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

My Lords, it gives me particular pleasure to add my very warm congratulations to my noble friend Lady Adams of Craigielea on her wise and entirely persuasive maiden speech. In bringing this Bill before us, the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, has, I think, offered the wrong answer to the wrong question. I believe that this measure would weaken Parliament and would tend towards the break-up of the United Kingdom. Parliament, as the noble Lord noted, has been here before. In the late 1970s there were endless debates about the dilemma of devolution. One attempt to resolve that dilemma was the so-called ““in and out””remedy which the Bill parades before us. Contrary to the wishes of the government of the time, an elaborate version of the noble Lord’s central proposition was inserted in the 1978 devolution legislation, whereby there should be a further House of Commons vote after 14 days where a Bill which,"““does not relate to or concern Scotland””" should be carried in a vote in which the participation of Scottish MPs was decisive. The same compelling objections were advanced to the ““in and out”” solution then as ought to be advanced today. It is impossibly complicated and would lead to disputes about which Bills should fall into the relevant category. Whatever advice the Speaker might take it would be invidious for the Speaker to be required to arbitrate in strongly contested, strongly politicised definitional issues, and having to do so would weaken his perceived impartiality and authority. It would lead to an instability damaging to the Government. I am not sure whether the noble Lord was ever a Whip but I invite him to imagine attempting to govern on a basis of different formal majorities or minorities in the House of Commons. William Hague floated the ““in and out”” remedy again in 1999, with his slogan,"““English votes on English laws””." That was not a serious proposal for better government; it was a device to attempt to crank up English patriotism and hostility to devolution, and it did not impress. The most profound objection to the proposal in the Bill remains that it would create different classes of Members of Parliament. Enoch Powell said in the earlier debates that Members of Parliament are,"““in the best sense of the word, peers in every respect and sit on a basis of equality of responsibility and rights””." The Bill would end that equality. To divide Members of Parliament along national lines, to disqualify Members of Parliament from taking part in great swathes of parliamentary business, to create a situation in which the whole House of Commons should deliberate and vote together only on reserved matters would lead to a fragmentation of Parliament, and if Parliament fragments, the United Kingdom will fragment. The noble Lord’s measure would be a disaster.