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| Cruachan |
Cameron ducks English Grand Committee optionTaken from The Witanagemot website www.toque.co.uk/witan. An interesting site for "bloggers for an English Parliament".Today's Daily Telegraph contains an apparently authoritative leak from Ken Clarke's "Democracy Task Force" which is looking into, among other things, possible answers to the West Lothian Question for the Tories. Its key revelation is that Clarke has retreated from the Tories' previous position of seeking to establish an "English Grand Committee" - effectively an English Parliament within a UK Parliament - to a bizarre fudge under which, while only English MPs will be able to discuss English-only laws at the committee stage, all MPs will get a vote on third reading. What an absolute nonsense! I thought that Cameron might grasp the initiative and put Brown under pressure, by going for an English Grand Committee, but he seems to be going for this worse of all worlds compromise. |
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| Holebender |
He's in an impossible position; he cannot claim to lead the Conservative and Unionist Party while pursuing policies which exclude legitimately elected Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from areas over which the Parliament has competence. | ||||||
| agentmancuso |
That's an interesting argument. Couldn't it be got round by simply devolving competence for said areas? |
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| Aventinian |
He does not seek to exclude them from anything, any more than Labour did not seek to alienate any of the supremacy of Parliament to a statutory body in Edinburgh a decade ago. He seeks to create a convention whereby MPs not elected to English seats will have no reason to vote on such matters, just as they have no reason to raise bills touching devolution issues at present. The key point is that this is a policy task force: open discussions of ideas are to be expected. There are several constitutional issues raised by the idea of an English Grand Committee and how it will operate in practice. |
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| Pip |
It's not really a surprise. Any kind of English votes on English Laws, Grand committee or anything else that seriously altered the workings of Parliament was always on pretty dodgy ground.
If the Conservatives were actually in a position to provide an answer to the West Lothian Question then, some might argue, the party of government had a majority of English seats, and there wasn't much need for an answer. I don't feel that way myself, but the most I'm hoping for from them is a token. They still win, in my eyes, by acknowledging the issue exists. |
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| William_Cleland |
Interesting to mull this one over. Not sure people are really addressing what is being proposed or if it is even fully clear exactly yet what Clarke has in mind. Given the original article:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/n...-from-voting-on-English-laws.html which was quoted only to this extent:- Former Tory cabinet minister, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has argued powerfully that the answer to the imbalance is to effectively create an English parliament at Westminster, an “English Grand Committee” of MPs that would oversee England-only legislation from start to finish. But Mr Clarke is understood to have rejected such a dramatic move, which would severely limit the work of MPs from Scottish seats. Instead, he is said to have advised allowing all MPs to vote on English legislation at the initial second reading stage of parliamentary scrutiny. But only English MPs would get to vote during the detailed committee stage of the legislative process, where real changes can be effected. At the third and final reading, all MPs could once again vote, but a new parliamentary undertaking would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs. The report was given final approval by the Shadow Cabinet at a meeting in Kent last week, and is likely to be published on July 1st. also states that:- Mr Clarke is understood have concluded that legislation that would apply only to England should be voted on only by MPs with English seats. His answer to the so-called "West Lothian Question" is likely to provoke Labour claims that the Tories would create a two-tier parliament with Scottish MPs turned into second-class members of the Commons. .... The Clarke report will recommend that a new Tory Government would seek to agree a cross-party convention that no party would use Scottish MPs' votes to overturn decisions made by a majority of English members. A similar convention is currently in place over the decisions of the Scottish Parliament, which forbids Westminster using its sovereign power to reverse decisions made in Edinburgh. Tory insiders say the new convention would effectively become a permanent part of the constitution. "Once this was in place it would be very difficult, if not politically impossible, for an incoming future Labour government to change it," said a Conservative source. That isn't necessarily all that different from what Malcolm Rifkind proposed, in my opinion. After the second reading Scottish MPs would have zero input and the Westminster government would potentially be left unable to block amendedments it doesn't like. Seems to me to be a recipe for partial parliamentary paralysis (assuming that is that all English MPs can vote at the committee stage) as there would be very little incentive for the governing party to table English legislation if they lack a majority of English MPs. |
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| William_Cleland |
