Tomorrow (Friday) Harriett Baldwin's Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill is back in Parliament. This is Mark D’Arcy's take on it:
Friday is private members bill day in the Commons, and topping the bill is the Report Stage debate on the Conservative backbencher Harriet Baldwin’s Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill. This takes a stab at giving a partial answer to the West Lothian Question by requiring that in future all bills put before Parliament should contain a clear statement of how they affect each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – including knock-on financial implications. She hopes that this would allow it to become accepted practice that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would not vote on England-only Bills. The Government attitude is interesting, to put it mildly. The Coalition Agreement includes a promise to set up a commission to look at the West Lothian Question (the issue of MPs from devolved parts of the UK being able to vote on English issues, when English MPs can’t vote on the same issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) but that commission has yet to be set up. Ministers clearly don’t want the Baldwin bill, and she can expect pressure to withdraw it.
Having, somewhat to her own surprise, piloted the Bill through the the most perilous stage of the parliamentary life-cycle, the Second Reading debate, and through Committee where it was unamended, (although that may owe something to the broken leg suffered by Labour constitutional affairs spokesman Chris Bryant) Harriet Baldwin can now hope to send it off to the Lords. The main way of preventing this would be for opponents to put down a deluge of amendments at Report Stage – and talk out the available debating time. We shall see.
How unfortuante that Chris Bryant had a broken leg and couldn't interfere in English business, as is his way. Would it be churlish to hope that he breaks something else on his way to Parliament tomorrow?
Coincidence or cynical political maneuvering?
Naturally, given that Harriett's private members bill stands a chance of of making it through report stage and on into the Lords, the Government has today decided to announce its plans for a Commission into the West Lothian Question. Most probably with the hope of persuading Harriett to drop her bill, as noted by the BBC:
Ministers would prefer Conservative backbencher Harriett Baldwin's Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill 2010-11 to be withdrawn and the commission left to do its work.
In fact, Mark Harper, the Minister in charge of setting up the Commission into the West Lothian Question, was last seen voting against Harriett Baldwin's bill. Hopefully Harriett will not withdraw her bill. Nadhim Zahawi made that mistake when, under pressure from the Government, he was persuaded to withdraw his St George's Day and St David's Day Bill, opening up the field for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport consultation on bank holidays. Only to discover, months later, that a St George's Day holiday was being ruled out on the blog of John Penrose at the DCMS:
A number of people in the industry suggested we give some thought to shifting the May Day bank holiday to either the autumn half-term, or possibly to become a St. George’s Day holiday in England with equivalent national days off for the other home nations.
Well, we haven’t quite completed the detailed analysis of what people said they wanted, but one thing has been coming through loud and clear. And that is the not-at-all surprising news that a number of people rather liked the idea of a new bank holiday on one or other of the suggested days but that, no, they didn’t want to lose the May Day holiday as part of the deal. An extra day off for everyone every year would clearly go down well, it seems. I think I speak on behalf of the Government when I offer the response "nice try" to that one. We’re all about reducing the deficit and growing the economy at the moment, so the suggestion we write off an additional 20 million or so working days each year is unlikely to send a shiver of delight up the Treasury’s spine, I suspect.
So England can't have a national holiday on St George's Day because we need to reduce the UK debt, and we can't have a fair and transparent funding formula because we need to reduce the UK debt. Hmmm...Any further dithering on the English Question and the Tories may find that UKIP have stolen their clothes. Tomorrow, in Eastbourne, the UKIP NEC discuss a policy proposal from their deputy leader which aims to change UKIP policy to support for the establishment of an English parliament, following private polling by the party that shows that such a policy would be popular with the voters. The Tories may regard themselves as the natural party of England, but by their actions they show that they are not. It's time for someone to step into that void.
UPDATE
Just noticed this on Mark D’Arcy's blog:
Harriett Baldwin WILL press ahead with her bill. She says the Government needs to give much more detail about its Commission. And the Speaker has only selected four of the Labour amendments for discussion at the Report Stage of her Bill - which will make any attempt to talk out the available debating time rather harder, particularly because the selected amendments are all on quite narrow points.
Good decision, Harriett.