MPs have agreed to permanently remove controversial English votes for English laws (Evel) procedures - labeled an “utter, utter humiliation” for the UK Government.
Evel was introduced following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum after fears over a lack of devolved powers for English laws.
The rules, introduced in 2015 by David Cameron, have now been abolished amid fears the two-tier set-up has put the Union at risk.
MPs from other parts of the UK will now be allowed to vote on matters only impacting England like health and education.
Tabling a motion for the abolition, leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, denied the overhaul was appeasing the SNP, who have customarily not voted on England-only legislation, insisting the change was “showing we have confidence in our Union parliament”.
He added: “It is not just the ability of this place to legislate effectively that has been constrained, more fundamentally, the Evel procedure has also undermined the role of this parliament as the Union parliament in which all parts of the United Kingdome are represented equally.
“There should be an equal representation of all members.
“This motion seeks to make the process of legislating on matters which deliver for everyone in the UK just a little easier.”
Evel was suspended following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic last year and last week, Cabinet Minister Michael Gove admitted the system had "not served our Parliament well".
The SNP’s Pete Wishart labelled the u-turn “an utter, utter humiliation” for the UK Government.
He said: “A flagship policy of the 2015 manifesto will soon be nothing more than a footnote in future constitutional history books and remembered as just another Tory policy disaster.
“They were consumed with the notion that we, the unkempt Caledonian hoards were somehow stopping them securing the democratic outcomes that they desired.
“That us, Scots MPs... needed to be constrained and needed to be curtailed. Evel was just about the worst solution to a problem that didn’t even exist.”
Mr Wishart said there were a host of workable solutions to fears over English devolution and the so-called ‘West Lothian Question’, but claimed UK ministers “couldn’t be bothered rolling up their sleeves and designing a parliament of their own”, resulting in a “quasi-English parliament squatting here in the national parliament”.
He added: “Instead of securing the near federalism that was promised, Scotland instead saw their MPs become second class members in the parliament they had just been invited to lead – with signs in the division lobby saying England only. They would have been better having ‘Scots out’.
“This is a spectacular victory for the Scottish National Party.”
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