Abstract
In 2015, the UK House of Commons adopted new procedures known as ‘English Votes for English Laws’ (EVEL). This article evaluates whether EVEL has succeeded in answering the West Lothian Question, a constitutional anomaly arising from the asymmetrical character of governance in the UK. After outlining the historical background against which EVEL emerged as a supposed solution to this iconic question, the article explains how the 2015 reform works, and proceeds to assess its operation during the 2015–2017 parliament. It concludes that these new procedures appear to have overcome the main practical and constitutional obstacles associated with this type of reform, but they have, so far, failed to provide meaningful English representation at Westminster—particularly in relation to supplying England, and its MPs, with an enhanced ‘voice’.
Highlights
In October 2015, the UK’s newly elected Conservative government introduced a set of revisions to the standing orders of the House of Commons, commonly referred to as ‘English Votes for English Laws’
In the remainder of this article we provide an analysis of how EVEL operated during the 2015–2017 parliament and ask whether, on the basis of the evidence of its early operation, it can be considered to have ‘answered’ the West Lothian Question in any meaningful sense
We suggest, unwise to offer hard-and-fast judgements about a system that has so far operated in rather un-testing political conditions
Summary
To understand the reasons for the introduction of EVEL, it is necessary to look back to when the West Lothian Question first appeared in UK politics and assess how its significance and potential solubility have been viewed since. One of the principal objections offered by opponents was that such a reform would create an asymmetry in territorial governance and representation across the UK, which would in turn establish an endemic unfairness at Westminster Summarising this objection in a Commons debate on the Scotland Bill in 1977, Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for West Lothian, posed the following question: For how long will English constituencies and English hon. Dalyell’s complaint was that, after devolution, English MPs would be denied the opportunity to participate on matters devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while MPs representing constituencies in those territories would continue to be able to influence equivalent matters relating only to England The anomaly he identified was not new. Sole remaining people of the UK without their own form of devolution (Kenny, 2014)
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