Telegraph Column: West Lothian Question Needs an Answer

Con Coughlin and I got shunted out of the Telegraph yesterday so my column only appeared on the Telegraph website. As I am sure you all missed reading my words of wisdom in the print version, here they are in full!

Nowadays, message is everything in politics. If you have a clear, easily explicable policy, then you’re likely to attract support. If the message is confused or complicated, support drifts to your opponents. So when I read Ken Clarke’s Democracy Task Force report on the West Lothian Question and the future governance of England, my heart sank.

On the plus side, it asks the right questions and recognises both that a problem exists and that if nothing is done about it there will be a growing resentment among the English. Sadly, the Clarke Report provides answers that are so complicated and obtuse that they will be virtually impossible to sell to the man propping up the bar at the Dog & Duck.

At the last election, Conservative candidates – and I was one – stood on a platform of English Votes for English Measures. It’s a simple formula and easy to sell to the electorate. If a Bill is introduced into Parliament which only affects England and Wales, then Scottish MPs would be barred from voting on it. For those of us who support the creation of an English Parliament, it didn’t go quite far enough, but no matter. It was a start and a policy that proved reasonably popular.

The whole point of a policy commission is to think the unthinkable. In Ken Clarke’s case, he has played safe and watered down English Votes for English Measures into something which represents an unhappy, wishy washy compromise.

His proposal would allow Scottish MPs to vote on English-only Bills at Second and Third Readings, but not at the Committee or Report stages. This would have the effect of Scottish MPs not being able to block English amendments. However – and this is the important part – they would still be able to force through the main principle of a Bill on its Second Reading.

As Sir Malcolm Rifkind has eloquently pointed out, it is fatuous to believe that English MPs could then substantially change a Bill. English-only amendments, says Sir Malcolm, “could not reverse the basic objective of such a Bill which had been approved by the House of Commons as a whole, as any attempt to do so would be designated a ‘wrecking amendment’ and ruled out of order.” So unless English MPs are able to table amendments saying ‘delete all and insert nothing’, Mr Clarke’s proposals are about as meaningful as a shower in the Sahara. Policies which try to appeal to the lowest common denominator convince no one.

Most people I have talked to about this over the last few days have used the word ‘compromise’ to describe Clarke’s policy. Some say it as a compliment, others are more pejorative. It’s clear that the intention is to appease supporters of a more radical form of devolution and neutralise the staunchest defenders of the existing union and constitutional arrangements. Like most forms of appeasement, it has ended up pleasing no one.

When David Cameron became Tory leader, one of his first commitments was to make devolution work. He recognised that there was no going back. Since then, the fortunes of Welsh Conservatives in particular have been in the ascendant. There has, however, been a consistent failure by the Conservative Party to recognise the need for proper English devolution. The debate within the party has been characterised by lazy thinking, scare stories and a desire to put the subject into the ‘too difficult tray’. Too many people in the Tory hierarchy still associate English nationalism with the BNP and race. Too many still hold to the myth that an English Parliament means more politicians and another layer of bureaucracy. Even Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert trotted out that tired old canard this week.

An English Parliament does not have to mirror the Scottish Parliament’s remit or its powers, although personally I think it should. It certainly doesn’t need a raft of extra politicos funded by the public purse. Westminster MPs could sit for one week a month in an English Parliament. Had Labour not botched the constitutional settlement, the same could have been done by Welsh MPs and Scottish MPs in their own assemblies. But we are where we are.

The one thing Ken Clarke said this week which is right is that not every constituent part of the United Kingdom has to operate in exactly the same way. Where we part company is that he believes his proposals will be seen as fair and equitable by the English and I do not.

David Cameron and Nick Herbert were very careful not to endorse the Clarke proposals wholeheartedly. I take this as an encouraging sign. There is still time to convince them that they do not go far enough and are not electorally sellable. Mr Cameron and his team should think back to last October. Why was the Inheritance Tax proposal received so well? It was because it was easily understandable, easy to explain and appealed to people’s sense of aspiration. It is relatively simple to develop a policy on English devolution which meets each of those criteria. Sadly, Ken Clarke has failed to do so.