The north-east of England is not protected within that England formula. That is the point that I was making. I do indeed understand the Barnett formula, having been aware of it for many years and since Joel Barnett introduced it.
Let me return to devolving power. The likely vehicle for devolving power is the combined authority, the local enterprise partnership or some combination of the two. Every time we have devolved significant power within the UK, we have done so to a body we have designed in such a way that minority opinion is represented, including other political parties and rural areas. We have always used the proportional system in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London—in every case the Assembly is elected by a proportional system. However, there is a danger that, if we do not do something about the structure of combined authorities, we will have one-party states. In the north-east, neither Conservative nor Liberal Democrat opinion is represented in the leadership of the combined authority and rural opinion is under-represented, as it is in the local authority in Northumberland, where decisions are made for the benefit of the urban area, which do not work for rural areas—for example, decisions on transport for people to get to school or college. Therefore, further devolution of power within England is important to people in the north-east.
The third issue, which cannot be dismissed lightly, is the West Lothian question. English Members are not voting on matters of health and education in Scotland not because there is a sign over the door of the Lobby saying they cannot go in. It is because those powers are not dealt with here; they have been devolved elsewhere. The ideal solution to the West Lothian question is to devolve at least some of those powers within England, so that we are no longer trying to govern every detail of English life from the UK Parliament. Indeed we diminish its ability to serve as the UK Parliament if it spends a lot of time on that kind of detail.
There are exceptions to that. I do not believe there is an appetite to have different criminal law or property law in different parts of England, although there is a difference between England and Scotland in that regard. Therefore, there will never be a neat and perfect solution. Some devolution of legislative power may take place within the structure that exists in this place; some of the solutions that the McKay commission has put forward use that as a model. I suspect that there will be a combination—further devolution of power within England and a change in how we manage things in this House, so that, when it is behaving as a UK Parliament, it can focus its energies on that, and more English detail can be dealt with by English Members. However, in the minds of many people in the north-east, although that is important, it is perhaps not quite as important as ensuring that, in our region, we get some of the help
that Scotland has had financially to deal with the problems we have both faced, and as ensuring that devolution for Scotland enables the north-east to engage fully in a partnership with our neighbours across the border.
5.14 pm