House of Commons
Friday 16 January 1998
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Referendum (English Parliament) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
9.34 am
Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Government's constitutional changes will leave the English people at a disadvantage to Scots and Welsh people, who are currently represented in this House. My Bill will give the English the same chance as the Scots and the Welsh to determine whether they should have their own Parliament. The Labour party plans to resolve the anomalies thrown up by its legislation by having English regional assemblies for which there is no real demand. We are a bit like the Tamworth pig that is running around: if we get caught, we shall be chopped up into pieces and fed to the European Union. The English people do not want to be broken up into regions. They feel English and, like the Scots and the Welsh, we want to retain our national identity. That is not wild English nationalism but a perfectly good feeling of loyalty to our native land.
Do not take my word for it. I understand that, with my background in European matters, people will think of me as slightly paranoic.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
Never.
On 21 January 1995, The Guardian stated:
My Bill calls for a referendum on the establishment of an English Parliament with similar powers to those proposed for Scotland, which is also a kingdom in its own right. What is good for the Scottish goose is good for the English gander. The United Kingdom Parliament will remain as an umbrella to deal with taxation, defence and foreign affairs, as the Labour party has decided.
There will, of course, be a lot less work to do in this House, so the English Parliament could meet in this Chamber two or three times a week.
The only thing is that Scots--and to some extent Welsh--Members of Parliament will not vote on English legislation. I feel a bit sorry for the Scots. They will become almost redundant. In their new Parliament, they will not be able to vote on legislation on such matters either. I suspect that some of them might be running down to the labour exchange with their P45s in the not too distant future. That is their problem. It is something that they have sought and will have to live with.
Strictly speaking, I am not in favour of this legislation at all. I am a Unionist and would prefer that we did not have to have it. As we are going to have to have it, I want the English to receive fair and equal treatment. I believe in the Union and that there is nothing wrong with the present system. In politics, I believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. However, with the reforming zeal of the new Government, whose basic platform of socialism was destroyed by the previous Conservative Administration, Labour had to come up with a new gimmick. It decided that constitutional reform would take people's minds off the failure of its policies in the past.
I believe that the driving force behind all these constitutional changes in Scotland is that the Labour party is terrified of the Scots Nats up there and thinks that by introducing the legislation it can circumvent what the nationalists have in mind, which is total independence. However, there is no such thing as semi-nationhood, and the time will come when the Scottish Labour party will find itself faced with calls for independence. That is something that we shall watch and enjoy from the Opposition Benches with a degree of sadness, because none of this need happen. But here we are, and we intend to make sure if we possibly can that the English are treated fairly.
The other thing about my proposal is that it solves the so-called West Lothian question.
Mr. Forth:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way before she leaves the theme that she has been developing so eloquently. She touched on fairness. Do her constituents approach her as mine do, saying that they feel increasingly aggrieved that English voters have never yet been asked their opinion on constitutional change, devolution or anything else? They are genuinely puzzled and increasingly frustrated that everyone else seems to be asked what they want, yet the English--the majority group in the United Kingdom and the people who bankroll everyone else--have not yet been asked their view.
Mrs. Gorman:
My right hon. Friend is right. The Labour party's proposals are not only crafty--the Government know that they would get a different result if they balloted the population in England--but scurrilous.
I want to praise the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). He has toiled in this garden for many years to make the country aware of the anomalies. He has received less than praise for his efforts from some of his colleagues. Therefore, if my legislation were to end up on the statute book, the work that he has put in over these years would be justified.
To develop the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), there are probably more Scots living in England than in
Scotland, and they are very aggrieved at not being given a say in what is happening to their homeland. I have met Scottish people who tell me that when they go home to meet their families, they are bullied by friends and neighbours because those people think that the idea of a Scottish Parliament is daft. But, of course, they have not been given a say. We know why they are not being given a say, do we not? It is because the end result would probably be different. That is why the Labour party is being less than open about what it is up to.
No one can have been in the House last week without being aware of what was going on. Constitutional changes have been rushed through with guillotines and ill-thought-out speeches all week. All those measures will lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom, an institution that has served us admirably for hundreds of years, which has defended us against our external enemies, and which has contributed to a general feeling across the nation--not only in England--of loyalty and affection for the whole of the United Kingdom and its institutions. Of course, it is not a perfect system. No system of government is, but as Churchill said, it is probably better than anything else.
The Scots voted fairly comfortably for the changes in their referendum, although not overwhelmingly. The Welsh hardly voted at all. About a quarter bothered to vote. The margin was so small, and some of the voting practices and papers so suspect, that there are proposals to review the position. So much for the Welsh wanting their own assembly.
The London referendum is also coming up. That has met slight obstacles in the past week, but I am sure that the Labour party is determined to get it through. I think that it will be a damp squib. In the soundings that Labour has made, it received from the whole of the population of the London area--about 7 million people--only 102 or 110 responses. It does not look as if the proposal will be a winner, but we have yet to see.
Then, we are also going to overturn the long tried and tested although anomalous situation in the Lords. At Question Time this week, the Prime Minister endorsed the Government's intention to dismantle the upper House. Our constitutional background and the stability that we have all taken for granted throughout our lives, our parents' lives, and way back into our ancestry, is to be turned on its head. When one does that, there are unexpected consequences. Although the Government are determined to go through with it, they may well go down as the Government who turned over the basic framework and structure of our country and the way in which we administer our affairs, and put in its place a number of rival administrations at each other's throats, fighting for the resources available, and squabbling between them.
Having been born and raised in England, I can honestly say that I have never particularly thought of myself as English, British or anything else. We had children and families who were Scottish, Irish and Welsh in our neighbourhood. We never thought of them as different from us. They were all British and part and parcel of the same family. Now, of course, if we turn on the radio and listen to the "Today" programme, and if Ministers can be persuaded to come and answer for their policies, we nearly always hear a Scottish or Welsh voice.
Suddenly these people seem to be over-opinionated, perhaps overrated and over here. It is a thought that would never have crossed my mind.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire):
Down here.
"The Labour Party's plans for a Scottish parliament, a Welsh assembly and optional assemblies for the English regions, are, in part, inspired by the trend to regional self-government throughout"
the European Union. Last February, the Financial Times stated:
"Regional administrations will create unnecessary rivalries, contribute to a new layer of bureaucracy and prove an increasing drain on public resources."
Anyone who attended the debate on Wednesday about the proposals for regional assemblies--I know that they are not being called that yet, but that is where we are heading--will agree.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |