Only Proportional Representation or an English Parliament will save the Union.

The best result that the Campaign for an English Parliament could have hoped for from this general election was a minority Labour Government, perhaps bolstered by coalition with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, able to impose itself on an England only by virtue of MPs elected outside England's borders.

That result would have woken England up.

In the end England sensibly rejected Labour, confounded predictions by rejecting the Lib Dems too, and handed the Conservatives a majority of 62 seats. However, even though, as Mrs Rigby says, England does not look like a country that needs to be negotiating a power-sharing agreement, David Cameron is locked in a room with Nick Clegg cutting deals about government policy on England because he cannot command a majority across the UK.

Cameron only has himself to blame, he is on record as saying "I do not want to be the prime minister of England". And because he does not support the creation of an English parliament and government, Cameron can have few complaints about being prevented from governing the country that sustains his party, and nor should he protest too much about being prevented from creating his 'Big Society' in England when he cannot form a government for the nation that voted for it.

But although Cameron can have no complaint, the people of England can have just complaint.

According to David Cameron his "Unionism goes very deep" and he will "never do anything to put it [the Union] at risk". Defence of the Union is the first instinct of David Cameron and should be the first priority of his Conservative and Unionist government, as it was for Abraham Lincoln who regarded the preservation of the American Union as more important than measures against slavery, and defended it by bloody civil war.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. - Abraham Lincoln

This is not unthinking patriotism, but it is my country - The Union - right or wrong. Whatever, if anything, Cameron does about England, he will only do because he believes it helps him save the Union. It is therefore the job of the Campaign for an English Parliament to undermine the Union, to force Cameron into addressing the English Question for fear that to do otherwise would be to create a crescendo of English grievances about our anomalous constitutional position in the Union.

Ironically, given his Unionist passion, it is David Cameron himself who is the biggest threat to the Union; a Conservative government was always going to be the acid test of Labour's lop-sided devolution settlement, and given this election result and the economic conditions it most certainly will be. Devolution was supposed to buffer Scotland against the policies of Tory England. It was supposed reduce the democratic deficit and silence the cries of "No Mandate" that were heard under Thatcher and Major. But with only one Scottish MP and with a general perception in Scotland that the Tories are anti-Scottish (a perception helped in no small part by Scottish Labour's negative general election campaign) Cameron will find Scotland to be a surly, demonstrative and uncooperative member of his precious Union. A Tory government is a godsend for Scottish nationalists, and polls indicate that Scots will be more likely to support independence when confronted with a Tory Government.

The main thrust of the Campaign for an English Parliament's argument should be popular sovereignty for England and a 'national conversation' on England so that we can discuss and decide how we wish to be governed.

The United Kingdom is almost unique among the world's states (Canada is the other exception that springs to mind) in that it is based on the principle of consent and self-determination. The most obvious UK example and precedent for this principle is the legal status of Northern Ireland.

It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom, and it is hereby affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part of it cease to be part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purpose of this section and in accordance to Schedule 1 of this Act.

What applies to Northern Ireland must of course, logic dictates, apply equally in principle to the other nations of the UK.

The people of Scotland also have their own less formal popular sovereignty. It does not have legal status but it has been publicly upheld by numerous politicians from Donald Dewar to Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown to David
Cameron, most notably (for two of those) in the Scottish Claim of Right 1988.

If Wales wants to take a similar constitutional path to Scotland by creating its own parliament with primary legislative powers, then it too may be well served by asserting 'we the people'. Which would leave England in an anomalous position of being the only part of the UK which makes no claim to the principle of self-determination.

Such an affirmation of popular sovereignty need not be the death knell for the Union. What Unionists like David Cameron and Gordon Brown need to recognise is that 'we the people' can be an affirmation of the Union as much as it can be a call to separatism. Unfortunately due to the asymmetric nature of constitutional reform - holding referendums in different parts of the United Kingdom on separate occasions, on different questions, and in denial of England - the various reforms do not affirm the Union, they simply reinforce the impression that it is a union in flux and that piecemeal power grabs from the centre is the way forward (with each grab increasing England's democratic deficit).

That the Union is in flux is testified to by the fact that the Conservative Manifesto states that they will draw up their own white paper on Scottish devolution (as an alternative to Calman) and "will not stand in the way" of a referendum on a Welsh parliament, allowing the Scots and Welsh to consent to the Union whilst improving their powers of self-governance.

Logically the principle of consent also applies to England, it's just that Westminster prefers to ignore that inconvenient truth for the moment. But the Union is based on the principle of consent, and therefore any stable Union settlement must be based on actual consent (referendums) or implied consent (a lack of interest in changing the Status Quo).

At the moment their argument for England's place in the Union stands on the platform of implied consent - they say that there is no demand for an English parliament, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The CEP's argument must first be for English popular sovereignty, which we hope would include a referendum on an English parliament; and second, it should be an argument for a stable Union settlement - possibly federal - which we would argue is impossible without English consent. Unfortunately, given the intransigent Status Quo-ism of Westminster, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of needing to whip up English grievance to undermine the Union in order that they acede to the logic of England's right to decide how we wish to be governed within the Union. Or, alternatively, we encourage Scottish and Welsh nationalists efforts to further destabilise the Union.

The potential of English nationalism to upset the Union balance is one that Alex Salmond is all too aware of, hence his kind offer to Labour and the Lib Dems of a rainbow, anti-Tory (anti-England?), alliance.

Such a 'progressive alliance' of Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Green would provide Gordon Brown with an overall majority of two MPs. It would be an incredibly weak government that could serve no useful purpose other than to drive the Conservatives into the embrace of English nationalists. That's fine by me and Alex but probably not something that Brown and Clegg would want a part in. Hilariously, idiots like the Guardian's Jackie Ashley have seized upon this coalition as a once in a lifetime chance to deliver electoral reform (and screw England into the bargain).

A Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition would have an overall majority of 37 MPs, 24 of which will have been elected outside England, thereby reducing the working majority to just 7 if a self-denying ordinance is observed on English matters as it has been (when it suits him) by David Mundell, still the loneliest man in Westminster. It is therefore not beyond the realms of possibility that an informal Tory-Lib Dem coalition would require the use of MPs elected outside England to be assured of getting England-only Government legislation through the House, especially now that the SNP have shrewdly indicated that they will ditch their observance of a self-denying ordinance in the event of a Tory government.

If the Cameron and Clegg talks fail, then instead of some sort of coalition we might yet end up with a Tory minority government, in which case I imagine that the Labour and Lib Dem parties will have to think long and hard about using the votes of non-English MPs on issues that should by rights be devolved to an English parliament.

It would probably be sensible for Labour and the Lib Dems non-English MPs to observe a self-denying ordinance on English issues rather than goad the Tories into pushing 'English Votes on English Laws' through Westminster, a move that might force Labour and the Lib Dems into using Scottish and Welsh MPs to prevent the Tories from implementing 'English Votes on English Laws'.

A Tory minority Government may find itself in the invidious position of deploying its one Scottish MP, its 8 Welsh MPs and 8 DUP MPs to vote on England-only legislation, thereby doing exactly what they accused Labour of doing over tuition fees and foundation hospitals.

Cameron's minority Government would inevitably invite attack from the SNP, who would ditch their policy of self-denying ordinance on English legislation in order to raise the West Lothian Question and whip up English resentment. The SNP will defend this action, quite justifiably, on the basis that they are protecting the Scottish budget from Tory cuts, and they may well be joined by Plaid Cymru and Ulster MPs unless Cameron can provide additional funding for the devolved nations at England's expense.

The non-English parts of the Union will extract their price for not bringing down a minority Tory Government.

It is for this reason that I think David Cameron will pull out all the stops in order to co-opt Nick Clegg's Lib Dems into coalition. Without the Lib Dems' numbers and Scottish MPs, Cameron's Government will be at the mercy of the West Lothian Question and vulnerable to extortion by groups from the devolved nations.

There is now a political consensus from all three party leaders for strengthening Parliament against the Executive. In delivering a hung parliament the British public have obliged by strengthening Parliament's hand and ensuring government by compromise, ignoring by doing so Cameron's plea that we needed the 'strong government' that only a Tory majority could deliver.

There is also a developing consensus for electoral reform, and many on the Left see this issue, rather than 'The English Question', as the real democratic unfairness.

If he goes for a minority Tory Government, David Cameron will be accused of putting Conservative (and perhaps English) interests before the interests of the country [the Union]. And he will be putting the Union at risk by doing so, setting Tory England against the others. He needs the Lib Dems on board to provide a Scottish mandate and to prevent the West Lothian Question provoking a constitutional crisis that could endanger the Union. For this reason he must offer the Lib Dems something on electoral reform, and the Lib Dems would be mad not to hold out for a cast iron guarantee on a referendum.

