Alistair Carmichael
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English Votes on English Laws
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Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the means by which the Government seeks to deliver the objectives outlined by the Leader of the House in his Statement on English Votes on English Laws.
I am exceptionally grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to hon. Members throughout the House for the support that they have given me in bringing this matter to the Floor of the House today. It is a matter that is genuinely urgent, given the timescale that has been presented to the House by the Government, although it need not necessarily have been so. The urgency is of the Government’s own making. The matter had been under consideration already and would benefit from further mature consideration.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I would have liked to put in to speak in this debate, but I have to return at 2 o’clock to Committee to consider the Education and Adoption Bill, which I believe I would be barred from participating in under the terms of the Government’s proposals. Does not the depth of the proposals mean that we should have proper, thorough parliamentary scrutiny of these matters, rather than the proposals being railroaded through in this unconstitutional manner?
Mr Carmichael
I am not entirely sure whether the hon. Gentleman is right that he would be barred from that, certainly at this point, but I can see that that is the logic of where we eventually go, although I suspect that logic might be resisted by the Government and Opposition Whips Offices because I know from my own experience that getting people to serve on such Committees is not always easy. It will be interesting to see what influence the Government business managers bring to bear on that in the fullness of time.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Is there not a further reason why we would charge the Government with haste on this issue? Many of us on the Opposition Benches—a growing number, I hope—think the impact of the Scottish referendum will be to move this House to an English Parliament, with Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That ought to be at least part of the discussion, rather than being excluded from the discussion, as the Government have done.
Mr Carmichael
Rather than saying that that should be part of the discussion, I think it comes to the very heart of the discussion. I fully accept that the devolution process that was started in 1999 has created within the United Kingdom a number of anomalies. I entirely understand the concerns felt by right hon. and hon. Members representing constituencies in England, in particular. In order to address these anomalies, we need mature considered measures, instead of replacing the existing anomalies with further anomalies, as I very much fear the Government are about to do.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Surely it is true to say that discussions about future devolutionary change can go on. What is proposed is a change in the Standing Orders simply to give a veto to the representatives of the people affected. That does not lead to an English Parliament or to English initiative; it finally brings a little justice into the system. It is based on what we had in our manifesto, and it should be proceeded with quickly.
Mr Carmichael
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Indeed, I suspect that I am more grateful than his colleagues on the Treasury Bench are, because he has nailed one point very early on: this does constitute a veto. As a federalist, I have no problem with vetoes, but if they are to be part of our parliamentary procedure we have to be prepared to have them going in different directions. The veto now being anticipated for English Members of Parliament would not be available to Scottish Members of Parliament, because they are governed by the Sewell convention and legislative consent measures. That is only the subject of a convention; it is not a veto. That is what I mean when I say that the Government, by bringing their proposal forward in this manner, risk creating further anomalies. The anomaly is one not of detail, but of fundamental constitutional principle. Were the House to bring together its collective mind, I do not doubt that we could eventually find a solution. Perhaps we would reach a compromise that was a little messy, but it is something we could reach. However, we are not going to reach that in the one day that will be offered to us to debate the changes to the Standing Orders.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Is the right hon. Gentleman not ignoring history? Scotland has had special arrangements in this House since the Victorian period. From 1948 Bills could be dealt with by the Scottish Grand Committee, and that was expanded in the 1990s, as he knows very well, and eventually Scotland ended up with its own Parliament. He cannot stop some change on the basis that it is not the final change.
Mr Carmichael
I am by no means resistant to some change, and I will return to that point shortly. The hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that the Scottish Grand Committee could debate Bills, but it could not vote on or amend them. That is how Grand Committees work. They are a perfectly sensible mechanism by which debate can be conducted by those who have the most direct interest, although they are perhaps a little redundant in this age of devolution, but they are by no means an attack on the fundamental principle that once we leave the Committee Rooms and enter this Chamber we are all equal and have the same right to participate in votes.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the biggest danger facing the Union is not Scottish nationalism, but English nationalism? If we fail to deal with English votes on English laws in a timely manner, as set out in our manifesto, which the people voted for, English nationalism will see off our Union.
