Why won’t the Cabinet Office release the 1997 devolution minutes?

On 14 January 2013, I wrote to the Freedom of Information Team at the Cabinet Office to request the release of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution.

On 6 March 2013, I received a reply in the following terms:

I refer to your request where you asked:

“Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting a copy of the minutes of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution. I am also requesting a copy of the Terms of Reference for the cabinet committee headed by Lord Irvine that the minutes relate to, and any legal or departmental advice provided to the cabinet in relation to these meetings. ”

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is held by the Cabinet Office.

Some of the information you have requested is exempt under section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 21 exempts information if this information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Section 21 is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to consider whether the public interest favours disclosure of this information.

The terms of reference for the Ministerial Committee on Devolution to Scotland and Wales and the English Regions (DSWR) were published in Hansard on 9 June 1997.

I attach a link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo970609/text/70609w03.htm

The remainder of the information you seek is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b) of the Freedom of Information Act. This is a qualified exemption and therefore subject to the public interest test.

The information is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b), which relates to the formulation or development of government policy, and Ministerial communications. We accept that there is public interest in improving public understanding of the development of Government policy on devolution and the way Cabinet Government operates more generally. We recognise that the decisions Ministers make have a significant impact on the lives of citizens and there is a public interest in this process being transparent. We also recognise that greater transparency makes government more accountable to the electorate and increases trust.

However, there is a countervailing public interest in protecting the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective decision-making. Ministers will reach collective decisions more effectively if they are able to debate questions of policy freely and in confidence. The maintenance of this convention is fundamental to the continued effectiveness of Cabinet government, and its continued existence is therefore manifestly in the public interest.

In relation to the specific documents you have requested, the policy discussions in this area are ongoing and the adverse effect of disclosing these documents now would not be diminished by the fact that the documents date from 1997. The matters discussed at  Cabinet are not matters of purely historic interest, but are important matters of current discussion and debate.

We therefore conclude that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

I have now requested a review of this decision, in the following terms:

I appreciate your explanation about the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of Cabinet discussions, particularly given the fact that the policy discussions in the area of devolution are ongoing. Equally, however, I would suggest that the very currency of those discussions increases the public interest in disclosing the 1997 minutes of the Ministerial Committee on Devolution.

I would contend that there are at least two, possibly three, current policy discussions that critically need to be informed by an awareness of government thinking and planning at the time:

1. The debate on Scottish independence leading up to the referendum in September 2014. This is a decision that will be made by the people of Scotland, not Parliament or central government. Therefore, this discussion is no longer the exclusive preserve of government, and the Scottish public is entitled to understand how the Labour government envisaged the devolution settlement at the time it was being developed. Otherwise, how can their decision whether to effectively endorse devolution a second time (by rejecting independence) be adequately informed? Similarly, it would surely not be in the public interest for suspicions to be aroused that the Westminster government is seeking to hide something embarrassing or detrimental to the pro-Union cause. Isn’t it better to have transparency in this matter and not run the risk that the Scottish people vote ‘yes’ to independence based on a false prospectus?
2. Discussions around UK-wide devolution and constitutional reform. As you are aware, a debate is getting underway regarding options for a new UK-wide constitutional settlement in the wake of a possible ‘no’ vote in the Scottish independence referendum. Only last week, the Select Committee for Political and Constitutional Reform issued a report urging the establishment of a constitutional convention to bring forward these discussions. Such a convention would again not be the exclusive preserve of Parliament or Government but would – following the Select Committee’s recommendations – be drawn from a broad selection of civil society representatives. The convention would discuss an extension of devolution in Scotland, along with devolution of considerable powers to local and regional government in England. Is it not therefore utterly essential that the minutes of the Cabinet Committee discussing devolution to Scotland, Wales and the English regions should be released into the public domain? How could a constitutional convention function adequately without this knowledge? Indeed, it is arguably not possible to reach a reliable decision about whether to have a constitutional convention to deal with these matters in the first place unless we have an understanding how the decisions were reached by Cabinet Government in 1997.
3. West Lothian Question. Last week, too, the report of the McKay Commission on the so-called West Lothian Question was published. Unlike the debate around Scottish independence and the possibility of a constitutional convention, this matter is one for Parliament to reach a decision about. However, do Parliament’s deliberations not also need to be informed by an awareness of how the West Lothian Question was treated in the Cabinet’s discussions in 1997? For instance, if it was said in the 1997 Ministerial Committee that the way to resolve the West Lothian Question was to offer a limited form of regional devolution to England – and if proposals are now coming back on to the table to introduce local/regional devolution in England – do these matters not need to be treated as an integrated whole, so that proper joined-up debate and policy formation can be arrived at?

I trust that you will consider the merits of the above argument, and that you will reconsider the decision not to release the minutes of the Ministerial Committee on devolution from 1997.

Yours faithfully,

Etc.

Let’s see if the Cabinet Office re-evaluates its decision. But what is the real reason why it is so wary about releasing this information? This request has been made several times now, by me and others, and it has been refused every time. What are they hiding?

Letter to the West Lothian Commission on Same-Sex Marriage

I have today emailed the following letter to the McKay Commission, known ‘popularly’ as the ‘West Lothian Commission’:

Dear Sirs,

Would the Commission consider examining the Marriage Same-Sex Couples Bill, published today, as a transparent example of how it can be inappropriate for Scottish and Northern Irish MPs to vote on legislation affecting only England and Wales?

In this instance, there is no ambiguity about the fact that the whole Bill relates only to England and Wales. In addition, the Scottish Parliament has produced its own draft bill on this subject, and the government there intends to pass it into law. It would therefore be wholly illegitimate for Scottish and Northern Irish MPs to vote on this matter when English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs are denied a say on same-sex marriage in Scotland.

Would the Commission be prepared to issue a strongly-worded recommendation that the House of Commons Business Committee or the Speaker make a recommendation on this matter? If not, why not?

Yours faithfully,

Let’s see what response we get!

It’s time to address the Westminster Question, not the West Lothian one

The extremely modest terms of the West Lothian Commission were announced yesterday:

“To consider how the House of Commons might deal with legislation which affects only part of the United Kingdom, following the devolution of certain legislative powers to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales.”

Well, I’d like to make a comment on the ‘terms’ in which this announcement was made and, indeed, on the term ‘West Lothian Question’ itself. You might have noticed that the word ‘England’ is absent from this announcement, despite the fact that the term ‘West Lothian Question’ in common usage relates primarily or even exclusively to House of Commons voting on legislation which affects England, not just “part of the UK”. And what on earth is “part of the UK” supposed to mean, anyway? It’s obviously another rhetorical device to refer to England without actually saying ‘England’, because if what you wanted to say is ‘one or more parts [i.e. countries] of the UK’, you’d say ‘parts of the UK’ (plural). So England, in the very terms of reference of the West Lothian Question, has been reduced to an amorphous, anonymous ‘part of the UK’. Very promising.

And it’s not only in these explicit terms of reference for the commission that the very concept of England has been evaded. The West Lothian Question itself, in its original form as posed by West Lothian MP Tam Dalyell in 1977, explicitly focused on England:

“For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate . . . at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?”

So I’d like to suggest to the West Lothian Commission that they need to revise their terms of reference. Whatever they’re getting together to discuss, it isn’t the West Lothian Question if it doesn’t include an explicit consideration of how England should be governed, and whether the House of Commons as a whole is fit for that purpose.

And that’s the problem, really. The Commission will focus merely on parliamentary procedure, i.e. on the second part of Tam Dalyell’s question: “How long will . . . English Honourable Members tolerate . . .?” The answer in practice has been, in fact, that English MPs in the main have tolerated the West Lothian anomaly remarkably well, for reasons of political convenience. The WLQ artificially bolstered Labour’s parliamentary majority between 1997 and 2010, including in certain decisive votes (such as those on university tuition fees and Foundation Hospitals) in which Tam Dalyell’s words were proved prophetic: “Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics”. And now, the addition of the Lib Dems’ cohort of Scottish MPs to the governing coalition provides a spurious veneer that it constitutes a genuine UK-wide government, which it would not have if it were a minority Conservative administration – the Tories having only one MP north of the border.

From the parliamentary perspective that is that of the Commission, the problem, it seems, is more how ‘Honourable Members’ from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would tolerate being excluded from having a decisive impact on English politics if the answer to the West Lothian Question was to exclude them, rather than how English members get on with not having a say in corresponding matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which they don’t seem to mind at all! Perhaps that’s why the story was covered on the BBC’s Scottish politics page yesterday, rather than its ‘English politics’ page, as Tam Dalyell might put it. Or perhaps the BBC had no other place to run it, as it doesn’t even have an ‘English politics’ page but only a heading on the general politics page reading ‘Around England’, containing separate links to stories from ‘around England’, i.e. from the (English) regions.

So the answer to ‘the part’, to coin a phrase, of the original West Lothian Question that deals with parliamentary protocol can be reasonably accurately predicted from the terms of reference adopted: it will try to find a mechanism that preserves a role for non-English-elected MPs in debating and scrutinising English bills, without allowing them to have a decisive impact on that legislation in terms of their actual voting – although they will still be able to have a decisive impact overall, in that Scottish- and Welsh-elected MPs would still be able to become prime ministers or ministers with English portfolios; so they would still be involved in drafting English legislation as well as in ensuring its passage through the parliamentary process as a whole.

But, as I say, this is only one part of the West Lothian Question – the other part being: “How long will English constituencies . . . tolerate . . .?”. For ‘English constituencies’, substitute ‘English voters’ or the ‘English people’. While English-elected MPs may have accepted the West Lothian anomaly tolerably well since 1999, English voters are increasingly furious about it, a recently publicised IPPR poll finding, for instance, that 79% of English people want Scottish MPs barred from voting on English bills. A minor tweak to parliamentary procedure, in which non-English-elected MPs will still be able to direct and shape English legislation, even if they are not able to override the voting decisions of their English-elected colleagues, will do nothing to appease this anger or mitigate this injustice.

I think we may have to re-name this part of the West Lothian Question the ‘Westminster Question’. A contemporary re-phrasing of it might read as follows:

For how long will English voters tolerate non-English-elected Westminster MPs making their laws?

Simple question. But the mis-named West Lothian Commission isn’t even addressing the limited parliamentary aspect of the question properly (because it won’t acknowledge that it centres on England) let alone the Westminster Question. But the looming importance of the Westminster Question makes their deliberations virtually null and void before they’ve even started.

If Cameron doesn’t want to be “Prime Minister of England”, he should resign as PM for the UK

In his ‘playing hardball on Scottish independence interview’ with the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, David Cameron repeated his oft-quoted, infamous remark: “I don’t want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom”.

Of course, what Cameron is alluding to is a scenario for when Scotland has gained its independence; and it’s interesting in itself that he thinks his post as UK PM would then evolve into one of “Prime Minister for England” (as opposed to, say, Prime Minister for the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’).

But that aside, should we be surprised that Cameron is displaying such unashamed contempt for the idea of being an English prime minister for England? Not only contempt, but ignorance of his present role, because he already is effectively a prime minister for England in all the devolved policy areas: those mere bagatelles of education, health, social care, communities and local government, planning, housing, transport, the environment, etc., etc.

The question is, does Mr Cameron want to be a prime minister, or should we say ‘First Minister’, for England in all these policy areas? If not, he should resign as UK PM, because that post involves a dual responsibility: for reserved, UK matters and devolved, English matters. If he doesn’t want to provide national leadership, vision and responsibility (his favourite word) for England in these areas, he quite simply isn’t fit for purpose in his present job.

West Lothian Question: Don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer

We were told this week that the West Lothian Commission would finally begin its work in February 2012 and would report in spring 2013. But I would caution people not to expect any answer to be put into effect until after the next UK general election in 2015 at the earliest.

There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the options available for addressing the West Lothian Question (WLQ) will be affected by the options that are offered to, and chosen by, the Scottish people in the SNP’s planned independence referendum, in 2014 or 2015. It is, for example, widely expected that three choices will be offered to the Scots: the status quo, devolution max / independence lite (i.e. fiscal autonomy and greater devolved powers but under a continuing UK umbrella) or full independence. The solutions required to adequately deal with the WLQ are different under the status quo than under devo max, let alone Scottish independence.

For instance, under the status quo, the West Lothian Commission would be likely to propose, if anything, only a modest procedural tweak to parliamentary procedure along the lines of that recommended by the present Justice Secretary Ken Clarke when in opposition. If I remember correctly, this involved only English MPs being allowed to vote at English bills’ report and committee stages in their passage through Parliament, but all UK MPs being allowed to vote at those bills’ other stages – but not being able to reverse the decisions of English MPs made at the report and committee stages. This is such a technical fix that most laypersons would hardly notice the difference; and this still does not address, let alone resolve, the question of non-English-elected ministers, prime ministers and MPs being allowed to bring forward England-only bills and play an active role in seeing them through the legislative process, even if they couldn’t participate directly at every stage of that process.

If, on the other hand, the Scottish people opt for devo max / indy lite, then the demand for a more meaningful answer to the WLQ, including from Tory backbenchers, would probably become irresistible. It would clearly be unjustifiable for Scottish MPs to determine policies and make spending decisions for England that had no impact on their own constituents at all. This is of course the main reason why the unfair Barnett Formula has remained in place for so long: it provides a justification for non-English MPs to vote on English matters because of the consequential impact on spending in their own countries.

Therefore, the solution to the WLQ that is applicable will be dependent on the timing and outcome of the Scottish referendum. This impediment could be alleviated if the government came good on its threat to organise its own Scottish-independence referendum sooner than 2014. However, UK ministers and MPs that have advocated this course of action have insisted that such a referendum should ask a straight in / out (union or independence) question, and not offer the middle way of devo max. Accordingly, even if there were a ‘no’ vote in an in / out referendum, the option of devo max would still be on the cards, as the Scottish government would almost certainly still proceed with its own referendum (for which it justifiably argues it has an electoral mandate) and would undoubtedly offer devo max as an alternative to independence. So one way or another, a durable solution to the WLQ cannot be arrived at until after the Scottish referendum.

The second reason why no workable answer to the WLQ will be implemented until 2015 at the earliest is that some of the potential solutions could fundamentally alter the balance of power within the governing coalition. If, for example, only English MPs were allowed to introduce and vote on England-only legislation, the Conservatives wouldn’t need the support of Lib Dem MPs for those bills, as the Tories enjoy an overall majority in England. Therefore, the Lib Dems are hardly likely to approve any measure that compromises the coalition, which they and the Conservatives have adamantly insisted is set in stone until the next election.

This wouldn’t be an issue if my own particular ‘solution’ to the WLQ were adopted: the ‘English Majority Lock’ (EML). In essence, this rule says that any bill that relates substantively to England only (or to England and Wales only, for example) must be approved by a majority of English MPs only (or English and Welsh MPs only respectively) as well as a majority of all UK MPs. In other words, a majority of all UK MPs cannot trump a majority of English MPs on any England-only matter; but equally, the support of a majority of all UK MPs is still required for any England-only (or England and Wales-only) measure. The EML would not compromise the coalition in any way, because the Lib Dems would still be needed to provide the support of all UK MPs for any Conservative England-only measure – which is pretty much how things have been working out in the coalition in any case!

However, the chances of the EML being adopted are pretty slim, I would say, as it would mean that any workable UK-government majority would in future need to command a majority of English-elected MPs as well as a majority of all UK MPs, which the Labour Party would reject, as it would prevent them from using their Scottish and Welsh MPs to outvote the majority of English MPs as they did most notoriously in the case of Foundation Hospitals and university tuition fees. But maybe if the Conservatives and Lib Dems are smart enough, they could latch on to the EML precisely for this reason. However, even the EML is predicated on the status quo vis-à-vis Scotland, and it’s doubtful how long that will continue; and no one, least of all the establishment, unionist parties seems willing to think beyond the long grass to the obvious long-term ‘solution’: an English parliament within a federal or confederal UK, with or without Scotland.

None of these more fundamental issues are likely to be resolved until after the Scottish referendum and the next UK general election. So my guess is the West Lothian Commission will come up with a series of options that are dependent on a range of eventualities. And the eventual decision will be taken not by the people of England but by the people of Scotland and by the body of UK MPs as a whole, who, like turkeys, are unlikely to vote for Christmas.

Seasonal greetings to you – and them – all!

If Welsh Labour wants a two-member-constituency voting system, this is the one they should adopt

In the recent row over possible changes to the voting system used for elections to the Welsh Assembly, one of the alternatives proposed by the Labour Party was a system of two-member-constituency First Past the Post (see the Devolution Matters blog for an overview of the row). In other words, to expand the number of Assembly Members (AMs) to 80 from the present total of 60 (made up of 40 constituency AMs and 20 top-up regional AMs under the proportional AMS voting system), Labour was proposing having two AMs per constituency and using FPTP to elect them.

Presumably, the model of FPTP they had in mind was that voters would get two votes each, thereby ensuring that where Labour was the most popular party, it would be guaranteed to win both seats even if it were not the choice of a majority of voters. Labour is not known for its enthusiastic backing for fair voting systems, after all. FPTP wouldn’t be so bad if people had only one vote, so that the Labour vote would be split between both candidates, giving other parties more of a chance, especially if they fielded only a single candidate in constituencies where they knew they had no hope of winning both seats.

However, a fairer, more rational and more proportional electoral system for two-member constituencies would be the following, which I’m calling ‘TMPR2’: Two-Member Proportional Represenation (version two). This is a simpler and more practical version of the TMPR system I have previously discussed. TMPR2 works as follows:

• There are two representatives (AMs, MPs, etc.) per constituency
  
• Each voter has two votes. Voters are not obliged to use both votes: they can vote for just one candidate if they wish
  
• The individual candidate obtaining the most votes automatically wins one of the seats
  
• The individual winner may be either the representative of a party or an independent
  
• In addition, if any independent candidate wins the second-highest total of individual votes, that independent candidate is elected
  
• However, assuming the second-highest total of votes is not won by an independent, the winner of the second seat is decided on the basis of the share of the vote won by each party:
  
  • If any party wins over 50% of all votes (that is, the number of actual votes cast, which is higher than the number of voters, as people can vote for two candidates), then both of their candidates are elected (unless one of the candidates obtaining the highest or second-highest total of votes is an independent, in which case the party obtaining over 50% of the vote wins only one seat)
    
  • In the instance where one of the seats is in fact won by an independent, the party candidate elected is the one that has obtained more votes than the running mate from their own party
    
  • If, however, no party wins more than 50% of the vote, then the two parties obtaining the highest shares of the vote win one seat each (except in the case where one or more independent candidate are elected, whereby only the top-ranked party or no party respectively wins a seat)
    
  • In the case that two parties win one seat each, the successful candidates are those who obtained more individual votes than the running mates from their own parties
    

Advantages of TMPR

• This is a reasonably proportional system
  
• It encourages trans-party voting: voters could and would vote for candidates from different parties. This would equalise the parties’ share of the vote, with the established parties’ share coming down and the smaller parties’ share rising. For instance, quite a lot of right-of-centre voters, if the system were applied in England, would vote for one Conservative and one UKIP candidate; whereas many left-of-centre voters would vote for a Green candidate alongside a Labour or Lib Dem candidate. This means that the vote share parties need to win in order to be elected could be considerably lower than under FPTP. In fact, there is no lower percentage limit on eligibility for a seat. And TMPR2 encourages this pluralism by allowing voters to divide their loyalty between more than one party
  
• It incorporates some of the best features of established, familiar voting systems:
  
  • Like FPTP, the candidate obtaining the largest number of individual votes automatically wins a seat
    
  • Like AV, if any party wins over 50% of the vote, it takes the whole constituency (i.e. both seats), unless an independent candidate has won either the highest or second-highest individual vote
    
  • It’s a crude form of PR, similar to STV in the sense that a party, as opposed to an individual candidate, needs to win more than a ‘quota’ of 50% of the vote to win both seats
    
• It encourages voting for individuals – and hence, for independents – alongside parties: as voters have two votes each, they will be freer to choose candidates on their individual merits alongside their membership of a particular political party. There would be more of an incentive for independent candidates to run, such as high-profile, respected local figures taking a stand on important issues for the local community
  
• It’s easy to understand and operate: there are no complicated voting or counting mechanisms involved, and the result is a clear and direct expression of voters’ preferences. There are no unexpected consequences and fewer tactical-voting constraints for voters. Voters would know that the way they voted would have a direct impact on the result: each of their two votes increases the chances of that individual candidate or party; and if voters are torn between the party / candidate they genuinely prefer and the party they feel they need to vote for in order to ensure that another party does not win (tactical voting), they can hedge their bets and vote both ways.
  

Disadvantage of TMPR2

TMPR is probably not as proportional as the existing system – AMS – used for elections to the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. In fact, in an Electoral Reform Society analysis of the 2011 Welsh Assembly election had it been conducted using AMS with 30 constituency seats and 30 regional top-up seats (instead of the present 40/20 ratio) compared with an 80-seat Assembly elected using STV, AMS emerges as the more proportional system. It would be interesting to see the outcome if they ran the same analysis on TMPR2.

However, pure proportionality is not everything; and TMPR does preserve the close links between individual AMs / MPs and relatively small constituencies. By comparison, AMS gives more power to the parties, as top-up AMs / MPs are predominantly elected because of their party affiliation rather than their individual merit or on the basis of local issues. In addition, TMPR is much simpler to understand and operate than either STV or AMS.

