English Votes for English Laws

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I will make progress, if I may.

In the aftermath of the Scottish referendum result last autumn—which SNP Members find so hard to accept—and as the consequent further transfer of powers takes place, a solution must be found. The Prime Minister was right that day when he said that he would take action. There is no widespread desire for an English Parliament. I have gone around my constituency and talked to my constituents, and I find no such desire. The people of England do not want yet another Chamber, with more legislation, more politicians, more costs, and more confusion. This Parliament has stood at the apex of our democracy for 800 years.

The Government’s proposal is right to focus on delivering fairness in the House of Commons by ensuring that English issues will require the consent of English MPs. The ability of all MPs to amend and vote on legislation is maintained. One would be hard put to know that if one had listened to either the hon. Member for Wallasey or the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, but it is true. However, there will now be mechanisms to ensure that England’s specific consent is needed to pass clauses and Bills that affect only England.

I welcome the Government’s proposals wholeheartedly. They are a big step forward. In saying that, I should acknowledge that the process of determining whether or not a clause did indeed affect only England, or England and Wales, might occasionally be tested. However, I hope the convention would be that in the event of doubt, or likely controversy, the tendency would always be for the Chair to err on the side of ensuring that everyone had the vote—that it was open to all. I think such controversy would be likely to arise on very few occasions, and I would hope SNP Members would join us in seeking to cut through that Gordian knot and make sure that, as much as possible, there was that clarity and separation.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman has twice said “I would hope”. Does he not cherish this precious UK constitution more than to hope that it would work after this Bill goes through? The constituents of England might be looking for something stronger than hope.

[Graham Stuart]

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that the vow was made, it has been brought forward here, and it is being passed through—[Interruption.] It is being fulfilled. I say to the hon. Gentleman that, rather than coming forward with a hard—[Interruption.] He can try to shout me down if he wishes, but I would simply say that this proposal is to change Standing Orders; it is a rather fragile way of making this change, and we will have a review in a year or so, and the Leader of the House has explicitly said that if legislation is required, he will look at that. The truth is that if this did not work, given the fragility of the Government majority it would take only a handful of colleagues on the Government Benches in conjunction with those on the Opposition Benches to reverse it. If it was in place today, it could be reversed tomorrow as easily as that. So, again, suggesting this is some form of sustained constitutional vandalism is entirely at odds with the truth, and I say to SNP Members, who, as I have said, have but a single thought, that if they want to pursue that cause, they will find it most effective with their own constituents, or indeed in this place, if they say what they know to be true and do not try to make out something is something when it is not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be able to participate in this debate. It is a particular pleasure to do so at a rather later stage, because that obliges one to sit on the Benches and listen to the speeches, which I have found very illuminating.

What we have heard in the debate is an extraordinary celebration of the Union of the United Kingdom. We did not just hear it in the contributions of the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) or my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), whose maiden speech I was delighted to hear, or, for that matter, in those of Labour MPs from Welsh constituencies. The most compelling argument for the Union of the United Kingdom came from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). His argument against these proposals was that it is, in effect, impossible to dissociate decisions of any kind taken in this House from knock-on consequences north of the border. He is right. Ultimately, every decision that is taken by an Assembly or Parliament in the United Kingdom has a knock-on effect elsewhere, outside the area of its jurisdiction.

During my years as Attorney General, it was apparent to me how relevant that point is. For example, crime is an entirely cross-border issue. Criminals move freely between Liverpool and Glasgow, and indeed every other part of our United Kingdom. One of the tasks I had as Attorney General was to work closely with the Lord Advocate—an association, I might add, entirely dependent on goodwill and almost nothing else—in order to make sure that in tackling crime, the interests of the United Kingdom, not just those of England, England and Wales or Scotland, were properly addressed.

I have to say to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire that while I understood the thrust of his arguments, they came as a little bit of a surprise, considering that for the past 18 years this House, with his enthusiastic participation, has been progressively deconstructing the United Kingdom and making such co-operation harder and harder to achieve.

