English Votes for English Laws

The amount of money that the Scottish Parliament gets for its NHS is dependent on the amount that England decides to spend on its NHS. It is calculated as a proportion of that.

So if England were to decide to privatise a lot of medical care, leading to a reduction in its NHS spending, Scotland would receive a much lower amount of money regardless of whether it had also decided to go for privatisation, or not.

It cannot be fair for that to happen without Scottish MPs being allowed to have a vote on the decision.

Bez said " Tony Blair ..... etc

Oops, sorry, it was absent.

FarNorth at the time of Labour's introduction of tuition fees the Scottish Parliament may not have existed but MPs were not voting for the whole of the UK - Scotland was excluded, although Scottish Labour MPs voted in favour.

I will be very interested to see what England gets out of the new rules for MP's, as you say Grannyonce, only English MP's voting on all English matters may be all that comes if it, but that will be something at least.

If that is all that comes of it, that will be fine.

I Said no such thing!!!!!! I mentioned no names except the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Plaid Cymru - please get your facts right Far North assume you are Scottish or at least living there with that name! I simply said that Wales do not charge Welsh students the full fees. - they have to have lived in Wales and been to Welsh schools and have a Welsh address - when they had none of these requirements the welsh Universities suddenly became extraordinarily popular with English k students. If Welsh young people elect to go Universities outside Wales they pay the relevant fees.

Correct Bez, if my elder granddaughter gets her grades come AUGUST she will go to Cardiff University and we pay a lower fee, if she doesn't get the grades Cardiff require she has been accepted in a university in England, she will pay the same fees as English students there

Another thing which doesn't sit right with me, Cameron is an MP so will vote with the English MP 's but should the PM of the UK do so? Should he vote on policies which could have a negative effect on the other three countries . The leader of the Welsh Assembly and the leader of the Scottish Parliament do not have the power to do this

So, Anniebach, who should be the PM? An MP whose constituency happens to be in England, or somebody with no constituency at all, a member of the House of Lords, perhaps?

At this point I should declare that although I was born in Middlesex my father was born in Wales and has impeccable Welsh roots on his father's side and for at least two generations on his mother's. My mother was English, but having traced her ancestry back to the 15th century I have found out that she too was of Welsh descent. Had she still been alive, she would have been mortified to learn this, having had an unsatisfactory marriage to a Welshman.

My point is that nearly all of us are hybrid, and we would all be better off if we just accepted we were British and just got on with life. I hardly dare go to the North East for fear of being harangued by DJ and her ilk, or to my roots in Glamorgan for fear of being verbally assaulted by AB and her chums.

Failing that, I propose that London secede from the UK as Singapore did from Malaya.

Hmmm. I totally understand the need for separate votes for English matters now we have devolved so much but I would be very unhappy if that is all that happened. I think it will be however as none of the current MPs will not want to give us any of what they consider to be their power.

grumppa, sorry but I don't see the connection between your Welsh roots or your mother unhappy marriage with English votes and this isn't a London issue it concerns the entire population of England

Gracesgran, it does all seem a muddle doesn't it . If Wales decide they don't like the way the assembly is running things we can vote them out next year, it would have no effect on our MP's in Westminster , but if England has the same people running the equivalent of an assembly and the country ?

Let's have another go.

England should have the respect from the other devolved countries to have the same as themselves, it's own parliament/assembly.

Not to agree is neither democratic nor fair. This was a mistake from the outset and has been a bone of contention since the devolved countries were given the referendum to decide their choice but the English had no parity with the others 2 countries of the UK. N.Ireland devolved at a later date. In others words England voters had to put up and shut up.

The members of the Scottish /Welsh and N.Ireland parliaments/assemblies CANNOT vote in Westminster because they are voting for policies that apply 'solely' to their own countries.

If England has it's own assembly then those elected would also NOT be permitted to vote in Westminster. Obviously!

If England is refused an assembly, even a referendum to decide, then the only politically elected spokespeople for the English voter is the Westminster MP's.

An alternative to England not having an assembly and assembly members, COULD be to allow English Westminster MP's the opportunity to debate and vote on policies that apply to England only as they have no equivalent parliamentary building such as Stormont and Holyrood.

