English Votes for English Laws

Lord Wallace of Tankerness Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, there is some consensus that this issue needs to be addressed, but also an equal consensus that the mode of addressing it will lead to some very unsatisfactory outcomes. It is an example, as has been said, of a piecemeal approach to the constitution, but it is an issue to be dealt with by a constitutional convention.

In the Statement accompanying the White or Green Paper—whichever colour it was—in December 2014, the right honourable William Hague referred to the Prime Minister’s Statement on the morning after the referendum, when he said that,

“a new and fair settlement for Scotland must be accompanied by an equivalent settlement for all parts of the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/12/14; col. 1265.]

I do not think that this is proper equivalence.

The point was made about the concerns that certification could bring the Speaker into the courts, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said; I do not think that people would particularly want that. Much of the work of my former department in the office of the Advocate-General was to consider when Scottish Parliament legislation was passed, whether it was within the competence of the Scotland Act, and much time was spent between officials, lawyers and my old department and Scottish Government lawyers in determining whether a legislative consent Motion was required for a particular piece of legislation. It is not easy, and it is possibly an unfair burden to put on the Speaker, however well advised he will be by lawyers, and it could lead to litigation.

As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, it is a veto, and if a veto is going to be given to what might be described as a sub-set of the House of Commons, that is not Parliament. If it is okay for English MPs to have a veto, is it not okay for democratically elected Members of the Scottish Parliament also to have a veto—in other words, for Section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998 to be repealed? That leads to some very important, fundamental issues about the sovereignty of Parliament.

I do not believe that it will have no effect on your Lordships’ House. It may be that we do not need to have any Standing Orders changed here, but it will have an effect. If this House passes an amendment to a Bill, which goes to the other place and which, in a double vote, is actually approved by the House of Commons but not approved by English Members of the House of Commons, we will be in an anomalous situation where a piece of legislation has been passed by both Houses but will not be sent to the monarch for Royal Assent. That is a fundamental ABC of constitutional law.

I do not think that this has been thought through. I welcome the response from the Leader of the House to some of the important issues of concern that have been raised in this debate.