries. That is perfectly reasonable and proper, but if that was not their objective when those parties were set up, they would have no future role whatever.

Like it or not, we are moving towards a federal structure in the United Kingdom. I believe that that holds considerable attractions, although others will disagree. The momentum is such that it is going to happen, however, and I believe that it will happen sooner rather than later.

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[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). He knows that I have admired him as a parliamentarian since I was first elected to the House almost 22 years ago. His standard of contribution today came up to the same level.

I congratulate Scotland on the turnout for the Scottish referendum. People said it was a colossal outcome, and at the same time a lesson to the rest of us in the United Kingdom—84.59% of people in Scotland voted in the referendum. But it is not quite such a lesson, because when I was first elected to this place in 1992, I was elected with an even larger turnout in my constituency of 85.9%. Why? Because I was elected in a three-party marginal in which most people thought that their vote mattered. That is the key to turnout.

I congratulate those who brought forward the debate. My first point is to the nationalists. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Front Bench. I served with him in the Welsh Office when last we exercised all the territorial powers before the Assembly was created. I then led the Conservative party’s opposition in Wales to the establishment of the Assembly. I reiterate that the outcome of the vote that was taken on establishing a Welsh Assembly was a majority of 0.4%. Yet the Conservative party, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend and with my support as spokesman in Wales, fully accepted the outcome of that vote, narrow as it was. The vote in Scotland is 10.6%. That is a very clear outcome, and may I say to our nationalist friends that they would be wise to accept the outcome as well?

We know that we are now engaged in a debate on the offer of powers, but from my perspective, it is important that while we are considering the offer of powers, my right hon. Friend should look for mechanisms to ensure that we get accountability to go with them. I say that because at the moment the computer in my office is receiving lots of messages urging me to be here tomorrow to ensure that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is repealed because of its impact on my constituents. My constituents are in Cardiff, and they are not impacted by that Act in any way because they are in Wales and the Act applies in England. Is it not interesting that Unison is telling people that the Act applies in my constituency, and that, after all the debate in Prime Minister’s questions between the two sides of the House on the performance of the health service in England and Wales, in my constituency a majority of people still think that health is the responsibility of the Westminster Parliament? That demonstrates that we have not got it right when it comes to accountability.

The other unaddressed question is the West Lothian question. That goes back to the issue raised by Tam Dalyell, but it was also raised by my former law firm partner, the distinguished Back-Bencher Leo Abse, the former Member for Pontypool. He said that there was a basic unfairness there that needed to be addressed. It is unsatisfactory that with all the changes that we have seen, and all the additional powers for Wales that we Welsh Conservatives have supported ever since the Assembly was established—the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) knows that—nothing has been done to address this unanswered question. For that reason, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is quite right: the issue must be addressed. It is not English-centric to say that; it is pointing out that we have a system of asymmetrical devolution, and that because these issues relating to England have not been addressed, we have gone down a road that, just a few weeks ago, might have led to the break-up of the United Kingdom. We must not leave the question unaddressed for the future.

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[Hywel Williams]

I will not give way. I do believe that some powers will be made over to Scotland, though I suspect that these will fall short of devo-max, modern home rule, or the new federalism proposed by the no campaign. In Wales, national political confidence is growing. Independence is a goal for a minority, but importantly, the majority of Welsh people reject the status quo.

[Jonathan Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I will, to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful. I intervened in the certainty that the hon. Gentleman would get another minute from it. He ought to share with the House the fact that the last poll in Wales that I saw indicated that support for independence in Wales had reached 3%.

[Hywel Williams]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman might raise that point. Support for the status quo was at 37%; 63% of the population wanted a change, and the poll offered four choices. I said earlier in my speech that a minority supported independence, and I am one of that minority.