Parliament (Participation of Members of the House of Commons) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Baker on introducing this Bill and I strongly support him. Like my noble friend Lord Wakeham, I believe that this is an issue which simply will not go away. I rarely quote myself but on this occasion I cannot resist. I spoke at the Second Reading of the original Scotland Bill in 1976. I remember it well because the Second Reading took three days, going through night after night. Looking back, I found that I spoke at 5.32 am on the second day, when the English voice was starting to be heard. I mention that because the noble Lords, Lord Sewel and Lord Elder, have suggested that it is somewhat novel or opportunistic at this stage for my noble friend to raise this matter: not at all; it has been raised from the beginning. I spoke as someone who was born, brought up and educated in Scotland, but I had come to live down south and was representing an English constituency in Norfolk where I had been for only two years. Now I have lived in Norfolk for more than 30 years. I first addressed the paper that the Government had produced, headed, Devolution: The English Dilemma, which indicated that they were aware of the dilemma and produced two solutions. The first solution was to build up the economic planning councils, which was clearly ludicrous because it had no democratic element. The other solution was regional assemblies. I produced the usual arguments against regional assemblies not having the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, and so on. In particular, I said that there was no demand in England for it except in the north-east. We now learn, and the Deputy Prime Minister has certainly learnt, that there is not even demand for it there. So there was no case for the regional assemblies. I therefore described it in the debate as a,"““smoke screen and a con trick to cover up the patent unfairness of the devolution proposals for English people””.—[Official Report, Commons; 14/12/76; col. 1468.]" I went on to deal with the question that we are debating now. I mention this because it was the obvious enormous hole in the Government’s then proposals. We warned of the consequences from the outset. I said that the only answer was that the,"““Scottish and Welsh Members of the House should be deprived from voting on matters affecting only England—the same subjects as are being devolved to the Scottish Assembly. While there is no support in Norfolk for a regional assembly, there is growing anger at the fact that Scottish and Welsh Members may often speak and vote on matters that affect my constituents most, such as education, health and local government, whereas their own English Members will have no opportunity to speak or vote on similar matters affecting Scotland””," which is precisely this issue. At that point, the Member for West Lothian, Mr Tam Dalyell, stood up and asked me:"““Would it not create an odd form of government if my honourable friend the Member for Lanarkshire North and I partly made up a government majority but were not able to vote on the most delicate issues of English politics?””" I responded:"““I accept that that may sometimes happen. It is an inevitable consequence of the dog’s breakfast with which we are presented. I should prefer that to the present alternative, which will be unfair to all English constituencies””.—[Official Report, Commons; 14/12/76; col. 1474.]" The honourable Member for West Lothian listened carefully and attended all the way through. He then produced the West Lothian question. Now, that issue is not just a prospect but a reality. I note that my honourable friend in the other place, Sir George Young, in the debate in Westminster Hall on 6 January 2004, came to exactly the same point, but having now experienced it. He said:"““It is impossible to defend or explain that to my constituents . . . whereby Scottish Members can impose top-up fees or foundation hospitals on my constituents but cannot impose those policies on their own constituencies. The position is indefensible and inequitable””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/1/04; col. 47WH.]" Interestingly, in the same debate and on the same point, a Scottish MP from the Scottish Nationalist Party said:"““It is a boil that needs to be lanced . . . The Scottish Parliament has changed absolutely everything””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/1/04; col. 49WH.]" Of course, it has, and my noble friend was right to point that out. So the issue has been around for a long time and has been pointed out, but it is the Government who have produced the situation for us. As my noble friend pointed out, it has been compounded by the fact that some Members representing Scottish constituencies are Ministers in departments affecting only England. Therefore, they are developing policies for English constituencies over which they have no control in Scotland. He referred to the present Secretary of State for Transport. Since 1997, there have been five people with Scottish backgrounds or constituencies who decide English roads but have no decisions themselves in the same way affecting their own constituencies or Scotland. One of those people happens to be a Member of this House, so I will exclude him, but four