The proportional representation that the Lib Dems favour would end the rotating bipartisan elective dictatorship that has been enjoyed by the Conservative and Labour parties since the Thirties. It would greatly diminish the likelihood of the 'strong government' of the kind that Cameron favours, and it would also diminish the likelihood of future Conservative governments. It would however be fairer. And it would mitigate the West Lothian Question by providing a more representative parliament - providing the Tories with several Scottish MPs.

Proportional representation is the price that Cameron must pay in order to govern without putting the Union at risk. Failure to do the deal with Clegg makes a mockery of his claim that he will do nothing that endangers the Union. Proportional representation will not answer the West Lothian Question, much less the English Question, but it will lessen its potential to bring down minority governments and destablise the Union, and in the short-term the promise of a referendum will provide the strong-ish government that is so desperately required.

So it's either PR (which, as Guy Lodge says, will replace the Conservative's English power-base with fewer Conservative MPs more widely distributed) or it's an English parliament.

What's it to be Dave?

The constitutional future of England lies firmly and irrevocably both explicitly and implicitly in the formulations of the 1998 devolution legislation. By that I mean that the clauses of that legislation affirmed that devolution was being given to Scotland and Wales as distinct nations; not as 'regions' nor as 'devolved adminstrations' or 'devolved territories' but expressly as nations, and distinct nations at that. The most fundamental presumption of the 1998 legislation, its very basis, was that it was dealing with nations (and that is why the GLA with its mayor was local government re-organisation, not devolution). The presumption was from start to finish that both Scotland and Wales were each one people, each with it own distinct land, history and culture. That pretty well is what a nation is. What the legislation did was to hand over that to that land, history and culture a degree of self-government which would confer a distinct constitutional and political distinct existence. Nationhood was the explicit basis of the 1998 legislation. It found its very simple and direct formulation in the use of the word 'Scotland' and 'Wales' throughout. There is not a single soul in this island who does not understand what those two words mean.

The legislation formally and decisively made a crucial amendment to the 1707 Act of Union. Once Scotland and Wales were given that formal political and constitutional recognition as distinct nations, each with its own national institution of some degree of self rule, British identity as the sole political and constitutional identity of the people of this island ceased. As did British rule and government as the sole political and constitutional rule. Identity and self-rule are catalysts the outcomes of which are indeterminiable. At present the Blair government finds itself as a talking-point mainly because of the Iraq War. Possibly we cannot exaggerate the long term effects of that venture. However, I would say that in the long term or historically the most important measure of that government will be seen to have been the 1998 devolution legislation. That one Act of Parliament will in due course be seen to have been the most important legacy of the Blair years. What it did was to re-establish England, Scotland and Wales as distinct national entities. A catalyst of incalculable effect and significance; and one that happened when Britain had ceased to matter. The Empire had gone, the EU had arrived.

I say that the 1998 Devolution legislation has re-established England as a distinct national entity as well as Scotland and Wales. Not of course in the same way, not with the same formal recognition. But by implication. It is the implicit effect of the legislation. Politically and constitutionally England is the part of Britain that isn't Scotland and Wales, the part of Britain that received no devolution, received no political recognition and constitutional recognition. So England exists as a distinct entity within the Union by default. It's the bit that was left out of the devolution process. But it exists now separately governmentally by reason of the 1998 devolution legislation.

It is of immense significance that this legislation had a colossal hole in it. One has to wonder about what was going through the mind of our legislators in 1998. Did they think that the people of England would not notice; or if they did notice, they wouldn't mind? Or if there were any problems they could be got over by ignoring them? Did they think it just did not matter? Did they think at all? A Welsh woman one yard inside the Welsh border gets free prescriptions while her neighbour inside the English border shopping in the same shops doesn't. A Scottish student one side of the bridge at Coldstream gets free university education and the English student a stone's throw the other side finds himself landed with anything from £15000 to £30000 debts for the same degree; and that even if both of them were attending the same university, doing the same degree, in the same halls of residence, both at the same time. Scottish MPs can vote on matters for England, and, as we have seen, force legislation upon the English, without reciprocation. And then there is the absurdity of the situation where Scottish MPs, even a Scottish Prime Minister, have no say whatsoever in the most fundamental of governmental matters like education and health in their own constituencies. It is so cackhanded, it is hard to believe it was passed into law. But it was and it's where we are. One wonders, were the Scottish MPs that were running the New Labour Government in 1997 so intent on getting whatever they could for Scotland that they were blind to consequences? Were the English MPs that constituted some 80% of all the MPs in the 1997 parliament so guilt-ridden about ruling Scotland and Wales for centuries that they felt they had to submit regardless to whatever the Browns, Irvines, Cooks, Dewars and co wanted for Scotland? Or were they simply devoid of any powers of analysis? Or both?

As we all know, there is the old law of unforeseen consequences. As the dust of devolution has settled, something has been seen to emerge. England has emerged. It might well be by default and it most definitely wasn't intended, but the fact is, England is back. This has happened in all sorts of ways, and is still happening, and will keep happening, above all in the minds of the people of England itself. For example, there is now an English NHS, one can see in NHS offices in England a map just of England. The Westminster Health Minister and the Education Minister are for England only. There is no UK minister for either. These are not straws in the wind but hard facts on the ground. English people now see -as was never an issue before 1998- that the Scots and the Welsh get £1600 more per person per annum spent on them from taxation, 90% of which comes from England. English people now know -and resent but feel powerless about- the comparative inequity of prescription charges, hospital parking charges, university fees, optician and dental charges, council tax, water rates, care for the elderly, availability of the most uptodate drugs. They now hear about the Barnett Formula as never before. And again as never before they have become acutely aware of the disproportionate numbers of Scots in government and the media. They see that Scotland and Wales now have their own parliaments from which the English voice is excluded. All these things are major drivers of English self-awareness.

It is all down to the devolution legislation of 1998. That more than anything has achieved this for England. It was definitely the last thing on the minds of Brown and co when he drove the legislation pell mell through Parliament, the very last thing he more than anyone else wanted, but it is a fact. What that legislation did was inform the English people that on this island there's the Scots and there's the Welsh and they're getting their own parliament and assembly because they are distinct from the English. The oneness of the British nation, even if only political and constitutional, went clean out of the window. That was and that is the unavoidable consequence of the 1998 legislation. Once England re-emerged, even though only by default, as a distinct nation, which it did thanks to the legislation, the scene was set for the demand for self-rule. No nation worth its salt will take anything less. the Campaign for an English Parliament was set up that very same year. By default England's identity has been restored to it. By default it has been made aware of itself. The way forward is an inevitability. It is not a coincidence, it was not by sheer chance, that after 1998 we have all witnessed the incredible display of English flags whether for football competitions or cricket or rugby or athletics. People from other countries tell me they have never seen anything like it where they come from. England is back.

However, England is only just beginning to be back politically and constitutionally. So far only in slight ways as I have mentioned. The forces lined up against giving it any institution which will be a statement of its distinct nationhood like Scotland and Wales have, are immense. The hostility to it, the determination to stop it by the UK ruling elites, the political parties, all sorts of departments in academia, political think tanks and the media, above all BBC, has been very adequately described already in this series of contributions. I have a very choice record of correspondence on the matter with the Director (in about 2002) of the BBC department of 'Nations and Regions', the nations of course being Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the regions being a balkanised England. I had written to the BBC to ask for a BBC England just as there is a BBC Scotland, a BBC Wales and a BBC NI. "No" was the reply I received. "Why not?" I asked. "Because England is too big". "Well", I said, "if England is too big, how come you have a BBC which covers all four, and a BBC World Service? The 'World' is somewhat bigger than England." I received no reply.

For the past twelve years I have been very actively involved in the Campaign for an English Parliament. In that time we have made great strides forward. A book could be written on our experiences, indeed one should be. From being on the fringe the Campaign and its basic idea is part of the debate. There is even the expectation, not just among our members but much more widespread, again as one contributor to this series of essays has stated and as opinion polls indicate, that if a referendum were held an English Parliament would be supported. Regionalism, favoured by both the Labour party and the Lib Dems, has been decisively rejected. However, given the degree of Establishment opposition to any form of devolution for England, even to the expression of Englishness and to English patriotism, again very well described in this series, it would be a very rash person who would expect anything other than a very long march indeed.

The question posed by this series is: Constitutional Futures. Where Now? What I have done so far is set out the constitutional position England is in. By default its distinct nationhood, at least territorially, is recognised. The opposition of the UK Establishment to giving its nationhood any political and constitutional recognition is widespread and intense; and it is that Establishment that controls almost all the levers of influence and power. However, what the UK Establishment does not control by reason of the 1998 legislation it itself was responsible for is the institutions of self-rule in Scotland and Wales; neither has any control over Scottish and Welsh nationalism; and therein resides what could well be the biggest and most potent driver of all when it comes to trying to predict what the constitutional future of England will be. The UK Establishment is so concerned to keep the lid on Scottish and Welsh nationalism in order to preserve the existing shape of the Union that is is prepared to increase the powers of self-rule devolved to both countries.