The whole reason why we are having this debate is, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) so rightly said, that our constituents in England are increasingly irked by what they see as a lack of comity, which is the direct consequence of the way in which we have decided to operate devolution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is absolutely right. A lot of these issues were trotted out in the 1998 devolution debates. I spent hours on the Benches in this House teasing out these points with Donald Dewar. We pointed out to the then Labour Government that they were not taking—to use a word that has buzzed around today, but which I have never liked—the holistic approach. They kept on talking about holistics, but no one was prepared to think through the overall consequences of the massive constitutional changes we were initiating.

In particular, this country has an unwritten constitution that is ultimately entirely dependent on sovereignty residing in this place. It is extremely simple and extremely subtle, but it breaks down extremely quickly once power starts to be diffused elsewhere.

[Peter Grant]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not understand that he has put his finger on one of the most fundamental differences between our nations? In my nation, the sovereignty of Parliament and the sovereignty of the monarch do not exist; the people are and always will be sovereign in Scotland.

[Mr Grieve]

No. I am afraid that distinction exists only in the mind of the hon. Gentleman. If I may say so, that is entirely illustrative of the sort of myth that illuminates the lives of Scottish nationalists, but has no relation to reality whatsoever. The Queen is the servant, through her coronation oath, of the citizens of this country, and we in this Parliament—and, indeed, Ministers—do our best to serve the Queen in the fulfilment of her oath. That serves the people just as adequately as any of the other rationalisations that the hon. Gentleman may have, so I will not hear any more of that, thank you very much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I simply do not understand the hon. Lady’s argument. I used to represent an area in Wales and would like to take this opportunity to put the record straight. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) suggested that I had lost numerous first-past-the-post elections to the Assembly, but in fact I lost only one—by 500 votes—and was then elected in 2011, in the second election after that. I know that the hon. Gentleman himself lost the election in North Shropshire before he was elected in Wrexham.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), my constituents in Wales had a number of elected representatives to whom they could go, namely Assembly Members and MPs, and they would often go to MPs to raise matters that were devolved to the Assembly. My constituents in England, however, have made it clear that they want a single person to represent them, namely their MP. The electorate have voted on it and have made their democratic will clear through the Members of Parliament they have elected to this House.

There is an inherent injustice in MPs from Wales, who cannot vote on education, health, certain transport matters, housing and the Welsh language in the constituencies that they represent, being able to have an influence over and a vote on those matters here. That will not change under the proposals. When this House deals with legislation that has a devolved element, the Welsh Assembly will be able to give consent to this place under a legislative consent motion. When the majority of 150 Labour MPs trooped through the Lobbies, the hon. Lady’s party knew very well that it was setting up a system that the hon. Member for Wrexham described in a Westminster Hall debate as unequal and unfair.

This small step is a modest one, as has been said by many other Members, and it will be reviewed in 12 months’ time. It is right, after 20 years of inaction following the devolution Acts and numerous amendments, that at this time, in this House, there is an opportunity for those of us who represent English seats to fight to ensure that the small matter of consent, which applies in all other devolved Administrations, applies here.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady agree, on behalf of the people she used to represent in Wales, that it would be utterly unacceptable for the people of Wales to vote to remain in the European Union and then be dragged out simply because a majority in the bigger neighbour voted that way?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, foreign affairs is not a devolved issue. That is a United Kingdom decision. It will be decided on, I am glad to say, by all the citizens of the United Kingdom. It is the Conservative party that is making sure that every single citizen in the United Kingdom will get a vote on that issue.

On the Barnett consequentials, I am very grateful to the Leader of the House for listening to the debate under Standing Order No. 24. It is clear that consideration has been given to the potential for Barnett consequentials. That is reflected in the changes to the proposed Standing Orders. Scottish citizens voted for a devolution settlement that reflected their wishes: they wanted a Scottish Parliament. English citizens have voted for a different settlement and do not want to have a separate English Parliament. They want matters to be dealt with in this House in a way that is fair and gives them some equality.