Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP
In a further development of the Conservative idea of English votes for English laws idea, Tory MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind is now toying with the notion of an English Grand Committee in the House of Commons. This would bring together the MPs representing English constituencies to deal with bills relating solely to England. The Speaker, or some other independent body, would be charged with deciding which parts of the legislative programme should be treated in this way.
This is a half-baked idea which would probably do more harm than good. First of all, the good. It would recognise that there is a democratic deficit when it comes to England. The programme of uneven devolution has left different parts of the United Kingdom with a different stake in the democratic process, and that is hardly fair. But an English Grand Committee will not make things right.
The Grand Committee is proposed instead of having specific elections for England. MPs in Westminster would be both “English” and “British”. Their counterparts from the other parts of the UK do not have a “national” role, there being elected assemblies or parliaments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (The fact that I have to write “assemblies or parliaments” and not simply “parliaments” is a further clue to why the Grand Committee is bad idea. I will come back to that.) Not only would the MPs have a dual role, the government would have a dual role. Ministers would govern both the UK and also England.
The proponents of the Grand Committee see this as a strength. Those ministers would control the legislative timetable and command the civil service. But it would also be a weakness. They would form the government as a result of a general election throughout the UK, so that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish votes could choose the government for England but not support its legislative programme. That would be absurd. A government with a UK majority but in a minority in England alone would be in office but not in power.
Secondly, the ministers who formed the government would have to come from English constituencies. That would rule out from high office in the UK politicians representing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now such a concept might suit the Tories in England – they have 3 MPs from Wales and only 1 from Scotland – but it would suit neither the other parties nor the voters as a whole. It would be wrong to play with the constitution for party political advantage.
One could go further and say that the incongruity of insisting on an English-only leadership for the British government would reduce the other three parts of the United Kingdom to the status of colonies, dependent on English government but unable to contribute to it. The comparison is not perfect, I admit, but it would be close enough for the charge to stick. Already, the Scottish National party supports the idea, which ought to give any supporters of the continuation of the union pause for thought.
Yes, something needs to be done to give the English a stronger voice over their own politics, but not through setting up a Grand Committee. It is an idea that would weaken the union, not strengthen it. It is hard to believe that is what Sir Malcolm Rifkind really intends.
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“Already, the Scottish National party supports the idea”
Really? Where and when?
Obviously the English nation must be sacrificed at the altar of unionism……absolutley sickening.
Enlish independence now!
Rifkind is a Scot working for a Scot and in cahoots with the Scots. He left the Thatcher Cabinet becuse Thatcher would not support Scottish devolution. He supported a parliament for Scotland but puts up this sop to the English in the hope that it will both keep him in work and benefit his homeland.
Scots out of English affairs is the only answer. Those Scots at Westminster are not trustworthy and those not in Westminster are suspect. When are our Judas English MPs going to grow spines?
Of course a Grand Committee will work. The alternative is to break up the Union as many in East Anglia are fed up with bankrolling the Scottish.
The objections to the Rifkind proposal of an English Grand Committee are legion. It wouldn’t work. The principal defect in it is that England would have a de facto legislature (the Grand Committee of the House of Commons) but no executive (government) to match those of Scotland, Wales and Northrn Ireland. Other insuperable problems with it, and a far better (federal) solution, are spelled out in my blog, at
http://www.barder.com/ephems/723 — including the comments on it.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
At the risk of incurring the wrath of all and sundry, may I put in a word for the EGC idea? It may not be an ideal proposal, or solve all of the problems, but it is an important symbolic step and, moreover, could be put in place without much ado.
I remember the old Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees in the days before devolution. They were important in voicing to government (and why the geographical complexion of the government should change if an EGC meeting every couple of months were to be created, I simply cannot see) the opinions of territorial MPs.
An EGC would do the same. It would be a powerful body. Ministers would be wise to listen to it. I think we might explore the proposal in more detail. The test would be to see if it improves on the situation we have now. And I think it would.
I agree with pslb that establishing an English Grand Committee might be seen by some as marginally better than doing nothing at all about the present unsustainable anomaly. My fear, though, would be that our political masters would breathe a sigh of relief and delete ‘West Lothian Question’ from their hard disks as a problem solved and no longer requiring attention. So we would never get an executive for England, nor sort out the twin incompatible roles of the House of Commons, nor resolve the problems of Bills affecting both England and the whole of the UK, nor begin to creep unwillingly towards a sensible, sustainable, democratic federation of the four nations. In this case I submit that half a loaf would actually be worse than no bread, because we’d never again get another crack at a whole loaf.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
They wouldn’t be able to delete it from their hard disks because there would be constant argument and antagonism over which bills were English (or English and Welsh).
The SNP and Scottish Labour would not take kindly to being denied the right to vote on English legislation that has a knock-on effect on their Barnett Formula.
And the SNP would propogate the idea that Westminster IS the English parliament.