The UK Establishment has committed itself to granting more powers to both Scotland and Wales. That again has been described adequately in this series of essays, so no need of repetition. The outcome however of this Establishment policy and attitude will be for England politically and constitutionally what financially the Barnett Formula is for Scotland and Wales. The more powers the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly get, that much less is the power to govern them that the UK Parliament has. That in turn means that with any UK ministry, the less it is concerned with Scotland and Wales, the more it is concerned just with England. The more in this way that Scotland and Wales pull away, the more English concerns become England's own concerns. The more distinct politically, constitutionally and culturally Scotland and Wales become department of state by department of state, the more distinct politically, constitutionally and culturally England becomes. Succintly, the more Scotland and Wales become distinct, the more England becomes distinct, becomes itself. The UK Establishment has already legislated three distinct nations back into existence, two with deliberation, one by default. The more powers it cedes to Scotland and Wales, the more separate, different and distinct they become. And by default that applies to England too. I would like to suggest that this process will be the main driver in what will constitute England's future political existence. More than any form of EVEL, though that too, if it happens, will be highly significant. Also, the more all this happens, the more it will highlight and inflame the West Lothian Question.

I do not know what we in the CEP will achieve by our campaigning just as we did not know when we started in June 1998 when the devolution legislation was enacted. We have moved mountains so far. We will not reduce our efforts in the slightest. Our efforts and our influence will increase. However, to the Question 'Where Now?' one answer can be given. Just as England came back as a distinct nation with the 1998 legislation, it will gain more and more political, constitutional and and cultural expression and strength of its self-identity with every gain Scotland and Wales achieve from the UK Establishment; and both those countries are about to get more powers. What has to be considered too will be the long term significance and effects of the concession of more powers to Scotland and Wales. The more they get and the more the exercise them, the less they will be reliant upon the Union. The Union will recede in its significance as it concedes power by power. And the further and further Scotland and Wales will slip away from significance in the lives and the government of England. The opposition to an English Parliament is deep and intense within the UK Establishment. However, so is the preservation of the Union. To the mind of the Establshment the two are inseparable. To achieve the latter it will concede more and more to Scotland and Wales. We might well find that this strategy of preservation is the best ally an English Parliament can have.

Mike Knowles is a member of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.

Summary

This article looks forwards to likely events on devolution, in the context of England in particular. In summary I think it likely that:

• nothing of significance will happen this year nor (probably) in 2011
• if there were to be a Conservative government with a working majority, either following the forthcoming election or (if there were to be a hung Parliament) on any subsequent election later this year or at the beginning of next year, by the end of that Parliament some form of restricted voting at Westminster will be introduced
• the Barnett formula will remain for the moment
• regional devolution though desirable is a lost cause
• there will be no English Parliament in the short to medium term, although one may well occur by default in coming decades

Constraints

It is difficult to chart the constitutional future over the short term – say, the next five years – because much depends on the outcome of the forthcoming election, or if that were not to result in a working majority for the government which then ends up in office, in the election thereafter which (in the event of a hung Parliament) would be likely to take place later this year or the beginning of next year.

So far as concerns the future, what I think will happen is different from what I would like to happen. In this article I will mention both. In doing so, I will first deal with the “big ticket” issue of the political representation of England (if any) within the UK, and secondly in a very limited way with the question of UK financial arrangements, although as I mention further below, the two cannot be wholly disengaged.

English votes on English laws

The Labour party went into its 1997 devolution proposals with no working plans for an English dimension for the UK constitution, and there will remain none whilst Gordon Brown remains leader of that party. For any incoming government, including a David Cameron government, the first priority will be the economy and the budget deficit. Nothing will happen in relation to the English Question/the West Lothian Question in the first session of a new Parliament, which will be a long session lasting until prorogation in November 2011 prior to a second Queen’s Speech.

However, I expect a Tory government to introduce some form of restricted voting within the term of any Parliament with a Tory majority, probably based on the proposals of Ken Clarke’s Democracy Taskforce. This will partly be through self-interest (it gives the Tories more opportunities to stake their claims in the event of a Labour government being elected in the future with only a small majority); partly because there is an inadequacy in the current UK constitutional arrangements which it seems difficult to consider can remain unaddressed for ever and the Conservatives do not want to end up with an English Parliament; partly because it gives David Cameron’s own back-benchers something that a number of them feel strongly about; and partly because he has previously publicly come out in favour of it and he cannot too often be seen not to be implementing what he has said he would implement.

In addition, this dovetails nicely with implementation of proposals similar to those of the Calman Commission recommendations for additional financial devolution for Scotland, and with any successful outcome of the referendum on whether the Welsh Assembly should obtain law making powers under Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 similar to (although slightly reduced from) those of the Scottish Parliament.

The required approval of two-thirds of the whole number of members of the Assembly has recently been given to the holding of such a referendum, although there remains some doubt about the outcome of the referendum, which would take place after the general election. However, it seems difficult to believe that the referendum would escape the gaze of those who already think the West Lothian Question is bad enough without adding a West Clwyd Question to it. It seems likely that Calman Commission implementation, Welsh law-making powers and the position of England will be treated together as a package by the Tories.

Furthermore, my own view is that the Tory calculation that introducing such arrangements for England would do less damage than doing nothing is the correct calculation. Not all of course agree with this. Professor Victor Bogdanor is probably the best known and most widely respected champion of the status quo, and has published a number of articles on the subject. The arguments that he and others of his persuasion have presented on this are twofold:

1. A scheme of English votes on English laws at Westminster is unworkable if a UK government were to be reliant on its Scottish, Northern Irish and (after the Welsh Assembly acquires law making powers under Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006) Welsh members for its majority. One of the pillars of the unwritten constitution concerning the Westminster parliament is the principle that the government must be able to get its business through and to whip the members of its own party wherever elected in the UK to any extent that it wishes in order to do so. A scheme of English votes on English laws would in practice (so the argument goes) collapse into a separate English Parliament and government within Westminster by another name, whenever the UK government did not have a majority in England.
2. Under the Barnett formula, decisions affecting expenditure in England on matters devolved elsewhere will feed through into amounts paid to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Consolidated Funds with respect to those devolved matters. This is sometimes referred to as the “Barnett consequential”. There is therefore no such thing (on this argument) as an “England-only” matter for which either an English parliament, English members at Westminster or regional parliaments for England could or should in practice take jurisdiction. Barnett and devolution for England don’t mix.

These conventional attacks on proposals to limit voting rights at Westminster are in part at least attacks on a straw man. Even if the Barnett consequential argument were decisive in precluding devolution in England (which for the reasons mentioned below I do not believe it is), no proposals emanating from the Tories involving an English Grand Committee, whether from Ken Clarke's Democracy Taskforce or from Malcolm Rifkind, would prevent members for the whole of the UK having a decisive say on whether laws affecting only England should pass both at second and third readings. Thus no Act could pass without the approval of all members, but an English Grand Committee could, depending on how it were implemented, prevent a repetition of, for example, the student top-up fees affair being forced on people in England. They could certainly not collapse into an English Parliament by another name.

The principle that the government must be able to get its business through needs to be considered more seriously. The calculation of opponents of restricted voting at Westminster is first that were there to be a government dependent on its Scottish MPs for its majority, less instability would arise from those MPs being able to decide matters in England which are devolved in Scotland than the reverse; and secondly that it is unacceptable if a government were to be unable to get its legislative program through for England on devolved matters without the agreement of other parties in such circumstances.

I think both ideas are challengeable. Whilst the present system may be able to accommodate the odd student top-up fees affair occurring, I do not believe it could survive it happening with regularity. Apart from it simply being undemocratic, it would be likely to generate considerable ill feeling between constituent parts of the UK. On the second point, which is super-Diceyan in its extremeness, we are not like the Aztecs who felt impelled to offer regular blood sacrifices of increasingly gross proportions in order to keep the sun providing warmth and the natural order of things in existence, nor should be believe that the earth will stop turning if Parliament does not churn out new laws. Laws on health and education which worked in 2010 are likely also to work in 2015 even if they do not match the UK government’s particular political agenda of the moment. A respite from legislative activism might be viewed as a blessing, particularly by those at the receiving end, and where something is required it will be for politicians to do what politicians do in order to reach a compromise: something that would be required in any event if proportional representation were to be introduced, which would normally result in no party having an overall majority.

