Malcolm Rifkind on English Votes

Dear Mr Rifkind,

I have been reading your amendments to Ken Clarke's DTF proposals with interest.

I appreciate that the Second Reading 'double majority' requirement affords protection to England in a way that Clarke does not, but I fail to see your case for a Report Stage in which non-English constituency MPs can debate the amendments made by an England-only Committee Stage. More to the point, why have an England-only Committee Stage at all unless it is an English Grand Committee that can be said to represent England?

In 1975 you chaired a Scottish Devolution Policy group to determine how the Conservative Party should respond to the Labour Government’s White Paper on Scottish devolution. You recommended:

"All purely Scottish legislation should be formally introduced into Parliament and then sent to the Assembly for Second Reading, Committee Stage and Report Stage. The legislation would then return to Westminster which would decide whether to give the Bill its Third Reading and might also have certain powers to amend...If the Assembly declined to give a Second Reading, the Government could either amend to meet the Assembly’s objections or withdraw the Bill."

If this level of autonomy is correct for Scotland in 1975, then why not allow English members the same autonomy up to Third Reading now?

Moreover, you recommended that the 'Scottish Assembly' members should have the power to 'initiate their own legislation', which in effect would have provided a distinct (if weak) national voice for Scotland - something that the Clarke proposals do not do for England.

Given the reality of Scottish government, I don't see any coherent logic in the Conservative proposals. Either the nation of England is an ancient and equal part of our Union of nations, a foundation for government just like Scotland, or; Great Britain is England writ large - England expanded - and England's interests are legitimately represented 'as Britain'. Either England should have voice as a nation, or not. The proposals on the table seem to allow English MPs to speak only negatively on behalf of England in reaction to the government of the day. In my opinion the proposals don't go far enough because they do not address the wider English Question, relating to the governance of England, they only serve up a technical solution to the anomaly of Scottish MPs' voting privileges.

Best regards,

Malcolm Rifkind responds:

Dear Mr Young

Thank you for your message.

You are correct that my proposals (and Kenneth Clarke’s) are far more modest than a Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly model would imply. That is because we are dealing with a different constitutional problem.

English MPs (unlike Scots and Welsh) already have a massive majority in the House of Commons. If they agree their views will always prevail. The difficulty we are seeking to resolve is when English MPs are divided on purely English issues. As you acknowledge, my proposal would resolve this and , therefore, there is no reason to go any further.

Kind regards

Malcolm Rifkind

My response is:

Dear Mr Rifkind,

Whilst we can agree that English MPs have a massive majority in the House, my response to you would be that the House splits down party - not national - lines. Majorities are party political, not territorial.

The Government of the day calls upon all its MPs, irrespective of the territory in which they were elected, in order to conduct its business. To expect English MPs to act as a national bloc would be to undermine the working of Parliament and effective government. There is no coherent logic to your solution because "English MPs" do not divide as English MPs, due to the simple fact that they are not elected as such - neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party have an English manifesto.

MPs are expected to vote with their conscience and/or their party, in the best interests of their constituents and/or the national interest. For MPs in the UK Parliament, elected on a UK manifesto, the national interest is the national interest of the United Kingdom. Given the nature of Parliament, which is essentially an electoral college that selects the Government, the plurality can properly be expected to put the interests of the UK Government above those of England, and to confer and reinforce that bias on the Government of the day (a point ably demonstrated by the anti-English bias of the present government which has a majority of English MPs).

This is not a different constitutional question.

Best regards,

UPDATE: And there's more.

Dear Mr Young,

I do not disagree with what you say but I draw a different conclusion from it.
MPs do normally vote with their party but, as the last few years demonstrate, they often decline to do so when they feel strongly that their party’s policy is wrong

An English Parliament or an English state would be ways of expressing English national sentiment but most people in England do not appear to want that as they feel that fundamental English interests can be protected within a United Kingdom Parliament that has a large majority of MPs from English constituencies. Public opinion wants a reform of the House of Commons to protect English interests but does not seem to wish to go any further than is necessary to deal with the “West Lothian “ anomaly.

