EU Referendum


Scotland: why aim for English Parliament?


18/09/2014



This is a guest post by Autonomous Mind. 

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The Scottish referendum has at last captured the interest of the world's media. As they struggle to find different angles in order to fill airtime and column inches, and twist themselves into contortions in an effort to extract previously hidden insights from the last opinion polls, on the English side of the border a critical debate is beginning to develop.

For no matter what result is announced on Friday morning, the unauthorised and mandate-free pledge of Conservative, Labour and Lib-Dem politicians to extend the powers afforded to the Scottish administration in Holyrood, has ignited a flame in England that will slow burn until such time as conditions combine to bring about a flashover (backdraft, for American friends looking in).

There has long been a small, dedicated band of Englishmen who have pursued a campaign to resolve the inequality which spawned the West Lothian Question, through the creation of an English Parliament.

The logic seems irresistible. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved matters on which only their elected representatives can vote in their Parliament and Assemblies respectively, but English-only matters are decided in the UK Parliament in Westminster with Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting on legislation that will not apply to their constituencies. It is fundamentally undemocratic.

So, runs the argument, to ensure equality England must also have its own Parliament with the same powers devolved from Westminster. That way, only representatives elected in England can vote on English-only matters. Simples.

But now the notion of an English Parliament is being given coverage by the media, which has long ignored or dismissed such calls as evidence of extreme and disturbing English nationalism run amok, the time has come to examine whether an English Parliament is indeed the right solution.

While the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies are the houses of devolved government for an estimated 5.3 million, 3.1 million and 1.8 million people respectively (ONS estimates published June 2014).

An English Parliament, on the other hand, would be the house of devolved government for an estimated 53.9 million people. The constituent parts of England are far from homogeneous. There is substantial diversity in the much smaller populations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so it's not hard to reason that the diversity between many different parts of England is more akin to a gulf.

The whole point of a house of government is the administration and delivery of services to people in a given area. For this to be done in a manner that best reflects the circumstances and addresses the needs of people in a given area, the administrative territory needs to be sufficiently localised.

The circumstances, strengths, weaknesses and needs of people in Essex can differ wildly from those of people in Merseyside. Similarly those in County Durham are markedly different to those in Hampshire.

Effective administrative territories already exist in the form of counties. In 2010, excluding Greater London there are 12 English counties with populations exceeding one million. Three of them exceed two million.

Counties already have a relationship with central government. There are clear benefits to be had by English people through having government devolved not to country level with the formation of an English Parliament, but to county level where people would have more of a stake in local governance and government has the capacity to be more responsive to differing local needs.

As the debate about the future of governance in England begins to emerge from the shadows, fuelled by the fallout from the Scottish referendum, an opportunity to think beyond the default "initial reaction" of calling for an English Parliament, with all its attendant costs and additional bureaucracy, has been presented to us.

Surely now it is time to demand a settlement that puts decision making and control of resources at the more local and established county level where people can be better served at little additional overhead, and where the settlement would be superior to anything the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish currently have.

Where feasible, governance could be devolved even closer to the people in cities and larger towns. With such an advantage to be had, why on earth would we aim for an English Parliament?

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