Real-world prospects for TMPR2

In reality, TMPR2 has very little chance of ever being implemented, at least not for the Welsh Assembly. As the ‘inventor’ of TMPR2, I don’t exactly have a lot of influence. But as the possibility of two-seat constituencies was being mooted, it seemed timely to bring forward TMPR2 as another alternative: as a possible compromise between FPTP and proportionality. The Labour Party wouldn’t like it, because it’s too fair and proportional. The experts at the Electoral Reform Society probably wouldn’t like it because it’s not proportional enough. But maybe the people would like it if they were offered the choice, precisely because it is fairer than FPTP but less complex and fussy than STV and AMS, with a more transparent link between how people vote in each constituency and the winners.

Anyway, I’m just throwing it out there to see if there are any takers.

The constitutional morass of Scottish independence: is there ANY proper way of doing it?

There’s been something of a storm in a teacup brewing over the question of the legality or otherwise of an independence referendum legislated for by the Scottish parliament. For a summary of the legal and constitutional issues, see Alan Trench and Lalland’s Peat Worrier.

From an English perspective, the crux of the matter, for me, is what say, if any, English people get in Scottish independence and the consequential break-up of the Union. I would argue that, at some point in the process, the English (and the Welsh and Northern Irish) people have an absolute right to be consulted. This is because Scottish independence does not just involve the departure of Scotland from a state or country – the UK – that remains intact or retains its existing identity despite that departure. Independence for Scotland would require the Acts of Union between England and Scotland of 1707 to be repealed, which means the end of the United Kingdom – or technically, the end of the ‘Kingdom of Great Britain’ resulting from the 1707 Acts, and hence the end of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and (Northern) Ireland’ of 1800.

No doubt, in the drawing up of the legislation for Scottish independence by the UK parliament, new clauses would be drafted setting out the status and composition of the, or a new, United Kingdom replacing the one dating from 1707 and 1800. And that’s why the people of the new UK state should be consulted: if the very identity and constitutional basis for the country of which you are a citizen is being changed, you have an absolute right to a say on the matter.

So really, I’d now argue we could be looking at three referendums. There are two possible scenarios for this:

1. The Westminster parliament takes over the process and passes a Bill authorising a Scottish independence referendum in, say, 2012 or 2013. At this point, you could argue that all UK citizens have a right to take part, because the vote involves deciding whether or not to break up the UK. In addition, if you restrict the referendum to Scottish residents, you are already implicitly allowing a large number of non-Scottish people to take part, e.g. the hundreds of thousands of English people who currently live there. By the same token, you are excluding potentially over a million Scots living in other parts of the UK or the wider world. However, if you regard this first referendum as advisory rather than binding, then ‘Scottish residents’ could be a pragmatic approximation to ‘the Scottish people’. Scottish independence may well involve breaking up the UK, but it’s ultimately for the Scots to choose between independence and continuing to be within the Union. But for any subsequent, binding referendum, an attempt should perhaps be made in advance to draw up a more exhaustive list of ‘Scottish nationals’, i.e. those who would become Scottish citizens if independence were carried in a referendum. This is a political hot potato, admittedly, but one that perhaps needs to be grasped: shouldn’t it be only prospective Scottish citizens who should be asked whether they wish to actually become Scottish citizens, which is what Scottish independence would mean for them?
   

   So let’s say a majority voted in favour of the principle of Scottish independence in this Westminster-enacted referendum. There would follow a complicated process of negotiations and discussions leading up to Westminster legislation enacting Scottish independence. As I’ve been saying, there are two parts to this: what kind of independence ‘deal’ is on offer for Scotland; and what new constitutional arrangements are in place for the / a residual UK. (I’ll return to this question below.) These two questions demand two further referendums: one asking the Scottish people to endorse the independence deal; and one for non-Scottish UK citizens to approve or disapprove the new constitutional arrangements for their citizenship and governance. Incidentally, this is another reason why it might be necessary to draw up a more robust list of prospective Scottish citizens, because just as only Scots should resolve the question of Scottish independence, only the prospective citizens of a UK without Scotland should decide whether to create such a new UK.
   

   What would happen, in these binding referendums, if the results were contradictory: if the Scots voted for independence, but the other British people rejected the new UK settlement; or the Scots rejected independence, but the rest of the UK supported the new UK state? In the first instance, logically, Scottish independence goes ahead, and it’s back to the constitutional drawing board for the residual UK. In the second instance, the legislation would have to be drawn up in such a way that the structure, governance and constitution of the new UK would be unaffected by whether Scotland were part of it or not. See further below.
   

2. The other scenario is that the Scottish government is allowed to go ahead with its own plans for a referendum some time in 2014 or 2015. In this instance, clearly, it is just for the ‘Scottish people’ to take part – as the referendum is purely advisory and seeks a mandate from the Scots for independence negotiations with the UK government – notwithstanding the caveat expressed above that the term ‘Scottish people’ is only an approximation in this instance. Following a vote in favour of independence, then I would argue that the same process as outlined above should take place: negotiations and legislation towards Scottish independence followed by two referendums – one of the Scottish people only (about independence), and one of non-Scottish UK citizens only (about the constitution and composition of the new UK).
   

   What about the issue of the SNP’s plans to ask two questions in its referendum: 1) whether people want Scotland to be an independent country; and 2) if they do not want independence, whether they want so-called ‘devo max’ or ‘independence lite’: fiscal, and virtually total political, autonomy under the UK defence and macro-economic umbrella? In a sense, if the SNP-organised referendum is purely advisory, I don’t think this matters, as whatever the outcome, there would still need to be negotiations with, and legislation by, Westminster to enact whatever was decided; and, I would argue, there would need to be a second binding referendum in Scotland even for devo max. In fact, it might even be more convenient for Westminster if the Scots opted for devo max, as the UK government could probably get away with not consulting non-Scottish UK citizens about it on the basis that the existing Union remained ‘unaffected’.
   

Somehow, I don’t think the process in reality will work in such a neat, logical and fair way, because it raises too many intractable questions that neither the Westminster nor Holyrood governments, in their different ways, wish to bottom out. A non-exhaustive list of these questions is as follows:

1. Who would be eligible to vote in a binding Scottish-independence referendum, and how would a list of eligible persons be drawn up? My contention, as above, is that only prospective citizens of an independent Scotland should vote, including those resident outside Scotland. But how do you determine what constitutes ‘Scottish nationality’?
   

    

2. What is the constitutional justification, and what are the constitutional implications, of these referendums, potentially three in number? The UK government might wish to restrict a binding referendum to Scottish nationals / residents on the independence question, in order not to stir up the issue of popular sovereignty for the residual UK: if the UK government’s legislation on Scottish independence and a new settlement for the remaining UK is dependent on the approval of the people in a referendum, then this involves conceding that, in this instance at least, the people are sovereign, which therefore challenges the whole doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty on which the established system of governance in the UK depends.
   

    

3. The English Question: a referendum on the new UK, minus Scotland, would involve consulting the English people for the very first time regarding the arrangements for their governance, just as the people of the UK’s other nations have already been consulted about devolution, and the Scots would be being consulted about independence. This potentially establishes a legal precedent that there is such a thing as ‘the English people’ who might have the human and legal right to self-determination. In practical terms, any public debate and referendum on the constitution and governance of the residual UK would inevitably force the Union establishment to engage with the English Question in some form or other, even if only because the option of an English parliament would inevitably come up for discussion.
   

   In addition, if the establishment tried to reaffirm the existing constitutional and governance arrangements unchanged – apart from the absence of Scotland – there could be a real possibility that the new UK settlement would be rejected by the English people in a referendum. For instance, if the new UK involved no recognition for a distinct English nation, no English parliament and even no attempt to prevent non-English-elected MPs from voting on English legislation, it is quite likely, in my view, that it would not pass. Maybe even the Welsh and Northern Irish would vote in favour of the new UK while the English rejected it. What then? Better to keep the English Question in the bag by not asking it.
   

4. What would the composition of the new UK be, anyway, and what would its constitutional status be? The new UK could no longer formally call itself the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, because Great Britain (the product of the 1707 Acts of Union) would be dissolved by Scotland’s departure. But could the new UK even call itself the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’? I ask this because, at the time of the Acts of Union of 1707, ‘Wales’ didn’t exist as a distinct, separately named kingdom or part of the Kingdom of England: it was fully subsumed into the Kingdom of England, and the Acts of Union involved a union between the two kingdoms of England (including Wales) and Scotland. So if the Acts of Union are annulled, does not ‘Great Britain’ just revert to the two former kingdoms? Where is ‘Wales’ in the equation? Would a new Act have to be legislated actually creating or re-creating Wales as a distinct kingdom? Or would it be a case of ‘re-naming’ the re-emergent, post-Acts-of-Union Kingdom of England the ‘Kingdom of England and Wales’? And how would the English and Welsh people feel about being merged into a single nation and / or kingdom thus named?
   

   And then what would the status of the union with Northern Ireland be? Wouldn’t the 1800 Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland also be nullified by any repeal of the Acts of Union between England and Scotland? That’s because the ‘Great Britain’ that was united with Ireland via the 1800 Acts would no longer exist. So would you need a new Act creating Northern Ireland as a kingdom and / or merging it into a single ‘Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’? And how would that affect the delicate sectarian balance in the Province?
   

5. And then there’s the question of the broader constitutional ramifications of repealing the Acts of Union. These are an integral part of a whole host of foundational acts of parliament that make up the delicate constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom, including, among others, the Act of Settlement of 1701, the Bill of Rights of 1689 and, of course, the Acts of Union of 1800. If you repeal one such act, you might have to repeal or fundamentally amend all the others, so you could easily end up needing to produce a completely new written constitution for the new UK-minus-Scotland. That might not be a bad thing in itself, and it could allow for a more flexible, federal constitutional structure in which the UK state is not completely dissolved or fundamentally altered by one part of it deciding to leave or re-join. This flexibility could enable the Scottish people to have a real choice in their binding referendum between independence and being part of a new UK constitutional settlement that would remain in place without them (thus solving the problem discussed above of what to do if the Scots rejected independence but the remaining UK supported the new constitution that was put in place as a consequence of the Scots voting for independence in the first, advisory referendum).
   

   I feel that, because of the intricacy and potentially unforeseen consequences of repealing any of the parts of this delicate constitutional tissue, this may be considered far too important and technical a matter to be entrusted merely to the people. It could be left to the lawyers, politicians and constitutional experts to resolve. But the net effect could be that profound decisions affecting the nature of our nationhood and our rights as citizens could be decided as it were behind closed doors, and by a sovereign UK parliament that is unwilling to let go of any of its powers even if the original constitutional foundations and justifications for those powers no longer apply.
   