The latter is a half assed attempt to try and put right the disparity for the English voter but it would be better for England to have an assembly like Scotland,Wales and N.Ireland. Westminster remains the sole place of debate and voting for UK laws and policies that are not devolved to those devolved nations parliament/assembly members.

By the way it has been mentioned that Scotland MP's do not vote on English only matters. They have been pretty good on that score in the past but there have been so many interviews done with Sturgeon and Salmond where that does not look as though it will be the case in future.

If England was one of the 3 nations who had devolved parliaments/assemblies then whichever of the 4 nations was not I would not hesitate to say the same in their defense. Yet it seems to me it is a dislike of all things English that is causing the resistance by some to seeing that England has not got equality with the other devolved countries. That is what is at the heart of the matter.

POGS, I am only joining in this discussion because I find it interesting. I fully support England having a referendum as did Scotland and Wales , if the majority vote yes then the right to vote for their representives follows, I don't think it should be done in weeks, it needs thinking through then given over to the people to decide , this is democratic

Soontobe...I exist in the real world too. My virtual world opinions are no different to my real world opinions.

That was the whole point of this thread, Annie, that it is being rushed through in the next two weeks, without the English having a say or even knowing what it means. The only people who do are some members of the government.
We should have a proper referendum, and be told what exactly it means if we vote for an English Assembly.
As somebody said earlier, the NHS is a problem. Scotland runs its own NHS, but the finance is set by the British government. We have an NHS England, but the national part of it is being quickly eroded. If more money is given to NHS England as has been asked for today, as 9 out of 10 hospital trusut will be in the red, that will mean less money for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Grumppa, you would be quite safe up here. I am sure I wouldn't recognise you if you didn't open your mouth.

Yes Jen and I fully support a referendum. The way this is being carried out is so wrong. What is suspicious is when Scotland had their assembly it was only after a vote had been held in Parliment, this was 1979 , Wales first end voted in 1979 and again in 1997, but this too was passed by parliment but there was also a royal commission on the constitution held in 1973

Why the rush in a matter of weeks after 36 years ? What is Cameron up to? I am not being anti Tory, I would ask the same no matter who was in power, why after silence for 36 years is it being rushed through and the people not even being consulted or informed and not given a vote ?

I am so dippy, only just realised grumpa was making rather juvenile snide jibes at me , get a life you silly person.

what England are being offered is 'devo-min' and all it amounts to is that MPs for an English constituency (they could be any race colour or creed) are being asked to vote as 'EMPs' on the very very few occasions when the bill under debate is relevant to and affects only the country of 'England' (don't quite see that any debate of the NHS spending would fall into that category)
POGS - good post - I totally agree with you.

I think I'm the one with the life, AB; I don't concern myself too much with what happened in 1290 or whenever.

I mentioned my own Welsh roots to make the point that many of us are a mixture of English, Welsh, Scottish, etc., and for that reason alone may not like to see the UK being pulled apart. The main political parties are losing their traditional class-based identities, and the only cohesive ones, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, are essentially divisive in the context of the nation as a whole.

A separate parliament for England could be accommodated in the House of Commons, with the Lords abolished and their chamber used for a UK Parliament.

I don't think grumpa was getting at you, Annie. I thought he said what he meant, that in the UK we're all of very mixed heritage and politics based on regionalism is a mistake. The fact is that London has an assembly already and assemblies are being pushed on other regions. But only if we agree to elect a regional Mayor, something most regions refused to do when it was suggested before. This is another half-assed attempt at solving the wrong problem. Regionalism is being forced on us by a total failure of central government (all parties) to address the fall-out from the earlier precipitate programme of devolution that has left the constitution of the UK in such a mess.

Then Lilygran, who is the AB in Glamorgan who grumpa claims would verbally assault him if he went there?

Anyway back to the subject ,I agree whole thing is a mess and this rushing in by Cameron will make things worse

Excellent posts POGS and Grumppa. Says it all really.

The whole thing ' is not a mess' and was promised to the English electorate to be done as soon as possible, which is what is now happening.

If more people thought of ourselves as the United Kingdom and were pleased about it ( I mean, after all these years!!) instead of feeling so defensive and divided, then things would be a lot better.Having devolution for all four countries should not be a bone of contention.