Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Christopher Chope

Friday 11th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart]

I was about to give an example of why it is still extremely valid to address the West Lothian question. Last May’s general election did not produce a parliamentary majority for any one party, but it did produce a majority in England for the Conservative party; the Conservatives won a clear overall majority of the seats in England. I accept that no party commanded an overall majority so we had to proceed to a coalition Government, but an alternative coalition to the current one could have been found, such as the “rainbow option” of Labour Members, Liberal Democrats, nationalists, Ulster Members and independents. In that case, the people of England who had voted clearly for a Conservative Government would have been denied that Government, and we would, I think, have entered uncharted constitutional waters. I think there would have been a strong uprising in England on the basis that the will of the English voters had been thwarted. That situation did not arise, but it could have, so this is a very live issue.

A similar situation may arise in this Parliament over a vote to reverse the ban on hunting. That ban applies only to England and Wales from a vote in this House, because the matter is devolved entirely to the Scottish Parliament. Let us suppose there was a clear majority among English and Welsh Members to reverse that ban, but in the House as a whole, with the addition of Scottish Members, there was a wish to keep the law as it is. Why should Scottish Members be able to influence the decision in England or in England and Wales? That situation could arise and, although it might not be the most dominant issue in our postbags, we have to provide for that eventuality.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Will he also consider what might happen in this review that we have been promised? What happens if the commission recommends changing the arrangements to answer the West Lothian question, but that is then unrepresentative of English opinion?

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend raises an intriguing possibility. I hope that the commission does report, but we cannot move to a new arrangement without the agreement of those in the existing system; that is part of our process of constitutional evolution. I hope that we do get that commission and I gently encourage my Front-Bench colleagues to speed it up, because I will wholeheartedly support it.

I wish to discuss an intriguing point made by a former Secretary of State for Scotland in the previous Government, Helen Liddell. It relates to a separate issue but it makes the argument well. When we were debating whether the United Kingdom should join the euro, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), set out five tests by which we should judge whether it was appropriate for the United Kingdom to do so. She made the point that a sixth test should form part of the overall considerations, which was the opportunity cost of not joining: was there a cost to the United Kingdom of not joining the euro? Similarly, we should consider the opportunity cost of not addressing the West Lothian question because if it is left unchecked at some point it will come back to undermine the Union. As a Unionist, that is the last thing that I want. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) was correct to say that this is an evolutionary process. I did not have the benefit of being tutored by Professor Bogdanor, but I was always taught by the equally eminent Professor Michael Rush at the university of Exeter that the British constitution is a product of evolution, not revolution. We should proceed on that basis, but that should not preclude us from turning our minds to this issue.

Theoretically, there are three perfect solutions to the West Lothian question, although I believe that we should reject them because they have other consequences that are either impractical or undesirable. The first option is that the Union ends, which is the wish of the Scottish National party, whose Members are clearly here in excessive number to debate this matter. They do have a perfect option, because under their solution the number of Scottish Members in this House would be zero and the West Lothian question would therefore not arise. However, for all sorts of economic, cultural and social reasons, I do not wish the Union to end.

The second option is to go back to the arrangement that was in place before we had the Scottish Parliament, either by abolishing that Parliament or by following the intriguing suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) that Members of this House who represent Scottish constituencies should then form the Scottish Parliament and on certain days—for example, Wednesdays and Thursdays—only English Members would debate in this place. I fear that that is not a practical option at the moment. There is certainly no appetite in Scotland for reversing the Scottish Parliament, and as it was set up by a referendum it can be undone only by a referendum. That may become an option at some point, but I do not see it as a viable option now. Nevertheless, the suggestion would provide a neat solution to the West Lothian question.

The third option is to move to a fully federal United Kingdom, with one United Kingdom Parliament legislating on the big national issues—the economy, international affairs, defence and so on—and the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and a body for England then dealing, on an equal basis, with the issues affecting those areas. Such a system works perfectly well in Germany, Australia, Canada and many other countries, but the problem would be how to solve the “English question” in a federal situation.

One option would be to have a separate English Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington said, and as others have argued, the difficulty with that is that England would represent more than 80% of the population and more than 80% of the gross domestic product in one unit. I cannot think of a stable modern democracy with an advanced economy where there is such an overwhelming dominant part in a federation. Any other country with a federal system contains two or more big states that balance each other out. For example, Canada contains Ontario and Quebec, and Germany contains Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. If England were to be a separate entity in a federal system, the arrangement would have too much of an imbalance.

The other option would be to atomise England into regions—for example, the north-east, the south-west, Greater London and so on. There may be various permutations, but there is simply no appetite in England for that, even in the part of England where there was, allegedly, the highest demand for a regional government—the north-east. When people there were given the option of a regional government a few years ago, they overwhelmingly rejected it. In addition, we would face enormous difficulty in dividing England up. Our debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill have included an argument about a cross-border constituency involving Cornwall and Devon. Goodness knows what would happen if we tried to draw a boundary involving Gloucestershire, Cornwall, Dorset and other areas to constitute “the south-west of England”. I simply do not believe that federalism is a viable option in this country.

All that brings us to an imperfect answer, as we are not going to create a perfect solution to the West Lothian question unless we go down one of those three avenues. The Bill is a helpful first step in paving the way to finding that answer. I have looked at all the options over many years, although not for as long as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington. I have ruled out some and I do take seriously the comment made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we would encounter difficulties if we started excluding Members from voting on particular bits of legislation. I strongly hold the view that every Member in this House is equal and when we start tinkering with that, we enter dangerous waters.

I do believe, however, that there is a solution and I am happy to endorse the one proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend: some form of a double majority. In such a system no Member would be excluded from participating in a debate or voting on a particular Bill or part of a Bill, but there should then be a requirement that if that Bill applied wholly or exclusively to one part of the United Kingdom, an additional majority would be required among Members from that area.