If you believe as I do, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the United Kingdom should continue for another 100 or perhaps 200 years, it needs to be built on two solid principles. The first principle is union and the second is devolution. Without those two in tandem, the United Kingdom will be under threat. It is important that we examine the motion before us today in those terms. I suspect that we are not taking devolution as seriously as we should if all that we are talking about is votes on the West Lothian question or the Barnett formula. There is a bigger agenda. Devolution is diminished if we talk only about those two issues. They are a couple of per cent. of devolution for most of us, and for most of us in England, too. Scotland has rightly had a lot of air time, a lot of legislative time and a referendum, but now it is time for England to come to the devolution party, and that is what I want to talk about today.
The Liaison Committee met this morning, and we had in front of us the Prime Minister. The subject was devolution. There were times during that discussion when I felt that the Prime Minister was too chilled out for his own good about devolution. There was a lack of urgency. It was almost as if the problem had been resolved because a referendum had taken place in Scotland. He used expressions such as, “We need to settle this down now,” or, “There is no need to rush these things.” The Scottish referendum was important inside Scotland of course, but outside it allowed us to realise what we could do with a level of engagement and participation that should excite us all given some of the threats to our broader political system in the Union. There are risks.
It is only eight or nine weeks since there was a 400,000-vote difference between Scotland staying in the Union and the Union dissolving. That was just a few weeks ago, yet some of us seem to act as if the problem is over and everything is back to normal, and we have gone back to our default position. Similarly, 23 million people did not participate in the last general election. That is more than the Labour and Conservative vote added together. To imagine that there are not risks and problems in our political system that need to be addressed and can be partially addressed, even largely addressed, by devolution is a dream.
Also since the general election we have seen the rise of an extreme right-wing party. It is polling up to 25% of the popular vote in opinion polls. These are serious issues that can be addressed at least in part and often in large part by giving power back to people, by engaging them in the political system, by involving them and by ensuring that they feel they own their democracy rather than want to vote for an apolitical party.
As for the West Lothian question, it seems strange that the very thing that led a lot of people to be turned off politics and to be lured by separatism is replaced in our thinking by something that is relatively small beer. It is a Standing Orders question. It is a Westminster-bubble
question. I am sorry that the Prime Minister, after this fantastic adventure in democracy in Scotland, was on the doorstep of No. 10 Downing street as the ink on the result was barely dry, talking about English votes for English laws rather than the possibilities of further devolution for the rest of the United Kingdom. Let us deal with the West Lothian question but see it for the relatively small issue it is in the broader aspect of devolution.
On the Barnett formula, of course there will have to be a method of equalisation and redistribution of some description. We are a family of nations and we need to look after each other, just as we do in equalisation in local government.