Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, despite devolution elsewhere—going even further in the forthcoming Wales Bill—England remains one of the most centralised nations in Europe. English devolution has been addressed only half-heartedly; indeed, Chancellor Osborne’s city deals are more about offloading the costs of the state on to the locality than genuinely decentralising power. The Treasury’s main motive has been more to reduce central public expenditure than to empower local communities Nor has the drive for English votes for English laws been about devolving power. Rather, it has been about rearranging House of Commons procedures in a flawed, contradictory and messy way that does not really answer the important and legitimate "English question". English identity should self-evidently be just as important as Welsh or Scottish identity, and we need to ensure that it is constitutionally recognised and respected, just as devolution has done for Wales and Scotland. Otherwise, the current rumblings of discontent, not just on the right but on the left of politics in England, could become an uproar fuelling English separatism at the expense of inclusive British pluralism. In the Constitution Reform Group—convened by the senior Conservative, the Marquess of Salisbury, but all-party and non-party in its membership—we are currently finalising details for a new Act of Union to be published in July. This will turn on its head the whole process of devolution to date, which has been top down—that is, powers and responsibilities have been devolved from the centre down to the nations of the UK Instead, we propose that the nations—and potentially the English regions, as well as London—should federate upwards, granting to the central UK state only those powers and responsibilities they wish. In that sense the UK would become a voluntary federal union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the latter of course subject to the Good Friday constitutional arrangements. It assumes that each constitutional unit of the United Kingdom—nations or regions—manages its own affairs and determines those matters, especially defence and foreign policy but also macroeconomics, taxation, borrowing, security, including energy security and social security, which are best arranged by a central government accountable to a federal parliament, unless any of these areas were sought by the devolved legislatures by mutual agreement I also favour radically reforming your Lordships’ House into a fully elected, or possibly 80% elected, senate that fairly represents the whole union, which it clearly does not do now—witness, for example, the gross underrepresentation of Peers from Wales, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes has pointed out However, there are several problems with replacing the House of Commons with an English parliament. First, England constitutes 84% of the UK population and 87% of UK GDP. It dwarfs the rest, and the English First Minister could end up being more significant than the Prime Minister in influence and certainly in resources. Secondly, leaving only England occupying that iconic House of Commons Chamber would undoubtedly act as a green light to separatism elsewhere Making an effective distinction between the governance of England and the governance of the United Kingdom would also free up the people of England to enjoy comparable and substantial powers of self-government on health, education, local government and other matters through a gradually developing system of self-determination for regions or city regions, such as London already has, with the definition of those regions to be voluntarily and democratically agreed. Such a modern Britain, as the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has argued, would no longer be viewed as an, "all-powerful centralised unitary state", but as, "a constitutional partnership of equals in what is in essence a voluntary multinational association" However, with city regions such as Manchester today finding favour, a mixed, more permissive structure of English devolution would in my submission be preferable. It is probable that the north-east, Cornwall and Yorkshire/Humberside would want to lead the way, and other regions or city regions would likely follow, as the alternative would be getting left behind, continuing to be ruled by Whitehall instead of claiming the opportunities of empowerment already enjoyed by the Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish and Londoners With the exception of the north-east, all the English regions have significantly bigger economies and populations than Wales and, without exception, Northern Ireland. Devolution within England is therefore eminently feasible and should now be pursued as the best route to bringing government just as close to the English as it has become to the Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish and Londoners, thereby, I trust, comprehensively answering the "English question" without jeopardising the union.