The British-Irish Council and Devolution
by Vernon Bogdanor
In February 1998, however, the Conservative leader, William Hague, called for changes to be made in the government of England, following devolution to Scotland and Wales. He put forward as suggestions an English Grand Committee or an English Parliament. There is already in fact provision in the standing orders of the House of Commons, for a Standing Committee on Regional Affairs, a kind of English Grand Committee, comprising all MPs sitting for English constituencies - 529 of the 659 members of Parliament - together with five additional members. That Committee, however, has not met since 1978 for the very good reason that it proved to be nothing more than a cumbrous talking shop.
In January 1998, The Eurosceptic Conservative back-bencher, Teresa Gorman, moved a private member's bill calling for a referendum on Hague's other proposal, an English parliament. The main purpose of such a parliament would be to resolve the constitutional dilemmas to which asymmetrical devolution gives rise. Yet, it would be pointless to 'resolve' these dilemmas by a massive upheaval in England unless that was also desired for other reasons, and unless it served to make government more effective. An English parliament, however, would yield a form of 'Home Rule All Round' which would be highly unbalanced in population terms. Indeed an English parliament would hardly avoid becoming a real rival to Westminster. 'A Federation consisting of four units - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - would', the Royal Commission on the Constitution declared in 1973, '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 four countries, with a federal Parliament and provincial Parliaments in the four national capitals is therefore not a realistic proposition. 4
Moreover, an English parliament would do nothing to remedy over-centralization and lack of democratic accountability which constitute much of the case for devolution. Were an English parliament to be set up, there would still be a need to disperse power within England. So an English parliament, while it might resolve some of the constitutional anomalies of asymmetrical devolution, would not resolve the problem to which devolution is proposed as an answer. Devolution in England, therefore, if it is to serve the same ends as devolution in Scotland and Wales, must be devolution to the English regions, not to an English parliament. It is for this reason no doubt that in the preface to the White Paper, Scotland's Parliament 5 Tony Blair indicates that his government's 'comprehensive programme of constitutional reform' involves as well as 'a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly', 'more accountability in the regions of England'. 'The Union', the document goes on to say 'will be strengthened by recognising the claims of Scotland, Wales and the regions with strong identities of their own'. Great Britain, then consists for the purposes of devolution, not of three nations, but of two, together with the English regions.
There are, however no ministers for the English regions as there are ministers for Scotland and Wales and, by contrast, with the Scottish and Welsh offices, the regions are not directly represented in the cabinet. The new Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, created by the Labour government in 1997 and headed by John Prescott, is not a ministry of the regions in this sense since it does not enjoy, as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices do, functional responsibilities for such matters as education and health, which remain with departmental ministries. The English regions will therefore not be represented in the British-Irish council unless and until they seek devolution for themselves. While there is some prospect of devolution in the north of England, there is little prospect of its occurring in the foreseeable future in the south-east. Indeed in much of England, the regions are little more than ghosts.
1. Cm 3883. 1998
2. Richard Rose, Understanding the United Kingdom, Harlow, Longman, 1982, p.29
3. First published 1865-67
4. Cmnd. 5460, para.531
5. Cm 3658, 1997
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