I see that Parliament voted to pursue English only votes for things that only affect England and for reasons that baffle me Scottish constituency MPs and the SNP are getting all snotty.
Why should they be bothered, why does voting on something that will not affect their constituents matter so much?
Seems eminently sensible for MPs representing English constituents to have the ultimate vote on things only affecting England.
Despite Scottish MPs voluntarily abstaining from most votes on english-only issues for many years, you need to remember that the SNP will try to spin anything against that happens as a negative upon england (in general) and the conservatives (in specific).
The real problem is that Westminster hasn’t had the balls to do this properly and devolve english control to an english parliament (or a collection of regional parliaments) and leave Westminster as the umbrella government on UK matters. FI the devolution scheme has been successful in Scotland then that needs to be the model for the rest of the country.
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I know the SNP will do or say anything to stir anti-English feelings, but you can’t see an argument as to why this move shouldn’t come to pass, other than some people getting upset at not being involved in debates and votes.
As for Regional Parliaments/Assemblies etc in England, no thanks. This just adds another level of bureaucracy and sod all will happen, it’s bad enough with borough / unitary authority and county level. Probably favoured by Socialists who like the idea of more bureaucratic processes with more pen-pushing non-entities screwing things up. My cousin lives in a UA and wishes they’d go back to being part of the political county as he said the councillors are ‘living the dream’ and non-effective.
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As I understand it, a decent amount of Scottish funding and budgets are based largely on a proportion of spending in England, so if the English MP’s vote to cut NHS funding for example, the proportion of NHS funding going to Scotland would also decrease, and Scottish MP’s wouldn’t have had any say on it and MSP’s wouldn’t have any way to counter it within their budget setting powers.
Proper devolution / federalism would have devolved all of these budget setting powers to Scotland (in fact, I thought that’s what the vow was all about), but that hasn’t happened yet. So if I’ve understood it properly, you can see why the Scots think they’re being screwed over. They’ve not got the powers they were promised, and they won’t be able to vote on issues that do affect them.
But I might be wrong!
Expanding on this purely as an example (I don’t have enough detail to know what the situation is just now), what you would do was delegate control and management of the English NHS to the english parliament while overall budget distribution of NHS budgets to devolved authorities would be a matter for the federal (westminster) government.
Incidentally, the NHS is a devolved matter in Scotland and the Scottish NHS is (I’m told, by an employee) a totally separate entity.
Yeh I’m using NHS as an example not knowing whether it’s valid or not. I think it still is as I understand their budget is still based on the proportion of funding going to the English & Welsh NHS, so if that funding goes down, so does the Scottish funding, though I do think Scotland have the ability to do some adjustment…
Having a separate English parliament and English budgets would make more sense, rather than badly fudging something out of the UK parliament by removing rights from some and not others on powers that still - even indirectly - affect them.
i must admit to being completely perplexed by the tories refusal to go down the federal path, not only is it vastly easier in organisational terms, but politically its an open goal - it probably means perpetual tory government in England, and it might well put a spoke in the Labour/SNP/Plaid wheel by making governments that want X, Y and Z spending dig the money for those pogrammes out of their voters pockets.
everyone says they’d accept higher taxation to pay for nice things, but the long established ‘shy tory’ phenomenon suggests that its not as true as some might like.
I really don’t understand why Scotland has MSPs and MPs to be honest, other than as an additional gravy train for politicians to ride.
My simple solution is just have MPs, who are from Scotland. They can sit in the Scottish Parliament to vote on Scottish stuff, and in Westminster to vote on British stuff. If they feel that for some reason 59 isn’t enough for a parliament of their own then they can double it or triple it, with each vote counting for a half or a third at Westminster (and the salary split two or three ways, with Scotland making up any additional pay needed).
Simples.
This woud require a majority vote across the UK. I don’t think that collective politicians in Scotland, Wales or NI would want it as it would mean losing the handouts from Westminster that means they can tinker with headline making decisions that make Westminster look bad and not expose their populations to the full cost of running things. Not saying it would be welcomed with open arms in England, but you do get a sense that the SNP and PC like fiddling on the edges, but without the full fiscal responsibility.
The quicker people see the SNP for what they really are the better. English votes won’t happen as the snp won’t let anything get in the way of their attitude of "if it’s not their way you must be a Tory"
To say how much I detest the SNP and all their scum following is an understatement!
Scotland has a masive underspend at the moment in the Scottish Parliament but the SNP won’t use it on the NHS as its not in line with their easy cry of its failing blame Westminster and the tory’s!!