Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Malcolm Rifkind and Harriett Baldwin

Friday 11th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I return to my point that this should be seen as an evolving situation. We speak of devolution to the three other parts of the United Kingdom, but the devolution is different in each case. We have a power-sharing institutionalised system in Northern Ireland, which does not exist anywhere else. We have a Scottish Parliament that is an Executive with full legislative powers over devolved matters. Wales does not have a Parliament; it has an Assembly that does not yet have legislative powers. In each case, the arrangements will change, but they will change in response to experience and to what are perceived to be the political wishes of the people in the territories concerned. That is the history of the United Kingdom. We are blessed with an unwritten constitution that we can evolve and adapt over the generations in a way that goes no further than necessary but that responds to the aspirations of the peoples in the various parts of the kingdom in a sensible and coherent way.

I shall turn now to the consequences of those arrangements for voting in this Parliament. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire so eloquently said, a range of options has been proposed to deal with what has become known as the West Lothian question. Some of them are completely understandable, including the proposal that, if there is a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish Parliament, there should be an English one. That sounds completely logical, but I was once warned that logic was the art of going wrong with confidence. It is, in fact, absurd to contemplate the co-existence of an English Parliament with this Palace of Westminster, for several reasons.

First of all, to state an emotional and political fact—I say this with some caution—the vast majority of people in England think that there is already an English Parliament and that it is called the House of Commons, largely because of the history of this place and its origins many centuries ago. When such an option is occasionally raised, we are not talking only about two Parliaments. In practice, there would have to be two Governments; there would have to be an English Government just as there is a Scottish Government. The idea that that is a sensible way of dealing with these matters is foolish. It would be a sledgehammer to crack an important but nevertheless modest nut—foolish, as I say.

The second option—one of the bad options—was attractive to many of my hon. Friends during the previous Parliament. It is the idea that Scottish Members—and, one assumes, Welsh and Northern Ireland Members either now or in due course—would be vetoed or prevented from voting on issues that applied only to England. I have always thought that that is a very dangerous and unwise approach. It would manifestly create two classes of Member of Parliament for the very first time since the Act of Union in 1707, and therefore I can only describe it as a nationalist solution to a Unionist problem. I have no doubt that it would be welcomed by the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, because it would provide a constant opportunity for them to emphasise the increasing irrelevance of the Union, as they would see it, and to go much further than the vast majority of people throughout the United Kingdom would currently want. It is not sensible to contemplate having two classes of Member, although not because it could not work. Here I disagree with the hon. Member for Rhondda: it is not a matter of the technical problems, although I can come on to those in moment if he wants me to; rather, I believe that it would be hugely dangerous and, in any event, it is unnecessary.

If those options are unattractive, is there an alternative route to resolve these matters and to deal with the issue of fairness? We do not need a solution that is absolutely perfect in every constitutional respect that fits seamlessly into some web of other issues; we need something that resolves the problem and removes a sense of unfairness.

At one stage, I argued for having an English Grand Committee, to which English-only Bills would be sent. It could be a Committee of all English Members sitting in this Chamber, but only those on such a Committee would be able to vote, just as members of Select Committees are the only people able to vote on them. That would not, in itself, be constitutionally improper. I acknowledge, however, that that would be quite a complicated innovation, which would take a complex series of thoughts to resolve and could take years in practice to implement.

In any event, there is a much simpler alternative—one that has not thus far been mentioned—and I shall put it forward. I would strongly argue that the most simple and straightforward solution relates to when a Bill is certified by the Speaker, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire indicates, as applying only to England. Doing that, incidentally, is not difficult. Many Bills currently affect England and Scotland or England, Scotland and Wales, because there is no reason at the moment for the draftsmen not to draft them in that way, if it suits their drafting objectives. If the rules change and the draftsmen are required to restrict any Bill to that part of the kingdom to which it overwhelmingly applies, they can draft accordingly if instructed to do so.

Where a Bill applies only to England, the right way to resolve matters would be to say that before it can be approved on Second and Third Reading, it must achieve not only the majority of votes of the whole House but, subsumed within that, a majority of Members representing English constituencies. In other words, a double majority is required: a majority of the House as a whole and a majority of those representing English constituencies. If it does not meet that target, it cannot be deemed to have been approved on Second Reading. The attraction is that no hon. Member is prevented from speaking in the debate or from voting in the Division Lobby for or against the measure, but the question of whether an England-only Bill goes forward and is given a Second Reading will have been determined by the House to be dependent on a majority of Members from English constituencies voting for it.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way and also for sharing his enormous wisdom on this topic with the House. Does he agree that the Scotland legislation of the 1970s included a provision made by the Lords for a 14-day waiting period, in which something like what he is describing would apply? What does he think of that particular approach?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Yes, that is indeed one approach. We are always reminding ourselves that this country has a sovereign Parliament. The idea that a sovereign Parliament cannot determine that certain classes of legislation will not go through unless there is a double majority of the kind that I have described is absurd. Of course it can do that if it wishes; it is entirely within its power. It is simply a political judgment as to whether that is the right way forward.

I shall not speak for much longer, but I want to address one fundamental challenge that will be made—it has already been made—to any of the solutions that have been described. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Rhondda will raise this suggestion. It is constantly said that the problem with all these approaches is that if a Government were denied the use of all the votes of their supporters that would usually give them a majority, the whole business of government would become unworkable and the Government would be unable to get their programme through, which would create some sort of constitutional crisis. To be fair, that argument is not made only by Labour Members. Mr Vernon Bogdanor, for example, who we are often told is a great constitutional expert, has constantly opined that that is a fundamental flaw in any such approach. Although I can understand why the Labour party adopts that view, because there is a political interest in putting forward such an argument, I find it very difficult to understand why such a learned gentleman has come to this conclusion—and I hope that he reads this speech.