Anders Hanson

Regardless of what administration is formed in Scotland, the one thing that I believe will never be the same again following last week’s Scottish Elections is the attitude of the English towards Scots in the Westminster Parliament. The West Lothian Question has been brushed under the carpet ever since the Scottish Parliament was created. But even if Scotland does not become an independent country, the grumbling about Scots being able to vote on English matters now looks set to come to a head, particularly with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. As a result, I think the time has come for Lib Dems to now back an English Parliament as the only solution.

If I’m honest, an English Parliament is far from the ideal situation as far as I am concerned. Despite the rejection of the idea by the North East, and despite declining support for them amongst the Lib Dems, I still favour the party policy of having English Regional Assemblies. One of the most important reasons for devolving power is that decisions are made closer to the people they effect and allows you to make decisions based on local circumstances. But to me an English Parliament feels no closer than the current one we have in Westminster. However, I accept this is perhaps because I live in Yorkshire, and I feel as much patriotism about being from Yorkshire as I do about being English, something which people in the South East or East Midlands do not feel.

But the reason we need an English Parliament is because it solves a problem which is becoming more of a concern for voters than parliament simply being too remote, that is Scots having too much power at Westminster. Constitutional issues like this have never, often to the disappointment of Lib Dems, been a key concern of voters over the years. But times have changed and I am now hearing time and time again the complaint, “Why should we have a Scottish Prime Minister when Scotland has its own parliament.” The answer is very simple. “Westminster is still in charge of many of the big political decisions that effect Scotland, and so Scottish MPs have to have a say in those and so should also be able to lead the country too.” But people do not easily accept that explanation.

An English Parliament would be able to use all of the facilities of the House of Commons, and so would not necessarily be that expensive to set up, but it would remove a huge constitutional anomaly by being given the same powers as the Scottish Parliament (with the Welsh & Northern Irish Assemblies also acquiring the same powers at the time). But what I think would be important would be to make members of the English Parliament separate from those of the Westminster Parliament. This would then stop a confusing and ludicrous situation where potentially a Labour Prime Minister could be in charge two days of the week but then in opposition another two days of the week. If UK MPs and English MPs were elected separately it would allow them the independence to do their own thing more and would ensure that they didn’t have to be both ruling party and opposition. Also by giving away powers, the UK Parliament could then cut the number of MPs.

I don’t have a view one way or another on whether Scotland should be an independent country. I could probably construct all sorts of economic, historical and cultural reasons as to why Scotland should remain a part of the UK or why it should be independent. But what I don’t have is one thing that is as important as all of these, a patriotic and instinctive feeling about what it means to be Scottish and where you want the country to be in the future. But if Scotland remains a part of the UK, there has to be an English Parliament too.