others have represented Scottish constituencies and have dealt with English transport matters. That rubs salt into the wound. Just imagine, if Ministers in the Scottish Parliament and important posts were drawn from English constituencies. What an outcry there would be if that happened north of the border. On the arguments against the proposal, I am really backing up some of the points made by my noble friend. First, as he rightly pointed out, we already have two sorts of MP. But I do not think that the case could have been better put than by the Scottish Nationalist MP, Peter Wishart, who in that debate acknowledged two classes of Members in the other place. He said:"““I am in a different class of Member from an English MP because I have no say on schools, hospitals and most of the public services in my constituency. I do, however—this is almost preposterous—have a say on schools, hospitals and public services in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire””," who was introducing the debate. He continued:"““That is patently unfair and increasingly untenable””—[Official Report, Commons; 6/1/04; col. 50WH.]" I agree with that. Secondly, there are the difficulties of drafting, to which reference has been made. Parliamentary procedures and legislative drafting have evolved to meet changing circumstances—one of the biggest in recent years being devolution. There has been much adaptation. I believe that we would have to do that again. It is certainly not beyond the wit of man, drafters and Ministers to deal with it. Some Bills which currently involve English and Scottish matters, particularly the Sewel aspect, exist, but that is a convenience in many ways for the Scottish Parliament. They would have to be split and we would have to accept that. Perhaps there would be more work for the Scottish Parliament, but I do not think that it has as big a load as the other place here. Some Bills clearly would have implications for Scotland and England. Here, I acknowledge and welcome the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Adams of Craigielea. I understood some of the points that she made. Her point about block grants is fair. There is not just an indirect effect; block grants legislation has a direct effect. I hope that the way in which we run the Barnett formula at present will change in a future case. But, for now, that is the way in which it works. It may be that the Speaker would be right to classify that not just as an English matter and that it would be a matter on which all Members would speak and vote because it directly affects Scottish constituencies. I do not believe that it is impossible to deal with the drafting. My noble friend dismissed ““indirect interest”” as almost ludicrous, and I agree with him; that is, the suggestion that some English measures—for example, tuition fees—may have an indirect effect on some constituents of Scottish MPs. But you can equally argue the other way around: some Scottish votes—for example, on tuition fees—have an implication for English Members and their constituents. I do not believe that that is a decent argument. What would the Scottish Parliament and people say if in order to accommodate this point for English MPs, English MPs were allowed to speak and vote on issues in the Scottish Parliament where they were able to argue the same indirect interest? I know that they would say, ““Absolutely not on””. Therefore, I do not think that is a good argument in this case. Next there is the dilemma that would arise were we to have a Labour majority in the Scottish Parliament and a Conservative majority in England. This is very much a realistic possibility to which we would have to learn to adjust. Just as the Scottish Parliament has adjusted to the coalition government, the Labour Scottish Executive would have to adjust to a Conservative government at Westminster—a point to which your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution drew attention in its recent report on how devolution was working out. After all, on English matters, that would be the wish of the electorate. An alternative would be an English Parliament, but I believe that my noble friend’s proposal is a much neater and much less expensive way of dealing with the issue. I turn finally to a point which has not been much raised in the debate so far—the evidence of the polls. Increasingly, as we get experience of how matters are working out now, it is clear that in England—according to the polls—a considerable majority of English people feel that it is unfair that Scottish MPs should be voting on English matters. Much more interesting, in a way, is that the same polls in Scotland indicate that the majority of Scottish people also feel that it is unfair to the people of England. The Scottish people have a great sense of fairness—except perhaps where their own personal interests are deeply effected—and I think it is time for those Scottish Labour MPs and ex Labour MPs who resist to listen to what their own voters think is fair. I conclude on this note. My noble friend referred to the answer of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine—““Don’t ask the question””. They do not want to ask the question because they do not have an answer to it—other than what is proposed in my noble friend’s Bill.