For what it is worth, my own proposal for this is more limited than those emerging from the Tory party. By analogy with the power of delay for a year available to the House of Lords, if a Bill or separate Part of a Bill were not to have a majority in its favour in the Commons at third reading for the portion of the UK to which it applies as well as for the whole House, I propose that it could not be forced through against the wishes of the majority of those members representing that portion until the following session of Parliament. At all stages of a Bill all members would still exercise a vote; but people in England/Wales would get some protection at third reading against laws and decisions, applying to them only, being forced on them which are not approved of by their elected representatives. Where the government felt it really needed to force something through against the wishes of the representatives of those in England or England and Wales, they could do so, but after the same delay that could be imposed by the House of Lords. Possibly after a period of experience and the development of the processes of consultation and compromise that may be required, this power to delay could be transformed into a power to block.

For such arrangements to work, the extent of a Bill or separate part of a Bill would have to be certified by the Speaker. That used to be done before devolution for the purposes of the Scottish Grand Committee. Various new drafting conventions about how a Bill is divided into parts may be required so as to enable separate treatment in this way, but this is nothing that the flexibility of Parliamentary procedure (and the excellent drafting skills at the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel) could not manage. Those who say that there are insuperable technical difficulties are simply overstating or misunderstanding their case.

The Barnett formula

Lastly on this, I will turn again to the Barnett formula. I am not going to dwell on the supposed iniquities of the Barnett formula, except to say that despite all the hype emerging from the (UK) Scottish Office, the formula does not as some suggest result in an export of significant quantities of English tax payers’ cash north of the border (as opposed to the export of cash from the greater-south-east-of-England’s tax payers northwards and westwards, which does occur). Taking account of the geographical allocation of North Sea oil revenues based on what would be international boundaries, at present Scotland’s fiscal balances are no worse, and possibly slightly better, than that of the UK as a whole.

That will not always be the case. Scotland’s over-reliance on public sector employment and the exhaustion of oil and gas reserves in 30 or so years’ time will give rise to new imbalances, but they do not exist significantly at the moment.

Instead I deal with the Barnett formula here for two reasons. First, in order to dispel the argument against devolution in England which is based on the Barnett consequential, and secondly to explain why I do not think it will be in any new government’s plans to replace it with, say, a needs based formula.

On the Barnett consequential, the point here is that the passing of an Act for a particular service in England such as education or health which normally exercises politicians (say, how schools are to be organised, or the role of parents within them, and so forth) does not of itself normally require expenditure. There may be additional expenditure implications, but compared to current spend on the service they are likely to be de minimis, and at the end of the day any service must cut its cloth to the amount provided for it in any year by the process of supply. Ministers bargain with the Treasury on annual spending reviews on calculations of broad brush political calculation and policy aims, not a detailed analysis of particular service legislation.

The amount available to spend in furtherance of these services (so called “supply”) is established annually by Consolidated Fund Acts. This is linked in to the annual expenditure estimates laid by the Chief Secretary of the Treasury before the House of Commons each year, drawn up following the Treasury's spending review. Once approved by the House, authority to draw on the Consolidated Fund to meet the estimates in the first part of the following financial year (beginning on 1st April) is conferred by a Consolidated Fund Act. In the summer of the year, usually shortly before the summer recess at the end of July, these are incorporated into an annual Appropriation Act listing and authorising the appropriations for each head of service of each department for the year, usually followed by a further Appropriation Act towards the end of the financial year which sets out any excesses for the previous financial year and any supplementary supplies necessary since the estimates were drawn up for the current financial year.

The essential point here is that the determination of the Barnett uplift (the percentage of the increase in expenditure in England which is to go in block grant to the other countries in the UK) follows directly from the spending review giving rise to the estimates and any supplementary votes for central government departments. There is nothing to stop members for, say, Scotland expressing a view and exercising their vote when the annual estimates or any supplementaries are put forward in the Commons for the resolution of the House, if they feel that the “knock-on” effects on Scotland under the Barnett formula are not to their liking. That is quite different from being able to force through what the money voted for any particular head of service must be used for at the detailed implementation level in England, or to decide everything else which happens to be going on in England.

Secondly, the Barnett formula itself. At the moment it undoubtedly favours Scotland in a way that a needs based formula would not. The report of the Richards Committee probably sets out reasonably accurately how any needs based formula would in practice work. Its main effect would be to transfer some of Scotland’s block grant to Wales (a point also made by the Welsh Assembly’s Holtham Commission). England as a whole would stay pretty much the same (although there might be some changes in distribution within different parts of England), and because of the gearing caused by the fact that England represents some 83% of the population of the UK there is no significant pot of money hiding there for the English taxpayer to enjoy anyway.

Any new government will have to cut public expenditure. It will also have to deal with the SNP and with Scottish elections in 2011. Given that these cuts in public expenditure will have a significant impact on Scotland because of its reliance on the public sector, the last thing the new government will want to do is to make things worse by cutting Scotland’s block grant. Bad luck Wales.

Regional government

One feature of the present devolution arrangements which sometimes worries me is the thread of tribalism that lies underneath it. The very existence of a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly has within it the implicit view that on matters of social provision such as health and education, and indeed in social democracy itself, people within the UK are no longer “in it together”. However, now that tribalism within Scotland and Wales has found an outlet it should be no surprise if, in due course, the light reflected into England from this tribal mirror also begins to make its mark.

Or put more prosaically, I think it will be some time before the full consequences of the 1997 devolution project have worked their way through, and the Labour party having begun that project are unlikely to be able to maintain ownership of it as one suspects they originally thought they could. Having begun the project of devolution and accepted the fracturing of social democracy that it entails, we now have to see it through. It is too late to look back.

With that in mind, I am a fan of regional devolved government within England. My view is that if people in England were offered three regional parliaments and governments for the North, the Midlands and the South, with powers similar to those of the Welsh Assembly and government, and with an opportunity to say which region they thought they were in, it might well find favour at a referendum, and in particular in the north. The botched attempts of John Prescott which ended up in overwhelming rejection in the north-east in 2004 are attributable, I strongly suspect, to the fact that first they did not offer any meaningful devolution at all (a few transport matters would have gone from the Government Office for the North-East to the assembly, but most of the transport and planning powers were to be lifted from the county councils and unitary authorities and on planning were to be subject to central government direction anyway), and secondly that the proposals had the practical effect of dividing rather than representing the interests of the north of England. People in the north-east saw through it.

Some argue that the kind of federal regional devolution to which I have referred would result in a situation where the laws in, say, Manchester could be different from the laws in London, and that is (so the argument goes) ridiculous. To this I would only say first that that is devolution, and secondly that at present laws in Belfast and Edinburgh are different from those in Manchester, and in due course those in Cardiff will become different as well. One of the purposes of devolution was to allow that to happen and it seems a curious criticism to level against federal regional government. Behind it lies the unspoken thought that the 1997 devolution proposals were either wrong, or are not to be taken seriously.

Having said all those things, regrettably I do not think genuine regional government will happen. The Westminster political establishment still sees England as the prize and will not readily cede any meaningful responsibilities to powerful regions and their representatives. Prescott’s quest may have been hopeless politically, notwithstanding the ineffective job he made of it. I am as strongly opposed to pretend regional devolution as were the people of the north-east, and the problem with the Prescott proposals is that they did not, in fact, deal with the West Lothian Question anyway. They would probably still have to be coupled with some form of restricted voting at Westminster.

An English parliament

I am not a great advocate of an English parliament. There is a respectable argument for one, particularly in establishing and legitimising a new identity for those in England. However, to construct a new political class for England to provide complete equivalence to those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seems to me to be overkill when a simpler solution at Westminster for the West Lothian Question is available; and compared to regional devolution it does not move down powers to any significant degree. It seems possible that if given the choice, even today a majority in England would vote for an English Parliament, and over time that number is likely to become larger, but equally the opportunity in the next decade to make that choice is not likely to be offered by our politicians. Furthermore, I suspect a system of restricted voting at Westminster is the preferred option for most – but again we are unlikely actually to find out. If restricted voting happens, as I suspect it will, it will happen.

Having said that, I also suspect that we may end up with an English parliament after a number of decades by default. It could emerge from a slow metamorphosis of UK power structures into England power structures on matters which will have already become devolved in the remainder of the UK. However, that will be some time in the future I suspect, and time will tell. An English parliament would also be almost certain to emerge if fiscal autonomy were to arise in Scotland, for the reasons I explore further below. Where such Scottish fiscal autonomy would leave Wales and Northern Ireland, and how cross-subsidies from England would continue to operate, would then become quite problematic.

In the absence of regional devolution, an English Parliament would also be a pre-requisite of any federal system within the UK.

