Why English votes for English laws is a kneejerk absurdity

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/english-votes-english-laws-absurdity-separatist

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England is a constitutional anomaly. By far the largest part of the United Kingdom, it alone has no devolved body to represent its interests. So MPs from Scotland continue to vote on English domestic matters, such as health and education, which in Scotland are the responsibility of Holyrood.

Who, then, in John Redwood’s words, “speaks for England”. The answer, it appears, is the Conservative party. “English home rule at heart of Conservative election campaign,” declared the Daily Telegraph this week. And in the Daily Mail: “Banning Scottish MPs from voting on English laws ‘cannot be avoided’, Hague warns Labour.”

But the British constitution is not the private property of the Conservative party or, for that matter, the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats. A constitutional settlement, if it is to be lasting, needs the support of all parties, and endorsement by the people as a whole after measured debate. It is hardly suited to the hurly-burly of the hustings.

David Cameron proposes English votes for English laws. This has been Conservative policy since Scotland voted for devolution. It was not Conservative policy when Northern Ireland enjoyed devolution, between 1922 and 1972, and Northern Ireland MPs – predominantly unionist – deprived Labour of working majorities in 1950-1 and 1964-6. Indeed, in 1965 the Conservative shadow home secretary, Peter Thorneycroft, insisted on the principle that “every member of the House of Commons is equal to every other member of the House of Commons”.

English votes for English laws seems at first sight a logical response to the English Question. But it is in fact incoherent. It means that whenever a government depended on Scottish MPs for its majority, as could occur if Labour were narrowly elected in 2015, there would be a UK majority – Labour – for non-devolved matters such as foreign affairs and economics, but an alternative majority for devolved matters.

But a bifurcated government is a logical absurdity. A government must be collectively responsible to parliament for all the policies that come before it, not just a selection of them.

A modified form of the proposal has been put forward by Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, and the McKay commission, which reported last year. This proposes sending all English legislation to an English grand committee, with membership proportional to the strength of the parties in England. A government without an English majority would have to negotiate with the committee and sometimes accept defeat – analogous, says Rifkind, to the position of a minority government such as the Wilson government of 1974.

But under this proposal a government would regularly be unable to secure whole swaths of its legislation – on education, health and other matters devolved to Scotland. Moreover, the English grand committee would in effect seek to legislate on matters such as health and education, which have revenue-raising implications, without having control over taxation.

A government would not agree to alter taxes for policies with which it fundamentally disagrees. So bifurcated government would become deadlocked government.

It is in fact not possible to separate English matters from Scottish. Even if all control of income tax were devolved to Scotland, the bulk of Holyrood’s revenue would still come from Westminster. This means that any variation in spending on an English service such as health would have a knock-on effect in Scotland.

Suppose there is a cut in health spending in England. The block grant to Scotland would be correspondingly reduced since it is fixed as a percentage of English expenditure. That is bound to be the case since England is the dominant part of the United Kingdom; and it explains why Scottish MPs must continue to vote on what seem to be English issues. As the Royal Commission on the Constitution concluded in 1973: “Any issue in Westminster involving expenditure of public money is of concern to all parts of the United Kingdom since it may directly affect the level of taxation and indirectly influence the level of a region’s own expenditure.” There are therefore no specifically “English” domestic matters involving public expenditure.

But there is an even deeper reason why English votes for English laws is misguided. It is a separatist proposal whose effect would be to separate two systems of government – the English and the Scottish – that must be brought together if the union is to be strengthened.

The SNP has a settled policy of not voting on “English” laws, for it is an openly separatist party. It is odd to find the Conservatives – a unionist party – seeking to follow. Devolution, while an overdue and necessary reform, has made many English politicians believe that Scotland is another country with which they need not concern themselves. That is why English Conservatives appeared to be blinking in the sunlight when visiting Edinburgh during the referendum campaign.

Constitutional reform needs to link the various parts of the United Kingdom together, not separate them. That requires not kneejerk responses but a national conversation between the different parts of the United Kingdom so that the union, now reaffirmed, can be made stronger.

There is, of course, an English Question. But, as long as England rejects federalism, there can be no tidy, symmetrical solution. Asymmetry is the price England pays to keep Scotland within the union. We refused in the 19th century to pay that price for Ireland, with disastrous results.

The solution to the English Question, then, must be political but not party political.

It is best met by devolution in England – not to new regional authorities, which few want, but to localities. The trouble is that local authorities, as at present organised, are unloved, and few of us bother to vote in local elections. So a precondition of devolution must be a system of local government that inspires the enthusiasm needed for a radical transfer of power from the centre. All this will of course take time. But a constitution should be for life, not just for Christmas.