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10.11 am
Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test): There is a famous passage in that excellent film, "Some Like It Hot" where the rival mob is celebrating the birthday of Spats Columbo--
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Is the hon. Gentleman likening my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) to Marilyn Monroe?
Dr. Whitehead: More Spats than Marilyn, I am afraid.
In the film, as hon. Members will recall, a member of the rival mob contrasts the most outrageous claims about Spats's behaviour and his personal views. In the context of this debate, I have no truck with such cynicism. Some people say that the hon. Lady's Bill has an air of white flapping coats about it. On the contrary, the hon. Lady has taken the trouble to enter the private Member's Bill ballot; she has drawn together a Bill and has argued eloquently for it this morning. We should therefore take what she says at face value and argue about the detail of her Bill.
We have been helped considerably by an article that the hon. Lady wrote in the Parliamentary Review in November 1997, amusingly entitled, "Wrong division". Some people say that the article is an intemperate rant; I say that it is a carefully crafted argument in support of what she has to say this morning. It is useful to the extent that the hon. Lady sets out carefully the consequences of her Bill and her view of what might happen if the Government's present arrangements on regional devolution are put into place.
The hon. Lady says that the results
The notion of federalism has been advocated in some quarters and, interestingly, was analysed in some depth on previous occasions when the matter was inquired into. I am thinking particularly of the Kilbrandon commission on the constitution, which reported in 1973. Kilbrandon said of federalism:
Dr. Whitehead:
I accept that matters have changed since the Kilbrandon report, but a number of principles that he set out are enduring and deserve our attention.
In her magazine article, the hon. Member for Billericay opined that there was no third way. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence that a third way has worked elsewhere in the world and can work well in this country if given the chance to operate. Therefore, I shall make a case based on Kilbrandon's initial thoughts. As the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) suggests, I shall bring the issues up to date in terms of our present constitutional debate.
On federalism, Kilbrandon concludes:
Mr. Grieve:
I am fascinated to hear the hon. Gentleman's comments because they certainly have force. He clearly did not attend the debate on the Scotland Bill; I do not think that a single Labour English Member of Parliament attended it. Had he been present, he would have heard the Liberal Democrats say that the federal solution was an option. Labour's Scottish Members of Parliament made comments to the effect that, if a federal solution eventually emerged, so be it. Perhaps he should have a discussion with some of his Scottish colleagues.
Dr. Whitehead:
The fact that the Liberal Democrats have believed, quite bizarrely, that a federal solution is a good idea for the UK does not necessarily make it a good idea. Certain Scots believe that a federal solution might be a good idea, albeit on different lines from those suggested in the past by the Liberal Democrats, but that does not make that a good idea either. It certainly would be possible to move to a federal solution on the basis of a number of regional Parliaments in the UK, of a smaller size than for England as a whole, which is what the hon. Member for Billericay advocates. However, that is not what the Government, nor anybody in the House, propose.
The issue facing us this morning--the nub of the Bill--is a proposal which Kilbrandon devastatingly said was not workable in terms of the constitutional imbalance that it would create.
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border):
The hon. Gentleman says that he opposes the Bill because of the constitutional imbalance that would result. Would he care to comment on the constitutional imbalance that would be created by the Government's proposals, especially given that the West Lothian question remains completely unanswered?
Dr. Whitehead:
The constitutional imbalance described in the Kilbrandon report arises as a result of a thorough and permanent arrangement whereby one particular Parliament of a federation has such an overwhelming dominance in terms of decision making that it effectively becomes the Parliament of the federation as a whole. The issues that the right hon. Gentleman raises are mere fleabites compared to that central point. There are issues that need to be resolved in terms of the devolutionary process, but the critique that I am putting forward is far more central. It is that the constitutional arrangements for a federal system would be so top heavy in favour of the English dimension as to be fundamentally unworkable.
Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke):
Will the hon. Gentleman explain how the constitutional imbalance which he fears would come about in a federal Parliament differs in principle from the so-called "imbalance" that currently exists?
Dr. Whitehead:
The problem with some Conservative Members is that, despite their protestations, they do not understand that the activity on which the Government are embarked is a process, not a fixed point. They do not understand the difference between an attempt to achieve
Mr. David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden):
I probably have more experience of the federal states of Europe than most others. What the hon. Gentleman has said so far shows only too clearly that the word "federal" is misused in every sense. Will he explain precisely how an imbalance will manifest itself, given that the Bill proposes no Bundesrat? When he tries to explain the imbalance, he should demonstrate the need for establishing a whole series of rules about financial funding and other responsibilities between parts of the kingdom, which the Government have so far completely ignored in drawing up their legislation.
"of one or more local Parliaments must have two consequences--either the conversion of our unitary parliament into a federal state, with a written constitution prescribing restricted powers of the federal and local parliaments, or complete dissolution of the nation."
She says:
"There is no third alternative."
We must accept that the hon. Lady's Bill, were it to pass successfully through the House--I was pleased that the hon. Lady seriously wishes her Bill to succeed--would lead to a federal constitution.
"There is very little demand for federalism in Scotland and Wales and practically none at all in England. Few of our witnesses advocated it, and people who know the system well tend to advise against it. Nevertheless it is an important constitutional model midway between separatism, which we reject, and devolution, which in one form or another we favour."
Mr. Forth:
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that, not only was that report produced a long time ago--since when much has changed and is still changing--but, more importantly, the issue of federalism has been raised again, owing to the Labour Government's action in creating a constitutional anomaly by giving the Scots and the Welsh degrees of devolution? That is what is different and, to follow on from the logic of my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), that is what may well drive us inexorably down the road of federalism, something that Kilbrandon could not possibly have envisaged.
"A federation consisting of four units--England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland--would be so unbalanced as to be unworkable. It would be dominated by the overwhelming political importance and wealth of England. The English Parliament would rival the United Kingdom federal Parliament; and in the federal Parliament itself the representation of England could hardly be scaled down in such a way as to enable it to be outvoted by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, together representing less than one-fifth of the population. A United Kingdom federation of the four countries, with a federal Parliament and provincial Parliaments in the four national capitals, is therefore not a realistic proposition."
Kilbrandon has put his finger on the problem contained in the hon. Lady's Bill. Were it to complete all its stages and were the referendum to be successful, we would have
a federation in a form that would prove unworkable in practice and that has never been promoted by any other country.
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