IT was proposed by David Cameron, when he was Prime Minister, as the answer to the “West Lothian question” – the question of whether MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be able to vote on matters at Westminster that the devolved administrations for those nations have power over.
EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) was implemented in October 2015, shortly after the Tories won a majority in that year’s General Election. If you are wondering, no, they did not win a majority of seats in Scotland at that election. In fact, they won only one.
The morning after the Scottish independence referendum, David Cameron stood on the steps of Downing Street and declared that the people of Scotland had spoken and therefore now was the time to deal with the West Lothian question.
The feeling, I’m sure many of you will remember, was that Scotland had had its moment to shine and now it was time to get back in our wee box so we could return to talking about the only thing that really matters in the UK.
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So, David Cameron’s answer to the West Lothian question was to amend the Standing Orders of the House of Commons to exclude Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish MPs from voting on legislation that only affects England, and the decision about what constitutes affecting England only would be taken by the. You may wonder, why not set up devolved parliaments in the English regions?
The answer is that the English regions don’t want them. For the most part there isn’t any appetite for, what Labour like to call, “home rule” in England. And that is their right. But, despite not having an appetite for devolved parliaments, there was a clear appetite for preventing Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs from voting on English matters, and who could blame them?
The primary reason I want Scottish independence is that I don’t want a different country’s electorate overruling the decisions taken by the electorate in Scotland. So the mishmash, slapdash solution to the problem, EVEL, was chosen and implemented.
This is why nobody believes Labour when they discuss federalism in the UK. Federalism cannot work in the English regions aren’t interested in having regional administrations, and they’re not. Labour couldn’t even get House of Lords reform passed with the massive majorities they had in the Blair years, and now we’re to believe they’re going to get into power and implement the biggest constitutional overhaul the UK has had since its inception? I’m not really convinced, are you?
As with most things the Tories propose, it sounds pretty reasonable on the surface. Once you scratch beneath though, even just a little, you find there are massive problems with the system.
For example, Scottish Tory MPs have typically chosen to vote on matters that are covered by EVEL. They pass through the aye or no lobbies and that vote is recorded.
It isn’t, however, counted.
Why’s this an issue? Well, aside from being a huge waste of everyone’s time, websites that track MPs voting behaviour count these votes in their tallies. Not the end of the world, but inherently deceitful work by the Tories.
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The big issue comes, however, when there are bills travelling through Parliament that cover things that are devolved. Take this week’s example, the health bill that was being voted on in the Commons.
It is completely clear that health matters for Scotland are controlled by the Scottish Parliament, but what about the money? When a health bill is passing through Westminster, there are direct consequences for the Scottish Budget via the Barnett formula, but this week Scottish MPs were prevented from voting on this important topic.
The same would be true of an education bill. The same would be true of a transport bill. The Scottish Government cannot be considered truly in control of something if they are not control of the purse strings.
This has been stated over and over and over, but it’s hardly ever discussed properly. That is why, this week, my SNP colleagues and I decided to try and vote on the health bill. It’s crucial to remind everyone of this ridiculous set-up.
It’s a shambles of a system, thrown together by a prime minister who really didn’t care about the issue, and just wanted to claim that he’d done something. It’s things like this, along with the general contempt the UK Government has treated Scotland with since the EU referendum in 2016 that have lead to ever-increasing numbers of people switching from No to Yes. It’s why three polls in a row show that we’re winning. We are winning.
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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