Date published: 2008/07/01
The BBC says:
Scottish MPs should have fewer powers over legislation which applies only to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a Conservative taskforce has said.
At present Scottish MPs can vote on measures which do not affect Scotland.
Ken Clarke's group says MPs from Wales and Northern Ireland should also lose some powers over English-only measures.
The proposals are not binding on the Conservatives, but shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said they would "introduce greater fairness".
Mr Clarke's committee suggests there should be voting restrictions when MPs look at the "committee stage" of a bill - when most in-depth amendments are discussed.
For matters relating solely to England, only English MPs should vote, while English and Welsh MPs alone should vote on issues only affecting those two countries, it argues.
MPs from all countries could later vote to pass or reject the bill as a whole, the committee adds.
...
Mr Clarke said his plan was a "compromise", more workable than simply banning MPs from other countries from voting on England-only laws, and that this would help preserve the Union of England and Scotland.
Part of the continuing slow break-up of the Union. Although this is claimed to be a "compromise", not only is it a totally arbitrary "compromise", it also has one potentially serious negative side effect. It could quite easily happen that a government has a majority of MPs but some other party (or parties) had a majority of non-Scottish MPs. (The election of 2005 was not that far off this result.) This would mean that in some sense there would have to be two cabinets, making decisions on quite separate matters. It's all a bit silly, just like the current situation is a bit silly.
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