On Thursday morning, the Smith Commission, established to advise on promised devolution to the Scottish Parliament in the wake of September’s referendum, delivered its report. It is vital that we respect the firm decision of the Scottish people to remain in the United Kingdom—and their clear wish for greater control of Scotland’s affairs. Lord Smith’s report provides for wide-ranging powers to be transferred, including significant control over taxation. The Scottish people can be confident in their ability to build the society they want, within a strong and cohesive United Kingdom.
The implications of these changes will, however, resonate far beyond the borders of Scotland. The time has come to solve —once and for all— the so-called “West Lothian question”. As Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP for West Lothian, put it in 1977, “how long will English constituencies and… Members tolerate… Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Ireland? Such a situation cannot conceivably endure for long.” Yet this state of affairs has now endured for over three decades, and has only been made more pressing by the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1998. The time has come for the people of England to be given control of English policy, particularly in relation to exclusively non-Scottish Motions on the Budget.
English anger at the Barnett Formula, under which the current system provides around £1,500 more per capita to Scotland than England, will only be exacerbated if Scotland is unilaterally given control over its affairs. The 1.6m who voted for independence represent only 2.5 per cent of the UK population as a whole; it is ludicrous that they have been allowed to blackmail the Government into perpetuating an outdated and unfair system. If the Scottish National Party wishes to be allowed self-government, it must learn self-responsibility—and that it cannot expect to receive such preposterously preferential treatment.
I am, therefore, extremely disappointed that Lord Smith’s report makes no mention of the need for English votes for English laws. While I understand and appreciate the frustration of the Scottish people at perceived delays and double-dealings, it is unacceptable that further powers can be devolved to Scotland without a new deal for England. The report’s statement that the powers agreed for Scotland should “not be conditional on the conclusion of other political negotiations elsewhere in the UK” risks creating an unfair and fundamentally unworkable system, where England is treated as a second rate partner in the union she has done so much to create and sustain over the centuries.
In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, I urged the Prime Minister to make English votes for English laws an absolute priority, and suggested to him how this could be achieved. Introducing the necessary changes is simple: it is well within the scope of the House of Commons to regulate its own procedure through amendments to its Standing Orders, as I proposed at the Chequers meeting in September 2014, to William Hague’s Committee, and in my proposed amendment to the Scotland Bill in 1997. I would strongly urge the Prime Minister to make sure that by whatever means the issue of English votes for English laws is secured by a change to Standing Orders.
It was always going to be the case that the Labour Party—who might have to depend on Scottish MPs to form a majority—was going to oppose such measures, not from principal, but narrow political self-interest. That Labour can believe it right to impose policies on a people who have clearly demonstrated their opposition is indicative of the worst kind of anti-democratic sentiment. It falls, therefore, to the Conservative Party to fight for the rights of the English people. I was heartened by the Prime Minister’s determination to tie further Scottish devolution to a fair settlement for England; I am now concerned that this appears to have been abandoned.
It is vital that, as my colleagues Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood and I have insisted, the West Lothian question be settled before the election. We cannot risk a self-serving Labour government burying English rights in the name of power; we cannot risk a fair deal for England falling foul of any future coalition agreement. We cannot, and will not, accept the continued sidelining of the English people. One of the great issues of our time, one that lies at the heart of our democracy, of fair representation for all the peoples of our great union, must not be allowed to be a victim of petty politics. The time has come for the Prime Minister to take a stand on this issue, and make it clear that the entire weight of the Conservative Party will be thrown behind achieving a deal for England in tandem with transfer of powers to Scotland.