Here is what Tam Dayell thinks about it:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/n...wer-to-West-Lothian-question.html Mr Dalyell praised the blueprint for recognising that the present set-up is not tenable and said it was an improvement on Mr Rifkind’s suggestion, which he described as a “non-starter”. But he added: “It’s so cumbersome because it puts the Commons Speaker in a very difficult and invidious position.” He said this is because it would be up to the Speaker to rule which legislation was “English-only”, adding that the scope for argument was “absolutely huge”. The same problems would occur at the committee stage, he said, arguing that some amendments would apply across the whole of the UK and some England only. Mr Cameron received Mr Clarke’s report several months ago and although it will only see the light of day next week, the Tory leader has already signalled he will accept its central thrust. But last night a Whitehall source said: “Any attempt to create two different classes of MP would fundamentally threaten the Union. “In practical terms, it could also be unworkable to try to decide what is an English law and whether it would impact on the devolved administrations.” |
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| Holebender |
Of course. An English Parliament is the obvious solution to the problem, but the UK Parliament will never create a devolved parliament which will be almost as powerful as itself and which will render it practically obsolete. |
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| Holebender |
Oh really? So he's not looking for a way of ensuring only MPs for English constituencies get to vote on English law? If that is what he is seeking to do (as has been reported) then he is looking to exclude MPs from the rest of the UK from voting on those issues. |
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| Aventinian |
Essentially no, just as the creation of the Scottish Parliament did not seek to exclude MPs from voting on Scottish law.
The answer to that would seem to be that, as with the other devolved administrations, a prospective English Parliament would deal with devolved matters, and the UK Parliament generally stick to reserved matters per a similar memorandum of understanding. If anything, I think it may well lead to a clearer definition of devolved competences, hopefully enabling the full UK Parliament to better concentrate on the reserved matters on behalf of all parts of the UK. |
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| William_Cleland |
You have a point where reserved powers are concerned but in most cases Holebender is correct, however. |
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| Holebender |
An English Parliament would deal with the bulk of what is currently the UK Parliament's business and budget. It would leave the UK Parliament practically redundant and people would start to seriously question its purpose and, especially, its members' salaries and expenses. When considering the possibility of the UK Parliament voting to create a devolved Parliament for England, the words "turkeys" "vote" and "Christmas" spring to mind. |
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| Aventinian |
The reserved matters are still wide-ranging and very important; moreover, it is ultimately the UK Parliament that would control the purse strings. Of the last two major political news stories: 42 day detention and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, both would still be firmly within the central remit.
With an English Grand Committee, those members would be one and the same.
I don't think the English people particularly want an English Parliament, never mind the members of the British House of Commons. |
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| Pip |
In polls support for it is consistently 60%-plus, against regions, EVoEM (or similar) and the status-quo. But it's fair to say there's some disconnection between the profile of the WLQ and that of the EP. It's the combination of the WLQ and Barnett that gets people so angry. The narrative set down by the government (England subsidizes the rest of the UK yet England has the lowest spending per head) is bloody insulting, even if the reality of the situation is more complex. |
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| agentmancuso |
Why is it insulting? In most democracies higher earners contribute more to the treasury and receive less back in the way of financial assistance. Why should this case be any different? On a different matter, Chesterton is a bit of a rarity these days. It's a long time since I read the poem from which you quote, but two lines which stick in my head come from the same source, I think: Our wrath come after Russia's wrath, and our wrath be the worst and It may be beer is best |
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| Pip |
Are all the English higher earners than the Scots and Welsh? Is Tyneside richer than Morningside? Consider it from the perspective of the average English person, who sees that Scotland and Wales have many things that he or she doesn't (free nursing care, free prescriptions etc), governing bodies of their own, and Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on his or her affairs but not on their constituents (much less so for the Welsh obviously). He or she asks why the Scottishness or Welshness of a Scot or Welshman entitles them to things that the English do not have, especially when Scottish MPs are part of the body not voting those things to the English. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it feels as though an English life is worth less to the NHS than a Scottish one. Labour, in particular, don't seem to have cottoned on that the English might take notice of all their scare stories about a Scottish economic apocalypse following independence. In the past I think (and some will take grave exception) that there was a great deal more North to South hostility than visa-versa. These days it's six of one half-a-dozen of the other (and I'm prepared to accept worse from England, but never mind). Suffice it to say, that the minds of many English people the Scots are very ill-disposed towards us, yet we pay to keep them better than we keep ourselves. Many ask why. Now obviously it's more complex than that, which is one reason why I don't have much to do with financial issues (another is that I have no head for accounting or economics).