   But the politicians should be extremely wary of tinkering with elements of the UK constitution whose interdependencies and effects even they do not understand – or they could find that their very authority to make such changes is challenged as never before since the English Civil War. For example, the English Act of Union with Scotland explicitly states: “the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall . . . for
   ever after be united into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain” [my emphasis]. This Act and the corresponding Scottish Act of Union with England also incorporate the Act of Settlement of 1701. This is the Act that specifies that the king or queen of England, and thereafter Great Britain, cannot be or be married to a Roman Catholic, and states that if this provision is ever broken, “the People of these Realms shall be and are thereby absolved of their Allegiance”. In other words, if today’s parliament takes it upon itself to dissolve the Kingdom of Great Britain that was originally instituted as a permanent settlement (lasting ‘for ever’); and if, in so doing, they repeal the Act of Settlement (which David Cameron has recently talked of doing independently of its impact on the Acts of Union, if such were possible), then it is possible they are guilty of high treason and that the people of England are absolved of any allegiance to the new state, whatever it is called, and to its king or queen.
   

Consulting the English (and Welsh and Northern Irish) people on what would effectively be a completely new constitution – whether a single written document or a series of fundamental amendments to existing constitutional Acts – could be a way to avoid potentially years of contestation and even violent resistance to a new settlement that contravened ancient, hallowed constitutional provisions setting out the rights and responsibilities of the rulers and the ruled. But precisely because it would stir up such intractable issues affecting the constitution and the composition of the UK, and the status and interrelationships of its different national parts, the establishment is likely to seek to gloss over these complexities, and will try to retain the constitutional status quo without consulting the people of the residual UK. So Scottish independence is unlikely to be done properly, and it could be a messy, protracted and painful process for the residual UK: a far more complex process in fact than Scottish independence would be for Scotland itself.

There could be a more rational alternative: a constitutional convention for the whole of the existing UK to work out and through a set of alternatives for the future constitution and governance of the UK, as such, and its constituent parts, which could include a form of independence and confederation for each of its nations. But politics doesn’t work in such a rational manner, at least not nationalist and unionist politics, which can contemplate only their all-or-nothing objectives, and not a happier, clearer and more constructive means to work out how the people of these isles can live and work together in an uncertain future.

What would it take for such a constitutional convention to become a possibility? An overture from the Westminster government to the SNP administration? A willingness on the part of the SNP to engage in such a process so long as full independence was a serious option on the table from day one? Recognition on the part of the Union establishment that England is a nation and should also be represented as such in the discussions?

It’s an exciting vision, but I can’t see it happening. But the alternative could be much, much worse in so many ways.

UKIP adopts an English parliament policy: great news, but is it too late to save the Union?

I’m delighted that UKIP leader Nigel Farage announced on Friday that his party now supports the creation of an English parliament. In so doing, he’s almost certainly secured my vote at the next general election. And I’m sure that many thousands of other supporters of democratic fairness to England will now also switch their allegiances to UKIP, including the growing ranks of Tory voters disaffected with their party leaders’ new-found europhilia and inaction on the West Lothian Question, which in the case of David Cameron represents a betrayal of promises made during his campaign for the Tory leadership.

The fact that a credible mainstream political party – the fourth-largest in England in terms of electoral support – is now backing an English parliament should mean the issue is discussed more frequently and seriously. And as UKIP chips away at the Tories’ support, this will apply considerable pressure internally on the Conservatives to do something about the West Lothian Question. (On that topic, I note in passing that I’ve drafted an amended version of my previous post on the ‘English Majority Lock‘ mechanism for dealing with the WLQ, which I’ve sent to Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home for potential publication. Still waiting to hear back.)

Full details of the UKIP English-parliament policy have yet to be published, but it seems likely it will be along the lines of the proposals by Paul Nuttall, which are available here. Basically, this is a federal model involving separate parliaments for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within a continuing sovereign Union. There would also be a Union parliament to deal with reserved matters such as defence, macro-economics and foreign policy; and the Union parliament would double up as a second house, providing scrutiny of legislation emerging from each of the four national parliaments.

In the UKIP document, it is spelled out clearly that the primary aim of the policy, alongside democratic fairness for England, is to preserve and stabilise the Union state, which would be unsustainable the longer English people’s grievances about asymmetric devolution and unfair public spending are not addressed. While I absolutely welcome the UKIP change of direction, and will be voting for UKIP and backing their support for an English parliament in any way I can, I do wonder whether it’s already too late to be pushing for a federal UK. For the present at least, there appears to be an unstoppable momentum towards Scottish independence, and I’m not sure that any sort of federal solution that preserves sovereignty with the UK parliament and state has any chance of being supported north of the border.

Or south of the border, for that matter. I’ve written before that I think a solution that stops short of full sovereignty for England will not satisfy English people’s growing aspiration for integral nationhood. For a start, an English parliament would eventually demand so much fiscal autonomy that this would be practically tantamount to de facto independence. I can’t imagine that any English parliament worthy of the name would be content to have its budget handed down to it from a Union parliament while the vast majority of taxes raised in England continued to wing their way into the Treasury and, doubtless, would continue to subsidise higher spending in the Union’s other nations. Ultimately, I feel the only way any sort of enduring Union can be secured would be through confederalism (which involves full sovereignty for each of the Union’s nations) rather than a federal but sovereign UK. This might also offer Scotland an option for remaining within a much looser UK, akin to existing SNP ideas around ‘independence lite’.