Mr Carmichael
I absolutely agree 100% with the hon. Gentleman. The threat comes from English nationalism. However—it pains me to say this—that English nationalism is to be found on the Treasury Bench. The Leader of the House, when he came to the Dispatch Box last week, took great pains to say that he was speaking as a Conservative and Unionist. I hate to say it, but he has brought forward something that no Unionist should. It is perfectly understandable for people in England to identify a national interest in response to a mood of Scottish nationalism forming north of the border, but the answer is not to meet it with more nationalism. The answer, I suggest, is a proper federal structure across the whole United Kingdom.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, as an historian, you will know that the history of these islands is one of constitutional abnormalities. We are a nonsense, but somehow it works. It works because in this Chamber we are all equal, no matter where in the United Kingdom we come from. Therefore, to destroy that is nonsense.
Mr Carmichael
This is where I will try to make some progress. I have been generous in taking interventions so far.
As I said yesterday, I want today’s debate to focus on the means by which the Government are seeking to achieve English votes for English laws, rather than the principle of English votes for English laws itself. As I have said, I am not without sympathy for the principle. I think that ultimately the solution will be for the people of England to decide what they want their constitutional future to be. Are they to have an English Parliament? If so, they should have an English Parliament, and this is the United Kingdom Parliament. Are they to have a network of regional Assemblies or something of that sort? That is a decision for the people of England, not something that we should seek to shoehorn into our Standing Orders.
My concern about what is proposed is that it is the most modest of proposals. It does not deal with the over-centralisation of power in Whitehall that blights people in England. It does not deal with the lack of proportionality. It does not deal with the fact that there is only one UK Independence party MP for 4 million votes. Those issues are also a democratic affront that require urgent consideration by those on the Treasury Bench, yet they do not seem to be attended to by the determination to introduce changes to the Standing Orders before the House rises for the summer recess.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
What does the right hon. Gentleman say to my constituents who see the inherent unfairness of a situation in which he can vote on education matters affecting my constituency but I cannot vote on education matters affecting his? My constituents might quite rightly accuse him of wanting to have his porridge and eat it, and that is unfair to England.
Mr Carmichael
Hopefully that is the last time I take an intervention intended for a local press release. Had the hon. Gentleman been listening, he would have heard me say a number of times already that I completely understand that point and am sympathetic to it. It is an issue that needs to be resolved by the people of England and for the people of England, but not by trashing the Union and the United Kingdom Parliament, of which we are all Members. I do not know what the ultimate solution will be, but I wish the people of England every bit as much joy in that debate as we in Scotland have had over the past 50 years. It is a debate that they must now have if we are to remain part of this family of nations.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government, by ignoring Sir William McKay’s advice and proposing to give some MPs a veto, are creating a two-tier system of MPs and attempting to create a new Parliament by the backdoor?
Mr Carmichael
I am afraid that is exactly what is happening. The Government are trying to create an English Parliament within the United Kingdom Parliament, instead of doing the long and difficult thing that we had to do in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is a real threat to the United Kingdom if MPs from England regard this place as an English Parliament, rather than a United Kingdom Parliament. That used to be what it meant to be a Unionist. That is why I lay the charge at those on the Treasury Bench that they risk losing the right to call themselves Unionists.
Mr Carmichael
I am going to make some progress, because the range of voices heard in this debate should be as wide as possible and I want to allow as many Members as possible to make speeches.
The Government brought forward a number of supporting papers with the Leader of the House’s statement last week. They are helpful, in as much as they give some detail on the proposals, but they give no indication of what they are seeking to achieve and where this will ultimately take us. The question of the double majority was raised earlier by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart). It does constitute a veto. If we are to have a double majority, that means, in effect, that we will have two tiers of MP. We cannot have a double majority without having two tiers of MP; it is illogical nonsense to insist otherwise. Once we have crossed that threshold—crossed the constitutional Rubicon—we have to wonder where it will ultimately take us.
Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
Is it not the case that we already have a two-tier system of MPs in Parliament—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]—in that some Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies refuse to take their seats and yet are paid allowances by this Government?
Mr Carmichael
I do not think that is quite the kind of two-tier system that Conservative Members were cheering. The right hon. Gentleman is correct in his analysis. An appropriate change could be made to Standing Orders for that, because it is perfectly—
Mr Carmichael
Forgive me—I really do need to make some progress, or nobody else is going to get to speak.
That would be an appropriate use of the way in which the Chamber responds to issues through Standing Orders. Matters of constitutional change, by convention—and rightly so—are taken on the Floor of this House at all stages, and likewise in the other place. They are given the fullest consideration because it is understood that they become exposed only with proper debate and scrutiny.
One of the novel aspects of the proposal that the Leader of the House laid before the House last week is the extension of these matters to Finance Bills. That opens up a whole range of questions that were not answered by him at the Dispatch Box or by the papers that he placed in the Vote Office. Finance Bills are, and have been for a long time, treated differently by this House. The fact that they are considered only by this House and not by the other place is the obvious difference, but there are also differences in the way in which they are introduced and considered in a mix of time spent here on the Floor of the House and in the Committee Room upstairs.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Are not Finance Bills a classic example of the way in which our unwritten constitution has developed? We trust Governments to be careful with it and to nurture it, whereas in this process we see a Government lighting the blue touch paper on the Union and not being careful with our unwritten constitution. Should not this House say, “Take care, take time, reflect”?
Mr Carmichael
That is exactly what I hope this debate will achieve, because I know that the concerns about the constitutionality and the process of this are shared by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Sir William Cash
I am exceedingly grateful. The problem with the proposition that the right hon. Gentleman is putting forward is that it ignores the fact that there are already two classes of functions that were passed by the United Kingdom Parliament, which created not two tiers of membership in this House but two functions as between the Scottish Parliament, with its devolved functions, and those in the United Kingdom, which have been left swinging in the wind. Does he not accept that?
Mr Carmichael
I do, but the hon. Gentleman must surely accept that what is being proposed through changing Standing Orders is not an appropriate way of addressing it. As I have already said times without number, I fully accept that several anomalies have been created by devolution, starting in 1999, but the answer to that is not to trash our own procedures in this House.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Carmichael
No; let me make a bit of progress because I want to stay on the question of Finance Bills.
Even with the measure of devolution of some taxes—I stress “some”—I would suggest that the setting of the Government budget as a whole is, again, treated differently from the passing of legislation in individual policy areas. Will the Leader of the House explain how his proposed new system is going to work for the consideration of estimates? For example, will estimates debates continue to be a vehicle for Select Committees, and how will that work when Select Committees draw their members from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which will be the case in this Parliament, as we can see from the Order Papers for today and and tomorrow?
This goes to the point that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made about serving on Committees. I do not doubt that the Committee concerned, with good will, and perhaps even a measure of discussion among the usual channels, could deal with this, but the anomaly has been created and as yet the Government have no answer to it. Where is this going to take us in future? How are Members of Parliament from areas of the country that exercise devolved powers going to interact with Select Committees? If the principle of veto is to be accepted, and if members of the Health Committee or the Education Committee, for example, are to be drawn only from England and Wales, I very much look forward to seeing how the Government are going to set up the Scottish Affairs and Northern Ireland Affairs Committees—good luck to them on that one.
If the principle of the veto is to work, it has to work both ways. For the Scottish Parliament, that means the end of the Sewel convention and the end of the conventional sense—the classic sense—of parliamentary sovereignty as it has been understood in this Chamber in the past, because if we give a veto to the Scottish Parliament on legislative consent motions, then that is the end of Dicey’s classic definition of sovereignty. I am not too unhappy about that—I am quite relaxed about it—but if the House is to undertake something of this sort, surely it requires more than the debate that we are being offered.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I think that the right hon. Gentleman misses the key point about this being done through Standing Orders, which is that Standing Orders can be suspended by the House in a specific instance or permanently, and that therefore the sovereignty of this House remains unaffected.
