English Votes for English Laws

The logical solution is an English Parliament, but that means another layer of expense, more elections, more civil servants, more noses in troughs.

It would be logical to slash the size of the House of Commons to, say, 400.

All this requires loads of consultation, maybe a Royal Commission, lots of time and expense. Evel should be sold as a cheap and cheerful interim measure to deal with the problem in the short term, unless the SNP can be trusted to keep out of English issues in the absence of a stop-gap solution, which on present evidence it can't.

Then let's have equality for the four countries of the UK, an English assembly for England not England taking over the UK parliament and banning elected MP's from voting in the house

Surely its simple. If the particular law applies to England, Scotland, Wales and NI, then all MP's get to vote. If it only applies to England then only English MP's get to vote etc.

Pardon my ignorance on this subject, perhaps it is much more complicated than that.

Many believed him in the run up to the election when he played the Scots v English card

Depends on what the newspapers say tomorrow, Gracesgran. Some people will believe them.

Does DC really think everyone will blame the SNP members. Apparently he wouldn't have been able to get the bill through even if they hadn't voted as too many of his own party would have opposed it. I suppose it is a smoke screen which will fool some but surely we really aren't that stupid.

Why did the government want Scotland to remain part of the UK if it is now saying it is not allowed to vote as part of the UK?

Evel isn't being debated until the autumn is it? Time for the opposition to get their act together.

I wonder what DC is really up to, behind all this confusion that he is throwing in front of us.

The fox-hunting vote is off. They will return to it after the EVEL bill is passed. I do not want EVEL - what do we do?

I have no problem with English votes for English laws whitewave but that requires an assembly. The UK parliament is for the UK. Obviously, if we did have an English assembly there would have to be an evening out of devolved powers between the Assemblies/Parliaments but it may be something that has to happen now powers are devolved to the other three members of the United Kingdoms.

I have just caught a discussion on this on the BBC - it helped the ironing and the Conservative MP was basically saying that the SNP members should know their place and not oppose the "ruling" party. It takes you back 50 years doesn't it.

A section of my government will.. etc .. unless they've got it wrong and "etc" does affect someone else after all.
The Queen could be giving DC some beady-eyed looks.

I have a feeling that Evel has become such a shambles (just like so much this government has attempted) then it might get quietly be kicked into touch.

If the Westminster mp's are sidelined how is that democratic?. The Tories behave so often like sulky children it is a joke.

durhamjen not sure what you mean by saying there's no SNP representation on committees. Which committees?

As usual Cameron has put mouth before brain in gear. If elected MP's are banned from voting it's the end of the UK parliment. The queens speech will be something to hear - my government will etc, followed by - a section of my government will etc

The Scottish, Welsh and Irish MPs at Westminster don't take any part in the devolved parliaments. They are in Westminster' as part of the "family" of the UK, as David Cameron called it.

I thought NC made her point well this morning in spite of the barracking of the journalist. You cannot have two levels of MP in the UK parliament. If DC wants English votes for English law making then he needs an English parliament. The man has gone from being arrogant to bombastic and is trying to treat parliament as his personal fiefdom with little or no mandate to do anything of the sort.

Sturgeon on radio 4 this morning - reminding the Tories how slim their majority is. Bet they are spitting tacs! Mind you Evel will be pushed even harder as a result.

So anything regarding England and Wales will be decided by the speaker no matter if it does affect Scotland , well what chance do our forty MP's have against England ?

How can the government say, just for one example, that the High Speed Rail bill does not affect Scotland?
The amount of money that is to be spent on that comes out of a total pot for the whole of the UK, money that could be spent on improving railways all over the UK if it wasn't being spent on HSR.

Those Bills were said to have no implications for Scotland, rather than for the SNP.
The Scottish Government, which at present is SNP, disagrees and says that Scotland is affected by them.

These are Bills which have already gone through parliament so it is already clear whom they do, or do not, affect.

The suggestion, at present, is that the Speaker will rule on which Bills are English-only, with MPs from outwith England having no say in that decision.

Clearly that would not be a fair arrangement.

The problem is who decides, mcem. There are no committees including the SNP. They just have to accept what the other committees say.

In FarNorth's list, 13 were said by the Tories to have no implications for the SNP. The SNP disagreed.

As farnorth made clear, most of the areas above have implications for Scotland too.
Where there are no such implications the proposal seems ok to me.

Oh good.

I say yes to English votes for English laws!!