That's the very one, those lines are both from the last stanza. This is my favourite part: "And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King: He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring. The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits, And the men of the new religion, with their Bibles in their boots, We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss, And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us. We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale; And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale." It's a wonderful poem, and should be better known, but as you rightly observe Chesterton is a bit obscure now. I did come across, and indeed buy, a new edition of The Man Who Was Thursday the other day, to replace my tatty old copy. |
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| agentmancuso |
Hardly, though I fail to see what relevance this has. The narrative you referred to as insulting was that "England subsidizes the rest of the UK yet England has the lowest spending per head". If the first part is true, the second would seem a fairly predictable follow-on. And quite right too. (We can agree that the financial situation is much more complicated than the populists would have us believe.) I think you are right to object to the lop-sided way devolution has been implemented so far. The current situation is simply untenable in the longrun. But to be honest, the melodrama to which you freely confess is unlikely to improve the situation in any way; it seems much more likely to inflame base nationalist resentment.
It all comes flooding back. Of course, my sympathies lie entirely with the King's Servants 
I can go one better than that: I found a version in Catalan in the Oxfam shop in Headingley a couple of months ago! I haven't read it in nearly twenty years, but I still have a penguin copy of that & Napolean of Notting Hill on my shelves. All the rest went a long time ago, as did everything I had by Belloc. |
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| Pip |
I think most people don't feel quite so generous with their hard-earned taxes. They want it to be spent on the hospitals they visit when they're sick and the schools their children go to, not on far-away and ungrateful people whose only qualification for it is their Scottishness. But I take your point, and it's true that the bite has only cut in post-devolution. |
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| Holebender |
I just love that one of the Great Unionist Lies, designed to keep Scotland in its place, has come back to bite them so hard on their collective arse. The story was meant strictly for Scottish consumption but has now become widespread in England and has produced entirely predictable results.
The harder these people try to preserve the Union by deception the faster they bring about its demise. Only a positive argument can win the day and the Unionists just don't have any. |
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| Pip |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7481906.stm
This is the Conservatives' latest suggestion. A token gesture, it's so watered down that it actually has a chance of getting through. It falls a long way short for me. |
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| Cruachan |
"Mr Clarke said his plan was a "compromise", more workable than simply banning MPs from other countries from voting on England-only laws, and that this would help preserve the Union of England and Scotland". Unlike some compromises, this is rather inelegant, and will satisfy no-one. In many ways this is all to the good for the cause of Independence. Cameron has said he will study the findings of Clarke's review, and has made some welcoming noises, but by the time Cameron becomes PM, a positive result in the Independence Referendum will already be in place. It's all too little too late for the Unionists. |
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| Alasdair |
Aye, Ken Clerk was on Radio Scotland yesterday Morning talking about this, kept calling westminster the English Parliament and totally failed to adequately explain their reasoning.
It's notable also that they're ducking the question on the barnett formula saying that it's a matter for the chancellor ... given the tories are effectively the government in waiting they really need to explain their plans here. |
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| William_Cleland |
If they don't do something with the Barnett formula, it's probably unworkable long term as a lot of key English legislation will ultimately impinge on future Scottish spending levels through the block grant making it very difficult for the Speaker to designate what is British and what is English. | ||||||