It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). He knows that I have admired him as a parliamentarian since I was first elected to the House almost 22 years ago. His standard of contribution today came up to the same level.
I congratulate Scotland on the turnout for the Scottish referendum. People said it was a colossal outcome, and at the same time a lesson to the rest of us in the United Kingdom—84.59% of people in Scotland voted in the referendum. But it is not quite such a lesson, because
when I was first elected to this place in 1992, I was elected with an even larger turnout in my constituency of 85.9%. Why? Because I was elected in a three-party marginal in which most people thought that their vote mattered. That is the key to turnout.
I congratulate those who brought forward the debate. My first point is to the nationalists. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Front Bench. I served with him in the Welsh Office when last we exercised all of the territorial powers before the Assembly was created. I then led the Conservative party’s opposition in Wales to the establishment of the Assembly. I reiterate that the outcome of the vote that was taken on establishing a Welsh Assembly was a majority of 0.4%. Yet the Conservative party, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend and with my support as spokesman in Wales, fully accepted the outcome of that vote, narrow as it was. The vote in Scotland is 10.6%. That is a very clear outcome, and may I say to our nationalist friends that they would be wise to accept the outcome as well?
We know that we are now engaged in a debate on the offer of powers, but from my perspective, it is important that while we are considering the offer of powers, my right hon. Friend should look for mechanisms to ensure that we get accountability to go with them. I say that because at the moment the computer screen in my office is receiving lots of messages urging me to be here tomorrow to ensure that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is repealed because of its impact on my constituents. My constituents are in Cardiff, and they are not impacted by that Act in any way because they are in Wales and the Act applies in England. Is it not interesting that Unison is telling people that the Act applies in my constituency, and that, after all the debate in Prime Minister’s questions between the two sides of the House on the performance of the health service in England and Wales, in my constituency, a majority of people still think that health is the responsibility of the Westminster Parliament? That demonstrates that we have not got it right when it comes to accountability.
The other unaddressed question is the West Lothian question. That goes back to the issue raised by Tam Dalyell, but it was also raised by my former law firm partner, the distinguished Back-Bencher Leo Abse, the former Member for Pontypool. He said that there was a basic unfairness there that needed to be addressed. It is unsatisfactory that with all the changes that we have seen, and all the additional powers for Wales that we Welsh Conservatives have supported ever since the Assembly was established—the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) knows that—nothing has been done to address this unanswered question. For that reason, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is quite right: the issue must be addressed. It is not English-centric to say that; it is pointing out that we have a system of asymmetrical devolution, and that because these issues relating to England have not been addressed, we have gone down a road that, just a few weeks ago, might have led to the break-up of the United Kingdom. We must not leave the question unaddressed for the future.
3.16 pm