All that I can say is “Was that really worth it?” The hon. Gentleman has been a royal pain for the last 10 minutes.
In London we have a Mayor and an assembly, but we are ambitious to do more. The city still has too little control over its own destiny. Only 7% of all taxes raised from Londoners and London businesses are spent by the different levels of London government, whereas the figure is nearly 50% in New York. Labour has committed itself to devolving significant public service funding and responsibility to London’s government, as well as more fiscal autonomy. All that has added importance given the agreement among the leaders of the three main parties on a further package of devolution for Scotland.
Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Scotland published a Command Paper three weeks early. The Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have made a commitment to strengthening and empowering the Scottish Parliament. The Labour party will take part in the process under the leadership of Lord Smith of Kelvin, in a spirit of partnership and co-operation with the other parties. Every commitment that we have made must be honoured.
We accept that the devolution settlement has also thrown up anomalies in Westminster, and the question of how to ensure that there is an “English voice” in our legislative process is definitely one of them. That is why it is right for us to examine greater powers for English Members of Parliament to scrutinise legislation. However, on many levels and on many occasions, Parliament faces a situation that is similar to the West Lothian question. We have asymmetric devolution, both within the nations and between them. Let us take the London situation. As a London Member of Parliament, I can vote on transport issues in Yorkshire and in other parts of England, yet English MPs, even Yorkshiremen, cannot vote on transport issues in London as they are the responsibility of the Mayor. In a non-federal system such as ours, that is going to happen.