I swore blind that I would not get drawn into what promises to be a long running battle over Scottish independence but Simon Hughes’ call for an English Parliament to answer the West Lothian Question has prompted me to pen this piece.
Scottish Nationalists wrongly claim that there is an easy solution to the West Lothian Question – independence for Scotland. They fail to remember that we still have devolution in Northern Ireland, Wales and the London Assembly. Independence for we Scots doesn’t make the issue go away for others.
We still refer to it as the West Lothian Question but it is as much the West Bromwich question or the West Kensington question. Why should Simon Hughes get to vote on issues relating to policing and transport in West Bromwich when his counterparts representing that area don’t get a say over the Met or London’s transport issues?
I posed this question 10 years ago to former Scottish Secretary and Kensington MP, Malcolm Rifkind. Rifkind had taken against devolution having been a keen supporter in his early career. I challenged him that the Tories, the main opponents of devolution, had never complained about the existence of Stormont before 1974 when it sent a majority of Unionists to bolster the Westminster Majorities. Why complain now when the boot was on the other foot? That consummate performer couldn’t give a convincing answer.
Our constitution is littered with anomalies. We have an asymmetric quasi federalism in the UK and there are not easy routes towards correcting the constitutional anomalies relating to that. The UK is made up of three and bit Nations who are not equal in terms of size or whose elected bodies are not equal in terms of powers. Scotland has a law making parliament and Northern Ireland and Wales have assemblies with varying degrees of powers; and then we have London with a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. The question of the appropriate route for devolution in England is thus fundamental.
Devolution was demanded by the non English nations of the UK in response to the feeling that Government was too remote and that Whitehall and Westminster no longer understood what our needs were. Would setting up an equally remote additional Chamber representing the whole of England really bring government closer to the people? Is the best form of devolution an English Parliament or would it be Regional Assemblies able to drive economic development of their areas forward more effectively?
Devolution was also demanded because as Nations, there was a deep desire to reflect that sense of national identity within the political system. Scotland always has had separate legal, educational and religious institutions. Regional identities can be strong in England but are they defined as well as elsewhere?
Home Rule was also demanded because we felt, rightly or wrongly, that our Government in the 80’s actively hated us. I do not believe that we have that any more but until Westminster starts to give us the feeling that we are not at best taken for granted there I fear nationalists will have the upper hand.
Ultimately the desire for Home Rule in Scotland, Wales and Ireland was a desire that grew from the bottom up and was not imposed upon us by patrician politicians telling us what we needed. England’s grassroots need the time to develop their own desire for answers, and indeed their own answers to this question. What is clear is that we are not going to have a mathematically pure and equal solution to this issue.