You are entitled to wish to go further but that is where we have to agree to differ.

Regards

Malcolm Rifkind

For those who are having difficulty following this, I have prepared a handy little guide to Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind's solution to the West Lothian Question.

Rifkind’s Scottish Assembly plan sounds familiar may also be of interest.

UPDATE II

Dear Mr Rifkind,

It depends on which polls you take. Depending on the question asked there is either demand for an English parliament, or demand for English votes on English Laws, or the two options combined dominate over a preference for the Status Quo, regional assemblies or independence.

However, there have been no polls since the Democracy Task Force issued its recommendations. And I fear that you will have difficulty explaining the logic of this solution to an increasingly exasperated English public. The original EVoEL was unworkable in practive, but at least it had a certain logic.

The present situation could be helped if politicians began referring to England instead of "This Country" or 'the nation's" when talking about education and health policy. At present there is a denial of England, and this forbidding does neither England nor democracy any service.

Best,

Recent polling on the subject is here.

Thank you for your further comments.

I have no difficulty with you publicising my earlier replies. It would, however, have been a courtesy to inform me that you intended doing so. Politeness doesn’t cost anything and is a virtue even in these modern times. You might like to reflect on this.
(You can also put these comments on your blog as well !)

Malcolm Rifkind

After a period of reflection....

Dear Mr Rifkind,

In your earlier response you invoke the people: "Public opinion wants a reform of the House of Commons to protect English interests but does not seem to wish to go any further than is necessary to deal with the “West Lothian“ anomaly."

It is, at best, a specious statement. The Department of Constitutional Affairs (now the Ministry of Justice) have conducted no research whatsoever into demand for an English parliament. Neither have the Conservative Party - unless you have done it in private and not disclosed the results.

As you are so keen on invoking the people, perhaps you and your good colleagues would deign to ask the people. It would be a courtesy. How about an English version of the Calman Commission, an English Constitutional Convention, a Royal Commission on the Governance of England and, following, a referendum on the recommendations?

Or are my countrymen and women less deserving of a say than yours? Do we just sit back quietly as our partner nations debate (again) changing the balance and working of the Union; mute as the Scots partake in the Calman Commission and National Conversation, and the Welsh in the All Wales Convention? The position of the Conservative Party is that an "imperfect Union is better than anything that threatens it". But that is the position of the Conservative Party, not the position of the people of England. We do not know the position of the people of England because they have never been consulted. What level of imperfection and asymmetry are we prepared to tolerate, and; what are the benefits to England of the options that, allegedly, "threaten" the Union?

These are issues that we - as England - are entitled to discuss, and in the absence of any forum in which to do it, England is having its debate online, on blogs, on forums, and on newspaper letters pages. For this reason I have no hesitation in publishing correspondence from MPs because it's the only chance we get to debate the issue. This is a debate that needs to be in the public domain, whether you or the rest of the Westminster Village like it or not.

In March of 2008 IPSOS Mori found that 52% of the public don't understand the policy of "English Votes on English Laws". I found it an incredibly low figure given that my conversations with Conservative MPs have led me to believe that the majority of the Parliamentary Conservative Party don't understand it either. It's been a Conservative manifesto pledge since the time of William Hague (in your manifesto under Duncan Smith, Howard and now Cameron), yet no one in the Party - not even Sir George Young - was able to explain how it would work. For years I've badgered the Conservative Party over their pathetic ill-thought through response to asymmetric devolution, and now I'm informed that the Party is looking into Clarke's recommendation, a bastardised version of English Votes on English Laws, which I call "English Pauses for English Clauses". And you're still not sure!

I look forward the new Conservative policy with relish. I hope you are sure of what "the people" want because if you are wrong then the question of England has the potential to split the party just like the question of Europe did, and people like me in cooperation with the Lib Dems, Labour and the SNP will work tirelessly to ensure that it does. You will deserve it because you will have been arrogant. Despite being a natural Conservative supporter, and a unionist still (if only just), I will not tolerate a Westminster solution to the English Question - only the people of England can answer the English Question!

Best regards,