Ten years after the creation of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, England is stuck in a “pre-devolution time warp”.
This circumstance prevails despite the fact that widespread agreement exists that England’s system of government must change. But no consensus has emerged on what should be done, an MPs’ report noted yesterday.
The House of Commons justice committee predicted that parliament will come under increasing pressure to resolve the so-called “English question”, but warned that there were problems with all the proposed solutions, such as an English parliament, regional assemblies or English votes for English laws.
The committee also called for urgent action to reform the Barnett Formula which distributes public funds to the nations of the UK, regarded by many as unfair to poorer regions of England compared with Scotland and Wales.
In an inquiry timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the 1999 devolution in Scotland and Wales, the committee quizzed ministers, MPs, members of devolved assemblies, academics, campaigners and civil servants on the English question.
They found that “hardly any” of their witnesses was content with the status quo, which makes England subject to highly centralised control from the British parliament and government on matters which are dealt with by devolved assemblies in the rest of the UK.
Committee chairman Sir Alan Beith said: “Devolution has radically changed the way Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are governed and is changing the governance of the United Kingdom. But England, which has 84 per cent of the population, is the unfinished business of devolution – stuck in a pre-devolution time warp, while the rest of the UK has moved on.”
The report examined the main suggestions for a solution to the English question, but found flaws in all of them.
The cross-party committee advised against an English parliament and English first minister because of the political difficulty of balancing their powers with those of the UK government and prime minister. But they added: “It may become necessary to if the English questions are seen as increasingly significant and other solutions are rejected or fail.”
Barring Scottish and Welsh MPs from voting on laws which apply only in England would be “difficult to apply other than in limited form”, said the committee.
And it noted fears that the principle of English votes for English laws – favoured by one of David Cameron’s Conservative policy review groups – “could result in a parliament within a parliament, which could . . . pose as great a threat to the union as the resentment it seeks to address”.
Devolution of powers to the English regions was unlikely to resolve concerns, following the failure of a 2004 referendum to establish an assembly for the northeast. And cutting the number of Scottish and Welsh MPs at Westminster would not deal with objections to them voting on issues which affect England alone. – (PA)