Fiscal autonomy

There is a very good reason why the Calman Commission trod carefully on matters of fiscal devolution. Its recommendations on this are relatively modest: they are, in effect, that the Scottish Parliament may set its own rate of income tax provided that it is not more than 10% below that set by the Westminster parliament for the remainder of the UK, and provided that the differential between tax bands is not changed. All money raised above the rate which is 10% below UK rates would go directly to the Scottish Consolidated Fund, in exchange for which the missing 10% would be deducted from the annual amount paid into the fund from the Treasury from UK taxation. So, if the Scottish Parliament were to set the same rate as applying in the remainder of the UK it would find its revenues broadly the same as without Calman; and if it were to set it higher or lower it would get proportionately more or less.

It seems highly unlikely that a Scottish Parliament would ever want to set a rate of income tax for Scotland more than 10% below that applying elsewhere in the UK, so the substantial effect is that Scots could set their own rate of income tax. The preclusion on changing tax bands may be as much in order to avoid arguments that, if MSPs can set their own rates of income tax, then their MP brothers in Westminster for Scottish constituencies should not be able to vote on income tax rates in the remainder of the UK, as it is to avoid unfair taxes on high earners in Scotland. In other words, the preclusion on changing tax bands is probably at least intended in part to avoid a West Lothian issue arising on taxation, where it would become serious.

Imagine then what would happen if there were to be financial autonomy for Scotland, under which the Scottish Parliament became responsible for raising its own taxation to meet its own expenditure. It seems inevitable that members of the UK parliament elected for Scottish constituencies would no longer be able to vote in connection with the fixing of rates of taxes such as income tax and corporation tax applying outside Scotland, to which their constituents would not be subject: were they to do so, it would fly against the constitutional links between taxation and representation, and be grossly unfair to people in the remainder of the UK. The link between taxation and representation, and the removal of the power of the Crown to tax without grant of the Commons in Parliament, formed one of the causes of the English Civil War (aka the Wars of the Three Kingdoms). We surely can’t and shouldn’t go back on this principle now.

If a UK government depended for its majority on its members for Scottish constituencies, it could be unable to raise the taxation for its own programmes. The only logical vehicle for introducing such fiscal autonomy in Scotland would be the creation of an English Parliament.

Other matters

One other “broad picture” point must be taken into account when looking at England.

On two occasions since the war, there has been a Labour government for the UK when England returned a majority of Tory members. The reverse happened in Scotland in the Thatcher governments and the Major government. If one is keeping score, Scotland has now moved ahead of England in the “we didn’t elect them” count. Given the current political complexion of Scotland it seems highly unlikely that at any time in the short to medium future Scotland would ever return more than a handful of Tory members, thus exacerbating this situation in times to come.

One might counter this legalistically by saying that this is what the Scots agreed to in the articles of union. One could also counter it politically by saying that this was one of the issues that the establishment of a Scottish parliament was intended to address. One should not underestimate the extent of the matters which have been devolved which, despite what the SNP say, are already very extensive – I personally regret the loss of a UK-wide national health service as something which binds us together.

I say this to illustrate the point that however aggrieved people in England may in the future think they have become, there is more than one point of view about representational fairness arising from the now multiple legislatures within the UK.

Where now for the Campaign for an English Parliament?

I hesitate to offer advice to the CEP because I have the reservations about their case which I have mentioned, and I am therefore not well qualified to do so. I suspect all they can do is sit it out, because as I have said I think time is on their side. Were the Scots to achieve any substantial fiscal autonomy, which is not impossible, that seems to me to require the establishment of an English Parliament in order to enable taxation to be raised legitimately with respect to the matters affecting England which are devolved elsewhere.

Perhaps my other main advice is to chill a little, and to spend less time aggravated by the fact that the Scottish parliament may have decided, by virtue of devolution, to offer some particular financial advantage for people in Scotland. Every pound that goes to, say, reduce prescription charges or abolish toll road charges in Scotland is a pound less which is available to the Scottish government to spend on something else. That is what devolution and the establishment of local priorities is about, and except when something like the student top-up fees affair arises, it has little to do with an English parliament.

Chris Vine blogs at The Withering Vine

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.

Northern Irish Unionism fundamentally differs from its Scottish and Welsh cousins in that it splits not along constitutional (federalist-devolutionist-integrationist) but instead primarily cultural (i.e. communal)-civic fault lines. Cultural Unionism believes in the concept of a “Unionist People” or “Community” bound together by history, British nationality, ethnicity, location and religion. Its prime loyalty is not to the parliament of the United Kingdom, nor even necessarily to the nation’s monarch, but to the material well-being of their “Community” within the Greater British nation. It is essentially a defensive Unionism dependent on demographics and, of course, constant vigilance. Presently the biggest party in Northern Irish politics, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), along with its even more fundamentalist rival, Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), unashamedly espouse the policy of Cultural Unionism. Unfortunately for David Cameron it has been recently proven that a large segment of his putative partners, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) still also believe in this idea of a “Unionist People” as opposed to a Union whose benefits should be available to all.

Civic Unionism in a Northern Irish context is the promotion of the Union as a non-communal political philosophy, attempting to sell our continuing link with the rest of the United Kingdom as a stand-alone as opposed to being merely a part of the bigger communal whole. It remains today, as throughout Northern Ireland’s history, very much a minor strand in the province’s bigger polity but it was given a boost nearly two years ago by the decision of David Cameron and the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Sir Reg Empey, to fight as a single force (UCUNF) in both the European and Westminster elections [1]. A truly secular, wholly non-sectarian N.Irish Unionism taking its place at the centre of our nation’s government was promised and to hear Messrs Cameron and Empey saying they wanted:

"to offer the electorate of Northern Ireland something more than a continuation of 'us-and-them' politics," and:

"Something more than a Balkanisation process which will condemn another generation to elections based on sectarian headcounts and pure self-interest.[2]"

“…was a very welcome contrast to the stagnant, defensive and very often sectarian nature of “traditional” Ulster Unionism.

As I’ve already mentioned, unfortunately for Cameron, the Conservative Party and those of us who bought into the UCUNF’s publicly declared concept, the promise still remains very much only that- a promise. Despite “Irisgate” and the shenanigans of the Policing and Justice debacle, events of the last month or so [3] have proven that “Cultural Unionism” is most definitely not only alive and kicking, but also ready and willing to grab a large majority of the seats won by pro-Union parties in the next Westminster election.

If my pessimism is realised, then what will be the implications for the wider Union and more specifically for the readers of this site, the cause of English nationalism?

Cultural Unionism has an intensely focused, even myopic target and that is to ensure Northern Ireland’s “Unionist People” continue to benefit disproportionately in political and economic terms from remaining a part of the United Kingdom. If in attempting to achieve that target that brings it into conflict with the United Kingdom’s government (even one as avowedly Unionist as Cameron’s), then so be it. If, as a side effect, collateral damage is caused to the wider Union it is of secondary importance to the fact that as far as their folk back home are concerned, they are “fighting and winning for Northern Ireland” at Westminster. Case in point is the Barnett Formula.

Arlene Foster, the DUP candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and our temporary First Minister stated quite categorically (despite admitting to fact that it discriminates against England!) Barnett should be kept because…well, because Northern Ireland does rather well out of it [4]. A second example is Cultural Unionism’s attitude towards devolution. For Northern Ireland, it’s a very good thing- indeed, the more space between “our” “parliament” and the cosmopolitan, interfering busybodies at Westminster, apparently the better. The belief in the better governance which is devolution, however, doesn’t extend to countenancing it for the biggest part of the United Kingdom, England. In fact, as evidenced by speeches by several DUP MPs (the Upper Bann MP, David Simpson amongst them [5]), even the limited “English Votes On English Matters” proposal is not something these N.Irish “Guardians of the Union’s Integrity” are prepared to consider.

In the normal run of things this contradictory “Keep Sending the Cash and Leave Us Alone” school of pseudo-Unionism has played little part in the every day business of the House of Commons. Almost all of the N.Irish Unionist MPs are “double-jobbers”, holding down MLA and local councilors positions simultaneously and consequently their attendance at Westminster is sporadic, to say the very least. A hung-parliament however would not be in the “normal run of things” and such a scenario has the potential of leaving these Unionist MPs with a very strong negotiating hand:

Would they play it to the overall benefit of the Union, attempting to address the financial inequities of the present settlement?

Would they be looking to solve the constitutional conundrums thrown up by asymmetrical devolution?

Or would, once again, a detached, pork-barreled Ulster Unionism be holding a UK government to ransom, regardless of the bad publicity and ill-will generated?

David Cameron and the Conservatives should be aware that the dangers to the nation’s integrity come in many varied forms. Cultural Unionism may not be directly threatening to have Westminster “dangling from a N.Irish rope” dancing to ‘our’ tune but ironically its potential to ultimately damage the Union may be greater than all of those whose publicly declared aim is to dismantle the United Kingdom. For the sake of the Union’s future well-being, let’s hope that potential isn’t realised.

