I support the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I thought he took the Committee patiently through a number of important amendments tabled by Opposition parties, and he explained why some of them are needless because the Government are perfectly well intentioned in relation to the other parts of the United Kingdom and wish to consult very widely, and how some of them would be positively damaging because they are designed as wrecking amendments to impede, delay or even prevent the implementation of the wishes of the people of the United Kingdom.
My disappointment about both the Labour and the Scottish National party amendments is that there is absolutely no mention of England in any of them. To have a happy Union—I am sure the Scottish nationalists can grasp this point—it is very important that the process and solution are fair to England as well as to Scotland. I of course understand why the Scottish nationalists, who want to break up the Union, would deliberately leave England out of their considerations of their model for consulting all parts of the United Kingdom. That is deliberate politics, as part of their cause to try to find another battering ram against the Union.
In the case of Labour, however, I find that extraordinarily insouciant and careless. The Labour party is now just an England and Wales party, with only one representative left in Scotland and none in Northern Ireland. Yet it seems to be ignoring the main source of its parliamentary power and authority because it does not say anything in its amendments that would give a special status to England alongside Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and provide proper consultation throughout all parts of the UK. The Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman)—she spoke very eloquently, and in a very friendly way—did not mention the word “England”, and she had no suggestion about how England should be properly represented and England’s views properly taken into account in the process that is about to unfold.