Mr Carmichael
No. If we are to take this to its logical conclusion—that is to say, to give a veto to the Scottish Parliament on areas that would currently be dealt with by the Sewel convention—then that will not be reclaimed by Standing Orders; it is the end of the supreme sovereignty of this House. That is why we need a sensible, more reasoned debate for which Standing Orders will always be inadequate.
Mr Carmichael
No, I am sorry—I have been generous with my time.
The logic is that we should be considering this, if it is to be considered at all, by virtue of primary legislation. I know that that brings concerns particularly to those on the Treasury Bench, and that the Leader of the House will say that it raises questions of justiciability and reviewability of decisions that would ultimately have to be taken by you, Mr Speaker.
Jesse Norman
I am grateful. Is there not a clear distinction between two things? The first is whether this should be introduced by means of Standing Orders, and the second is what procedure, or method of reflection, the House may go through in deciding how and whether to adopt it, and under what circumstances. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was drawing the House’s attention to the latter point and the apparent lack of a timetable for proper consultation on this issue.
Mr Carmichael
The two propositions are not mutually exclusive. There are elements that could be capable of remedy through Standing Orders if we were to have a proper debate. The Government’s proposal goes too far, too fast. In principle, other changes may be possible, as we discussed in government before the general election. I do not completely exclude the possibility of proceeding in that way, but going as far as the Government want to us to go, and within their timescale, brings with it an attendant level of risk that I would consider to be irresponsible in these circumstances.
The last Government discussed whether the proposal could be addressed in a single Bill. If there is a will in the House to consider how it could be done, that would be a much more sensible way of doing it. The Government are saying that we should do it for a year and that it should then be reviewed by the Procedure Committee. I hold that Committee in very high esteem, but the only thing that would happen under that process is an examination of how the system had worked. It would not put a dangerous genie back in the bottle after it had been let out. I think we all know that that is the political reality.
Personally, I am quite relaxed about the use of primary legislation and the justiciability of decisions then made by Mr Speaker. I do not think that anybody in this House should be making any decision that would not stand up to judicial scrutiny. However, if that is to be the block, let us have a proper debate, because it must be possible to use primary legislation to deal with that very point. Surely it is necessary to have a proper description of the boundaries of judicial review and any proscriptions. Frankly, this House has never undertaken such an exercise. Judicial review as a body of law has been allowed to grow like Topsy, led by the judiciary itself.
I am aware that I have already taken up quite a lot of time, albeit with interventions.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Does not the presence of so many Tory Members—they are considerably greater in number today than they have been for sittings on the Scotland Bill—and the amount of animated interventions they are making indicate the need for a very full and proper debate?
Mr Carmichael
I believe so. It also highlights the need for a debate that goes well beyond the walls of this Chamber. The debate needs to be conducted throughout the country and to take in not just the political parties, but the Churches, the trade unions and civic England in the widest possible sense.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Carmichael
No, I will not give way.
That was how we built the consensus in Scotland that then led to the creation of a Scottish Parliament. Ultimately, that is what the people of England are going to have to do. They are not entitled to use the United Kingdom Parliament as a proxy for an English Parliament.
That brings me to my final point. In Scotland last year we went through a painful process that ultimately led to the people of Scotland deciding to remain part of this United Kingdom. We did it on the basis that we are all equal participants in this Union. I made those arguments in good faith and I believed at the time that the Conservatives did so, too. It is difficult for them to sustain that proposition if they insist on proceeding in this way.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Chris Grayling)
I am pleased to have a further opportunity to set out the Government’s plans for strengthening the Union by providing fairness for England.