O'Neill is the author of A Pint of Unionist Lite.

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.

Re-thinking the English Parliament: (D)evolution not revolution

Short-term questions, long-term goals

What are the prospects for an English parliament as we head towards a UK general election and a probable change of regime? In the short term, there are many more questions than answers, as the extensive list of factors that could affect the chances for a change in English governance, outlined in Gareth Young’s framing of the topic ‘Where now for the campaign for an English parliament?’, makes clear.

But if the precise chain of circumstances that could lead to an English parliament or to some version of English votes on English laws (EVoEL) must seem the province of political soothsayers, the long-term direction of travel appears more certain. In all of the (increasingly dis)United Kingdom’s constituent parts, there is a growing confidence and pride in asserting the nationhood of the part in question as a more primary identity than Britishness. In all of the constituent countries other than England, this process has crystallised around the new devolved parliament / assemblies and governments, which are at once symbols and instruments of renewed civic nationalism, and have in a sense given ‘permission’ to celebrate and express a distinct Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish national consciousness in many more ways than the merely political.

In England, we have witnessed a contrary trend: the central UK government and establishment has done everything in their considerable power to stuff the emerging English genie back into the Union bottle from whence it has started to emerge after being woken by the rub of devolution! In fact, the response of the British establishment to the emerging English Question has been not only to try to suppress all discussion of ‘English matters’ as such (stuff the genie back into the bottle) but to pretend the genie itself never existed! The establishment – by which I mean all the mainstream, unionist parties; the British government; and the pro-Union mainstream media – has embarked on what seems at times to be no less than a systematic, though unofficial, reimagining and reinvention of ‘Britain’ as the identity, name and ‘subjectivity’ of ‘the nation’, in place of England. This New Labour-New Britain is a ‘nation’ divided into ‘regions’, three of which in turn (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) have the character and partially self-governing status of ‘nations’: Gordon Brown’s (in)famous ‘Britain of nations and regions’. The futility of this attempt to re-engineer an England-centric Great Britain as a de-anglicised Britain is suggested by my analogy: England, like the genie, does exist; and as devolution evolves elsewhere in the UK, the demand for a distinct English focus of government and civic society will only grow louder.

However, the establishment’s denial of the very existence of England as a nation does mean that advocates of an English parliament have to deal not only with an almost total unwillingness on the part of the establishment to engage with the English Question but with an inability to even conceptualise an English parliament: to understand what it might mean or how it could be relevant. If you genuinely believe that Britain is the nation – and that England is merely a convenient name for the larger, non-devolved part of that nation – it is impossible to see an English parliament as anything other than an unnecessary duplication of or rival to the Union parliament. And it is indeed in these terms that many opponents of an English parliament dismiss it out of hand: as an extra layer of British governance that adds nothing, either in terms of effectiveness or representation, as the Union parliament – comprising 82% English MPs – supposedly represents England’s interests adequately. The fallacies of this point of view are well known, the main one being simply that the UK parliament and MPs do not represent the interests of ‘England’ as such in any shape or form.

However, as proponents of an English parliament, we, too, need to be clearer about the context of British governance and identity into which we see an EP as fitting. And I think it is here that a fundamental modification of the conceptual underpinning of the Campaign for an English Parliament needs to take place. Hitherto, the model for an English parliament advocated by the CEP has been essentially that of a separate, devolved body with powers at least equivalent to those of the Scottish parliament. However, with moves afoot to extend the powers of the Scottish parliament to one extent or another, it now seems clear that the existing devolution settlement is no longer even adequate for Scotland, let alone for England.

Indeed, it is debatable whether the Scottish parliament as currently constituted was ever an adequate model for the English parliament. For example, although I do not agree with arguments to the effect that an English parliament would necessarily unbalance the Union or set the interests of England against those of the smaller nations, it is nonetheless clear that the relationship between the UK parliament and a devolved English parliament could not exactly parallel that between the UK and Scottish parliaments. For a start, it is hard to imagine an English parliament with extensive devolved powers being content to be fiscally dependent on a British parliament that was perhaps smaller than the English parliament, with its entire budget being based on a block grant delivered from on high, especially if that grant were thought to be inequitable by comparison with the Scottish and Welsh budgets. An English parliament would therefore be likely to demand or require more fiscal autonomy, somewhat along the lines of the ‘devolution max’ model recently put forward by the SNP as one of four potential options for Scottish governance to be debated in the run up to a potential independence referendum.

Equally, while the present direct link between public expenditure in England and that in the devolved countries based on the Barnett Formula needs to be broken, the smaller nations would still retain a much greater vested interest in spending decisions in England than vice-versa. This is simply because English policies and spending would continue to have a considerable economic and social impact on the smaller countries, while the level of taxation in those countries might also need to rise following the withdrawal of the Barnett subsidy. Therefore, it is arguable that any viable model for an English parliament, other than in the context of full English independence, will need to put in place some safeguards to protect the smaller countries from an English parliament that might otherwise aggressively pursue English interests to the detriment of those of its neighbours. Indeed, a concern to protect the interests of the smaller British nations has been one of the pretexts most commonly advanced to reject the idea of an English parliament.

Towards an evolutionary model of English governance

It is clear, however, that any dismissal of an English parliament merely on the grounds that it might destabilise the Union or disadvantage the UK’s smaller nations is a pretext: in one form or another – whether the quasi-psychotic denial of England’s very existence by the establishment, or the fear of English ‘dominance’ felt by many in the smaller nations – it involves a refusal to recognise England’s natural right as a nation to determine its own forms of governance. Once this right is recognised, and arguably only when it is acknowledged, the debate can then be moved forward and consideration can be given to the constitutional reforms that can best deliver genuine English-national democracy and protect the interests of the smaller British nations, and so ensure a viable Union going forward. And it is here that I would like to suggest the lines of an evolutionary model for an English parliament.

There have been two broad types of constitutional reform in English and British history: the revolutionary (such as in the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution) and the evolutionary. The fact that we have an ‘unwritten’ constitution (i.e. no single foundational document setting out the UK’s constitution) is a reflection of the fact that the constitution we do have has developed mainly in the evolutionary way: through a succession of partial reforms, individual acts of parliament and gradual change. In no other area is this truer than the relationships between each of the constituent countries and the central power; and, arguably, the need to preserve the historical legacy and discrepancies of these differential inter-national arrangements is one of the reasons why the UK has never had a single written constitution.

It should of course be borne in mind that differences in the degree and scope of autonomy from the centre enjoyed by each of the UK’s constituent parts are nothing new, and they certainly don’t all stem from asymmetric devolution. Scotland has maintained separate legal and education systems, and its own national church, from before the Acts of Union; and there has of course been a long and chequered history of alternating direct and home rule in the case of Northern Ireland. Only Wales was governed as a single polity, indistinct from England, throughout the history of the Union up to New Labour’s Devolution Acts, with Wales being subsumed by England – politically and legally – in much the same way as England is presently absorbed into ‘Britain’.

The devolution settlement of 1998 should, then, be regarded as just another example of the UK’s evolutionary constitution-making process. The fact is there is nothing definitively settled about the devolution settlement. Devolution, as has been remarked, is a process not an end point – the point, however, being that England has thus far been left out of the process. And devolution continues to evolve in the other nations: Scotland will almost certainly acquire more fiscal autonomy; Wales is likely to obtain more primary-legislative powers; and the arguments about devolving policing and justice to the Northern Ireland assembly are of course ongoing as I write. While all of these developments will place considerable pressure on an incoming Conservative government to reform the Barnett Formula and remediate the West Lothian Question, can the CEP come up with an evolutionary model for England’s journey to ever greater self-government that may have a chance to win acceptance by the fearful establishment? Such a solution will have to avoid directly challenging the establishment’s authority or appearing to be a threat to the Union’s survival altogether.

One of the problems with the CEP’s present blueprint for an EP is that it is, arguably, more revolutionary in its impact than evolutionary. The CEP might not accept that analysis; but the idea of a single, new, autonomous English parliament – albeit conceived along the lines of Scottish devolution – is revolutionary in its implications for the British state. For a start, as I have argued above, it is doubtful whether an English parliament could really work along the same lines as the Scottish parliament. And this is not just because it would demand greater fiscal autonomy than the present Scottish parliament but also because it would inevitably challenge the sovereignty of the British state over English affairs and would threaten to undermine the very identity of ‘Britain’ as a / the ‘nation’: a myth that is dependent for its survival on the English being compliant with the establishment’s re-modelling of their identity as ‘British’. In short, for reasons of both practical politics and diverging national identity, a fully fledged English parliament introduced in a single step would almost inevitably require a new UK-wide constitutional settlement of the ‘revolutionary’ kind: a new beginning on completely new foundations – most likely, a federal or confederal settlement with ‘Britain’ no longer being an overarching sovereign power, such as the model I set out in a previous article.