Despite these reservations, I’m going to get fully behind the UKIP policy. It’s the only one on the table, and even if it never works out in practice, it’ll move the debate forward and take the argument to the unionist parties. So well done, UKIP: you’ve just done yourselves and England an immense service!

Support the e-petition for an English parliament

The UK government’s e-petition website went live last week. Under this system, if any petition obtains 100,000 signatures or more, it earns the right to be considered for debate in Parliament: it won’t necessarily actually be debated, but it will at least go up for consideration.

Petition No. 78 reads:

That England be given within the framework of devolution the same national political institutions as Scotland, including the creation of a Parliament, the office of First Minister, of a Government and a dedicated civil service for all of a united England. At present, England has no purely English national political institutions and thereby suffers from unfair treatment within the UK. The creation or revival of a English Parliament will answer the question ‘Who speaks for England?’ and should ensure that the interests of all the people of England are given higher priority and greater care. As John Bright famously said: ‘England is the Mother of all Parliaments’. It is well time that England regained her own Parliament.

The issue of this petition has been somewhat overshadowed by the terrible events of last night, with appalling riots, looting and violence spreading across London and to other English cities. However, the civil disorder of the last few days is another illustration of the need for English self-government. The disaffection and antagonism towards authority of the young English people involved in the rioting is in part a symptom of the policy vacuum that arises from the fact that the UK government takes decisions that severely affect English youngsters primarily out of economic considerations, rather than out of a vision for English society that places engaged, fulfilled young people at its heart. So, for instance, the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) has been cut in England only; university tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year have been imposed in England only; and stringent cuts have been imposed on social services and amenities that youngsters in deprived English communities and families rely on – all out of economic ‘necessity’, but with no real plan as to what to offer young people, and particularly what sort of future young people can look forward to, in their place.

We can debate until the rioters come home whether devolution along the same lines as Scotland is an adequate answer to the English Question, especially as the Scottish devolution settlement itself is in a state of flux that could well lead to some form of independence in a few years’ time. But the most important thing isn’t a debate among English nationalists about the best form of government for England but getting Parliament to actually debate it. If we don’t get the 100,000 signatures, such a debate won’t even be on the cards, and the naysayers will for ever go on about how the supporters of an English parliament had their chance but couldn’t even get 100,000 out of England’s adult population of some 35 million to sign up to it.

As I write, 1,547 people have signed the petition over five days: a rate of nearly 310 per day. At that rate, we’ll need 322 days to get the 100,000, meaning we’re just about on track: we have a whole year to do it. But the rate at which people sign is bound to go down as time goes on, so we need to keep working to get those signatures flowing in. So I’d urge all my readers to please sign the petition.

English society is undergoing a serious crisis, and we need a strong English government, acting in the interests of English society as a whole, to deal with it.

Comment about John Major’s speech from the IfG blog

Following the censorship of a comment of mine about Englishness on the Labour Hame website, here is another comment that’s been stuck in the limbo of ‘awaiting moderation’ for several days. It refers to an article on the Institute for Government website discussing John Major’s recent contribution to the Scottish devolution max versus independence debate. I expect the comment will be published in due course; but I’ve just got fed up waiting, so I thought I’d put it on the record here.

 

Major’s proposals on extending devolution to Scotland are unworkable on a number of levels, as I argue elsewhere. From the Scottish perspective, this is mainly because Alex Salmond has a mandate to consult the Scottish people on independence and to choose the options that will be on offer, which will probably include devolution max anyway.

Politically, it would be absolutely bonkers for David Cameron to organise a referendum of the sort Major advocates. If he lost, which would be a distinct possibility, he’d throw the UK establishment into an even greater disarray and crisis of legitimacy than it is already having to contend with in the shape of the Hackgate scandal, following on from the expenses furore. And even if he won, this would be a pyrrhic victory, as Salmond would just go ahead with his own referendum anyway, for which he has a democratic mandate, as I’ve said.

And then Major’s solution does absolutely nothing to address the West Lothian and English Questions. If anything, it only aggravates these issues in that the Scots have the maximum degree of self-government without independence while the English have . . . nothing, and continue to be governed as the UK by a parliament in which Scots (albeit fewer in number under Major’s proposals), Welsh and N. Irish MPs are still allowed to vote on England-only matters even though the Barnett Formula would probably have been abolished.

In reality, the full logic of Major’s position points towards federalism. There’d be no justification whatsoever for non-English MPs voting on English matters, and you might as well just make the Commons an English parliament, and grant equal powers and responsibilities to each of the national parliaments / assemblies. All of which would then nullify Major’s suggestion about non-elected MPs, as the Commons would no longer even be a UK parliament – or, putting it another way, this second suggestion of Major’s is predicated on the Commons remaining a UK parliament and the English Question not being addressed.

Major’s suggestion about non-elected parliamentarians does, however, make sense for the Lords, which in the scenario I’ve just mapped out would naturally evolve into the UK-federal parliament, dealing with those matters that remained the responsibility of the government / parliament for the whole UK. Indeed, it’s far more appropriate for non-elected experts to sit in the Upper House, which fits with its natural role as a revising and deliberative chamber.

And the seats for non-elected members (whether Lords or MPs) should be allocated in proportion to vote share, not seat share. It makes much more sense for these non-elected seats to be distributed in accordance with share of the vote (not seats) even if Major’s proposals were to be adopted for the Commons as presently constituted, as this would help rectify the gross distortions of First Past the Post and make the Commons more not less representative of the electorate.