THE creation of a Grand Committee of exclusively English MPs at Westminster to pass England-only Bills would be a "strong and visible" sign that the UK Parliament was properly looking after England's interests in the wake of increased devolution to Scotland, a new report says today.
"Voice and Veto; answering the West Lothian Question" has been published by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, which claims to offer a practical plan that looks after England's interests while supporting the Union.
One of its co-authors, Roger Gough, a Tory county councillor in Kent, who served on the Conservative Party's Democracy Task Force, examining constitutional issues, said as more powers were planned for Holyrood, the West Lothian Question had now to be answered.
"The status quo is untenable," he declared, stressing an English Parliament would risk jeopardising the Union rather than bolstering it and that existing institutions should be built on.
Referring to the UK Government's recent Command Paper on English Votes for English Laws, Mr Gough said the most preferable option was establishing an English Grand Committee, voting on whether or not to pass a Legislative Consent Motion on England-only legislation.
"This has a simplicity and clarity to a wider public that could help secure consent. It would also be a strong and very visible demonstration that Parliament was giving English concerns and interests their proper place in its work," he insisted.
His co-author, Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP for Chichester, who chairs the Commons Treasury Committee, said: "English votes in Parliament must be capable, and be seen to be capable, of preventing laws largely or exclusively affecting the English to be being imposed on them by a UK-wide majority."
He agreed the best of three options suggested by the Tory leadership in the Command Paper was the English Grand Committee voting on a Legislative Consent Motion as it "best delivered" protecting England's interests, bolstering the Union and offering a fair settlement to all parts of the UK.
William Hague, the Commons Leader, is due to announce shortly which option the Conservative leadership will support; the one involving an English Grand Committee voting on a Legislative Consent Motion is expected to be favoured.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article