While I personally would like to see a revolutionary transformation of English and British governance along these lines, I feel that an evolutionary model offers much greater prospects of success. And by ‘evolution’, I am also suggesting that the new – and, by definition, provisional and evolving – English parliament should be conceived of, and presented as, evolving out of the present UK parliament, albeit explicitly re-branded as an English body. After all, the UK parliament is already a de facto English parliament in most of what it does, the trouble being that it both refuses to acknowledge its England-only character and enlists the anti-democratic participation of non-English-elected MPs in legislating for England.

In this article, I would like to put forward a draft proposal for an English parliament that would indeed be a reformed but continuing Westminster parliament: distinctly English in focus and composition, but integrated within a UK parliamentary and governmental framework. This could be a first step in the long-term evolution to a fully distinct EP but – who knows? – it could potentially also represent yet another modification to the unwritten British constitution that could serve for decades or even centuries to come.

An English parliament with dual English and British responsibilities: outline for English-parliamentary evolution

Here’s my idea, in brief:

• The present Westminster parliament could in effect evolve into an English parliament (or, putting it another way, it would revert to being the English parliament it originally was). It would be elected on a fixed-term basis every four years, with the elections timed to coincide with those for the other devolved parliament / assemblies. There are already moves or proposals afoot to reduce the number of UK MPs, and particularly those from Scotland and Wales, and to introduce fixed-term parliaments. This proposal just goes that crucial extra English mile further: eliminating non-English MPs altogether, reducing the number of constituency MPs (see further below) and introducing fixed terms.
• Elections would be held using the Additional Member System (AMS): the system presently used for the Scottish parliament, and Welsh and London assemblies. Alternatively, if present moves to introduce the Alternative Vote (AV) system for UK elections come to fruition, the system adopted for elections to the Westminster English parliament could be a form of AV+: combining an element of a proportional party-list system (such as that used for AMS) with AV rather than with First Past the Post, as is done with AMS. AV+ was in any case the system recommended by the Jenkins Commission on electoral reform during the first term of the New Labour government, which subsequently kicked it into the long grass on grounds of political expediency.
  

  So here again, using AMS or AV+ would represent only a minor evolutionary step further from existing systems or proposals. It’s not my preferred voting system, nor is it the most proportional; but it could serve as an intermediate step towards multi-member Single Transferable Vote (STV), which is the most proportional system that also preserves a direct link between MPs and their constituencies – an issue I will discuss further below.

• I would, however, suggest using the proportional, party-list element of the AMS or AV+ system in a crucially different way from the present elections to the devolved bodies in Scotland and Wales. Instead of regional or county lists, such as those also used for elections to the European parliament, I would recommend national lists, with the parties’ share of seats being allocated purely on the basis of their share of the votes across England. So, for example, if there were 100 party-list seats of this sort, and if the Greens or BNP obtained 2% of the English vote each, they would each be allocated two party-list seats. This increases the proportionality of the party-list element, whereas in a county- or regional-list system, 2% of the vote would result in a party failing to win any seats. In addition, it makes the party-list MPs a genuine reflection of English political opinion across all regional variations, which adds to the national unity and representativeness of the parliament.
• Now, here’s where my proposals are most radical – but not, I would contend, revolutionary: the MPs elected via the party-list element of the ballot would be UK MPs as well as English MPs. That is to say, a new UK parliament would have to be established; and my proposal is that it would be elected purely on a party-list basis, with separate lists for each of the UK’s nations (potentially including Cornwall, further down the evolutionary line, if the people in the Duchy voted for separate nation status). (Let me note in passing that this is where my proposals are most divergent from the CEP’s existing conception of an EP: whereas the CEP advocates the establishment of a new, devolved English parliament, I’m saying that it’s a new British parliament that needs to be created, and the English parliament could more or less evolve out of the existing Westminster body.)
• It would be nicely neat and symmetrical if the Scottish and Welsh members of the new British parliament could be drawn from the MSPs and AMs that are presently elected via the party-list component of the elections for the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, thereby transforming elections to each of the devolved parliaments / assembly into simultaneous UK elections. For this to work, adjustments might need to be made in the numbers of such combined MSP / MPs and AM / MPs to reflect the populations of England, Scotland and Wales (but see further below); and the functions of such dual-purpose representatives within the national, as opposed to British, bodies would need to be redefined. So symmetry of this sort would perhaps be too much to expect as an initial step.
• A more attractive and, indeed, evolutionary alternative to this synchronisation and integration of UK and national elections might be to hold the UK elections every four years, with elections taking place at two years’ interval from the national elections (those for the devolved bodies). I would suggest that at least the English party-list MPs should be up for election every two years, as part of both the UK elections and English elections. This would help ensure that they had genuine dual accountability and a dual English-British mandate, as they would be alternately elected on their parties’ English and British platforms and agendas. Just to be absolutely clear: only English voters would vote for the party-list MPs for England; while Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people would vote for their own party lists (with scope for variation in the voting system used in Northern Ireland), whether once every four years (as part of the UK elections) or once every two years (as part of their national elections as well as the UK poll).
• The different local and national (that is, both English- and British-national) electoral bases of the constituency and party-list MPs would reflect the different responsibilities of the English and British parliaments respectively. Indeed, this split in the roles and mandates of English MPs suggests a rationale for devolution that rests on a logical and functionally efficient division of responsibilities in addition to the national rationale alone. That is, English constituency MPs, and by extension the English parliament in general, would be responsible for matters directly and concretely affecting their constituents: health care, education, English-national and -regional transport policy, planning, housing, local government and communities, policing and justice, English culture and sports, the environment, farming and agriculture, and – very importantly – all taxation required to generate the revenues needed to fulfil these responsibilities. All of the other areas of government – somewhat fewer than the present-day ‘reserved’ policy areas – would remain the province of the UK parliament and government.
  

  By contrast, the English party-list MPs that would also serve as British MPs would be responsible for defending the interests of England within the UK parliament, and for representing the interests of the UK and the other UK nations within the English parliament. This dual national mandate would neatly correspond to the fact that they had been elected by the English people from national-English party lists at alternately English and British elections. In other words, this provides a functional rationale for the party-list system in addition to its purpose as a means to ensure more proportional election results. Party-list MPs would have a specific responsibility to consider the strategic, economic and social interests of England as a whole, both within the English parliament and the British parliament. Equally, as British MPs responsible for hugely important UK-wide issues such as macro-economics, national security and foreign affairs, they would need to balance their role as advocates for the English nation with a more all-embracing, strategic responsibility for the interests of the UK as a whole and the needs of all its nations.

  This sort of structure provides continuity for the present system’s guarantees that the interests of the smaller UK nations are protected even when England-only matters are being legislated in Parliament – with the difference that the MPs with a constitutional responsibility to consider the interests of the whole of the UK within the English parliament would be elected by English voters. In fact, these MPs should be answerable not only to English voters but to English constituency MPs. Party-list MPs cannot be thrown out by any constituents, whereas constituency MPs could be sacked if present suggestions are taken up that ineffectual constituency MPs should be dismissed within the term of a parliament if enough of their constituents supported this. The potential immunity from dismissal of party-list MPs could lead to abuses, with national (British) parties promoting their placemen to positions high up in their national-English lists in perpetuity, making those MPs accountable to the British party leaderships, not voters. To prevent this, it should be possible for the English-parliamentary parties to force out any party-list MPs that are thought not to be fulfilling their responsibilities to represent England within the Union, or the Union within the English parliament.

• With respect to the composition of the English and British governments, the English government and executive should be drawn from English constituency MPs only, reflecting their England-specific responsibilities. The British government would be drawn from the dual-purpose English-British, party-list-elected MPs along with the party-list-elected MPs from Scotland and Wales (whether these were also MSPs and AMs or not), and the MPs from Northern Ireland, however elected. It could be made a constitutional requirement to ensure that at least one ministerial portfolio in the British government was filled by an MP from each of the UK’s nations. But it also follows from what I said in the previous paragraph that English constituency MPs would have the power to sack English-elected British ministers, although there might need to be some sort of constitutional court to arbitrate in the case of allegations that such ministers had neglected their responsibilities to English voters. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliament / assemblies could have similar powers of veto over their own British ministers if the party-list-elected representatives in those countries also served as British MPs.
• In terms of the number of English and British MPs, I think that something like 75% of English MPs should be constituency-based and 25% would be elected by party lists. If, for argument’s sake, there were 500 English MPs in total (compared with 533 UK MPs from English seats after the next general election), this would mean there would be a total of 375 constituency MPs and 125 English-British MPs. The number of British MPs from the other UK countries would then be in proportion to their population, e.g. approximately 12 from Scotland, seven from Wales and four from Northern Ireland, making 148 in total.
  