At the centre of the plans I announced last Thursday is the concept of fairness for all four countries of our United Kingdom. Fairness requires that further devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales be accompanied by a louder voice for England at Westminster on English matters. If we are devolving tax rates to other countries of the United Kingdom—the House is currently legislating to do so—it is only fair that Members of Parliament in those constituencies affected by that change have the decisive say over any tax rates that apply in their constituencies. If Members of the Scottish Parliament are in future to decide a Scottish rate of income tax, is it actually unfair that English Members of Parliament, or English and Welsh MPs, or English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs, have the decisive say over tax rates that affect their constituencies?
Mr Alistair Carmichael
Will the Leader of the House tell us, then, whether it is now Government policy to end the Sewel convention on legislative consent motions and to give the Scottish Parliament a veto when it does not consent?
Chris Grayling
Not at this moment, no. We have an established method of using legislative consent motions. It is not unreasonable that we should use that same device in this House when an English-only matter affects English-only constituencies. Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that he should resist the idea of a legislative consent motion approved by English Members of Parliament on matters that affect only their constituencies?
Chris Grayling
Let me cover some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, and I will then give way again.
The right hon. Gentleman’s first point was about two-tier MPs. He and other Members on the Opposition Benches are concerned that the proposals will create two tiers of MP or will impinge on the equal status of Members of Parliament. That is simply not right. All Members of Parliament are equal, and all of them will be able to continue to debate and vote on every piece of legislation passing through the House of Commons. It is simply incorrect to say that any Member of this House will be excluded from voting on or debating any piece of legislation. That is not what the reforms say: it is absolutely clear that everyone will be able to continue to participate.
Mr Alistair Carmichael
What, then, is the point of the right hon. Gentleman’s double majority?
Chris Grayling
The point is that if a measure affects wholly and exclusively English or English and Welsh Members of Parliament, they should have the decisive say on whether it is passed. Such a measure cannot be agreed without a majority of the United Kingdom Parliament, but nor can it be agreed without a majority of the MPs whose constituencies are affected by the change.
Mr Walker
It is for the hon. Gentleman to make that point. As I said, I want to keep out of the politics. I know that that is difficult for a Member of Parliament, but I will try my best.
I have briefly covered my concerns about Report, which I believe are shared by other colleagues I have spoken to.
Mr Alistair Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman talks about more time being available for Report. Would not the guarantee of that be a House business committee? Is that not the logical conclusion of where we are heading? In his many discussions with the Leader of the House, has he detected any enthusiasm from those on the Treasury Bench for that proposition?
Mr Walker
The right hon. Gentleman makes a wonderful intervention, because I am a huge fan of a House business committee, but he will recall that he was in the previous Cabinet, which did not bring forward such a committee. If the Government are minded to support one, they would obviously have my support in that ambition.
Mr Alistair Carmichael
First, may I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) on a truly magnificent maiden speech? He was unfortunate that his time was limited, but I am sure the House will hear more from him in the future.
If there were any doubt about the need for this debate, it has surely been dispelled by the way in which it has been conducted and by its content. Several issues have come to light. First, the Government are going to create two tiers of MP: that will be the inevitable consequence of their double majority. Secondly, English Members of Parliament will have a veto, but, according to the Leader of the House, a veto will not be afforded to the Scottish Parliament, because the Government insist on the continuation of the Sewel convention.
The most important issue, and that which causes most concern, is the politicisation of your role, Mr Speaker, because you will be put in the position of having to arbitrate on these questions and then not have to give any reasons for your decision. Surely that means that we will be left to speculate on the Chair’s reasons, and such speculation cannot be sensible or, indeed, healthy in a political forum. We will be excluded not from debate, but from decisions. That is no way to run a Parliament.
The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) said that she was acting on the resentment of her constituents. I do not doubt that that resentment is real, but I invite her to reflect on whether that is really the proper basis on which to proceed with changes of this sort. What she is supporting will merely reinforce that resentment, rather than address the underlying reasons for it.
I am not going to burst into song, but if I were I would turn to the late great Johnny Nash, who said:
“There are more questions than answers
And the more I find out, the less I know”.
I am afraid that that is where we are.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Question is going to be put anyway. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman had finished his speech at any rate.