I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the £30 billion being devolved from Whitehall to the cities and regions as “scraps”. If he can give examples of just five English-only Bills in the past couple of years that his constituents are not happy about, I will be happy to respond directly to his points.
It was disappointing that, within minutes of the final votes being counted in the Scottish referendum, the Prime Minister was on the steps of Downing street setting out a top-down response to the biggest vote of no confidence in the Westminster elite for a generation. At the moment when we needed a Prime Minister to show some statesmanship, the day after our country voted to stay together, what we got instead was a short-term, partisan fix that had more to do with fighting UKIP than what was in the best interests of the UK.
The Tories used to be a one nation party—it is after all the Conservative and Unionist party—but now it is a party of narrow, sectional interest, desperately chasing UKIP votes. There was no prior consultation with the Deputy Prime Minister, no discussions with the Leader of the Opposition, and no views of the British people were taken. Let me be clear—a Cabinet sub-committee, meeting behind closed doors in Westminster, made up of MPs and led by the Leader of the House is not the way to go about this. The country deserves better than Westminster closing ranks. It certainly deserves better than the Executive dictating to the country what the solution should be. The Government have spectacularly failed to address the concerns of millions of people, who are turned off by such a blatant tactical manoeuvre.