  Clearly, if the number of MPs from Scotland and Wales were as low as this, they would not be able to be drawn from all of the party-list-elected MSPs and AMs, which are more numerous. But these numbers are purely illustrative; and it might be the case that there would have to be some exclusively British MPs elected via the English-national party lists in addition to the combined English-British MPs. But to ensure that these English-elected, British-only MPs remained accountable to English voters, they could still be subject to scrutiny by the English parliament and be liable to be removed from their positions if they were adjudged to be neglecting their responsibilities to the English people.

• With respect to mutual scrutiny by the English and British parliaments, the new British parliament could, and in my view should, have the responsibility to scrutinise legislation arising from all of the national parliaments, including the English one, in a similar way to the present House of Lords’ revising function in relation to House of Commons bills. This would extend second-house scrutiny to the parliament / assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is presently lacking. However, whether or not this revising function were applied to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislation, the British parliament should still fulfil this role in relation to the English parliament: adding another layer of security that English legislation that potentially damaged the interests of the UK’s other countries could not be enacted without being referred back to the English parliament for serious reconsideration, although the British parliament should not have the absolute power of veto over English bills.
  

  Conversely, the English parliament should also have a scrutinising and revising role in relation to British bills, and could refer back to the UK parliament any legislation that was thought to be damaging to the English people. The overwhelming majority of English MPs making up the British parliament, and accountable to the English parliament, would make such referrals in practice a rare occurrence. Similarly, the devolved bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could exercise a revising function in relation to British bills affecting their countries so long as they accepted that the British parliament could scrutinise their own bills in terms of their impact on the UK as a whole.

Envisioning the English Parliament: Need for creativity and flexibility

The above evolutionary model for an English parliament is by no means definitive – by definition, in fact. I do, however, think it could work quite well as a transition from the present anomalous situation whereby England is governed as the UK, by the UK parliament, and for the UK. The English parliament whose structure, composition and election I’ve mapped out could be arrived at by extending some already proposed reforms and the devolution process itself just that little bit further, so that the residual UK parliament almost seamlessly evolves into an English parliament. If need be, this parliament could carry on sitting in the Palace of Westminster. Even some of the hallowed procedures and traditions of the Westminster parliament could be preserved intact if that would assuage the establishment’s pain; although some of those practices are themselves already targets for reform, such as the role of the whips, and the present inability of backbench MPs to influence the House’s timetable and the composition of select committees. And even the current Britain-wide mandate of English-elected MPs could be preserved in my system, albeit in greatly mitigated form, by creating an organic overlap between the English parliament and a new British parliament through the establishment of a class of English MPs that also sit as British MPs.

This model for an English parliament is therefore intended as an illustration of what can be achieved by thinking more creatively around the options for enhanced English self-rule and, in particular, by trying to map out what ICT specialists might call a ‘migration path’ to an English parliament: a realistic, achievable roadmap for how we can journey towards the goal of full English self-government starting from where we are now, which is a position total denial of England’s very existence as a nation on the part of the establishment.

We won’t get to where we want to go by pretending we can get there in one Great Leap Forward: the revolutionary establishment of a wholly new, devolved English parliament out of nothing, as it were, would indeed represent an immense Cultural Revolution in the governance and identity of Britain as a whole. In reality, the journey to an English parliament is likely to be more of a Long March; but we’ll never even get going unless we start to map out the staging posts ahead.

So what I’m trying to say is that the CEP needs to re-evaluate its model for an English parliament. The conception of an EP modelled along the lines of the Scottish parliament established in 1998 has already been superseded by the continuing evolution of devolution; and in any case, it raises more questions about the relationship between the governance of England and that of the UK as a whole than it answers.

So the CEP should think differently – more creatively and flexibly – about the English parliament, and work within the harsh realities of the British establishment’s present iron grip over English government to prepare pathways along which the undeniable dynamic that exists towards broader constitutional reform can open up to the English dimension.
For the time being, we may have to settle for what we can realistically get in terms of English self-government, even if our English parliament may initially remain too embedded in the system of British-national governance for many people’s liking. But we must bear in mind that what we settle for now is not definitively settled. Once England, too, is allowed to embark on the journey of devolution, no one can tell where that evolutionary process will ultimately land us.

David Rickard is the author of Britology Watch and A National Conversation for England.

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.

Let me make a few predictions in the time-honoured academic way of trying to put them into context.

The first context is the unpredictability of predictions, especially about the UK constitution. Writing in the 1970s when talk of the break-up of Britain had become fashionable, the political scientist Hugh Berrington pointed to an enduring problem of political interpretation. ‘There is the tendency to give the ephemeral a permanence it does not warrant, to lend the anxieties of the day a consequence they do not deserve; the other, equally seductive, is to regard real and lasting changes as sudden and transient incidents’. These interpretative uncertainties remain true today: which is not to say that one shouldn’t make predictions.

The second context is the nature of the choices to be made. I would argue that there are three possible constitutional strategies.

• Those who support the continuation of the multi-national United Kingdom are trying to sustain the authority of British association through the re-distribution of instrumental responsibilities to its component nations - with the exception of England. And, though this is a more contentious issue, they are also trying to sustain the international authority of the United Kingdom through common policies with other states in the European Union.
• Nationalist parties are trying to displace British association mainly by expanding the instrumental responsibilities of the devolved institutions and enhancing the authority of their own nations. This does not involve (necessarily) provoking conflict with Westminster, rather it requires convincing citizens in Scotland, Wales, England and even Northern Ireland (though it remains a special case) that forms of self-government within the Union are a poor substitute for self-determination outside it. The European Union is a useful functional enterprise in this strategy for independence because it means that separation does not carry with it the taint of political isolation.
• The constitutional strategy of those who seek to promote the European Union as the answer to national, regional and global questions is to shift its competence from being instrumental to the projects of its member states to becoming more recognisably a self-sustaining association in its own right. This is a very uncertain enterprise since both of the other constitutional strategies are likely, from their different perspectives, to resist that objective.

Of these three, the British strategy still appears the most convincing both in the short and medium term (accepting that in the long run we’re all dead). In their judicious and measured conclusion in Has Devolution Worked?, John Curtice and Ben Seyd suggest that it has neither helped to strengthen British national identity nor served to undermine it. ‘Perhaps the lesson is that devolution is valued not for what it achieves but for what it represents; recognition by the British state of the distinctive national identities of its stateless nations’. But how do we now understand this new relationship?

The third context is how the UK should function in the second decade of the new millennium. Peter Madgwick and Richard Rose in, The Territorial Dimension in United Kingdom Politics (1982) coined the expression: ‘the UK is a fifth “nation” in Westminster’. When he came to develop the idea at greater length in Understanding the United Kingdom which was published in the same year, Rose provided a different stress. In that book he described it thus: ‘To understand the parts, we must also understand the government of the whole. Parliament is more than the sum of representatives from diverse constituencies. It is, as it were, the fifth nation of the UK; it is the first loyalty of some and the last loyalty of others’. What is the difference in the use of the definite and indefinite articles?

• To think of the UK today as the fifth nation is to continue to think of the Westminster Parliament as dominant and limited autonomy in the devolved territories.
• To think of the UK as a fifth nation suggests a different governing perspective, one in which autonomy is extensive and the role of central government as primus inter pares, coordinating and managing diversity in order to maintain union.

One could argue that ‘fifth nation’ still captures an important truth about the UK, that it helps to explain continuity in the state, but that devolution is a process which involves a modification such that the indefinite article becomes more appropriate in domestic matters than the definite. However, this still leaves the English Question unaddressed. English nationalists argue that it is the last ‘stateless nation’. I have a lot of sympathy with that complaint but their problem is convincing most of the English to see things that way so and far they have been unsuccessful.

After that tedious academic circumlocution, and with my three contexts in place, my predictions for 2010:

1. There will be movement towards – to use James Mitchell’s expression – a ‘state of unions’, ie more extensive self-governance for Scotland and Wales. In short, there will be further moves towards greater fiscal responsibility for the first and primary legislative power for the second. The UK will remain a fifth nation in both countries but of no less significance because of this indefinite article.
2. In England the UK will continue to be the fifth nation, with Westminster as the focus of national debate and the West Lothian Question unresolved. The definite article here will become increasingly problematic.
3. In Northern Ireland there will continue to be problems with the operation of devolution since talk of a new and widely shared democratic narrative is to put words into the mouth of history. However, crisis has become a political way of life and the lesson of the policing and justice debate is how desperate republicans are to sustain the operation of British sovereignty.

Arthur Aughey is Professor of Politics at the University of Ulster.

This post is part of the Constitutional Futures series.