Your blogs: An English Parliament is the game changer

David Rickard: My 'big idea' was for a referendum of the English people to be held on whether to create an English parliament. I'm not going to rehearse here all the arguments in favour of that proposition, which I've already submitted to Power 2010. The main observation I wish to make is that the establishment of an English parliament changes everything: all the terms of the debate about real change to "the way we do politics in this country", as the preamble in the 'Your Ideas' page of the Power 2010 site states. The setting up of an English parliament would bring about not so much radical reform of British parliamentary democracy as the end of the British Parliament as we know it. This would cease to be the principal sovereign, national, democratic forum and legislature for the UK.

Instead, this role would be fulfilled by four (or potentially five, including Cornwall) national parliaments, the English one being by far the largest and most influential: effectively, then, becoming the main parliament and focus for civic society in England and the UK as a whole. It's hard to see how an English parliament could be set up without requiring the transformation of the UK into a federal state of four (or five) sovereign nations, underpinned by a written constitution. Either that, or a sovereign English parliament will emerge by default as a by-product of Scottish independence. An English parliament wouldn't really work under the devolution model as it has been applied to the other nations of the UK. This is firstly because you'd have an absurd situation whereby the parliament responsible for deciding how the great majority of public expenditure was used, and the nation generating the great majority of the UK's revenues, would not be responsible for setting its own budget and managing its own economy. No, the English parliament would have to be accountable to the English people for the way it spent the tax revenues it exacted from the people.

The second reason why an English parliament wouldn't work on the basis of the devolution model is because the existing British parliament already effectively sees itself as the de facto English parliament: it embodies the 'Anglo-British' mentality of the establishment whereby the British state is viewed as an extension of England, and devolution to the 'other countries' is effectively the concession of semi-autonomy from English-British rule. From within this mindset, it becomes almost a logical non-sequitur to contemplate the creation of an English parliament: it would be like Parliament devolving its own power to a body that was virtually its double - England devolving power from and to itself. Hence the belief, common in establishment and parliamentary circles, that an English parliament would be an unnecessary duplication and inflation of the political class: adding another, say, 400-member body on top of the existing UK parliament.

But clearly, this would not work; and so in practice, it will not work in this way: the English parliament would replace the British parliament in the majority of its responsibilities. So you would have a 400-member English body as the principal parliament and legislature for 'the country' (= England); and you'd need to create a new, smaller British parliament to deal with vestigial UK-wide matters, or rather those matters defined in a new constitution as being delegated by the four (five) nations up to the federal parliament: probably, defence, national security, immigration and nationality, foreign affairs, human rights, and co-ordination of economic strategy - but quite possibly not social security and macro-economics as now. In any case, these are details and matters of speculation.

The main point I am making is that the English parliament is both the elephant in the room and the real game changer. Once you start factoring it in, all the terms of the debate need to be re-evaluated. Elected House of Lords? How about moving the new British federal parliament into the Lords and making it a body responsible for scrutinising legislation emerging from the national UK parliaments, as well as being the parliament charged with administering the newly defined UK-wide policy areas? Rigorous job descriptions and scrutiny for MPs? While we're in the business of formalising MPs' job descriptions, let's define what we want our English MPs (i.e. 'members of the English parliament'), and Scottish / Welsh / N. Irish / Cornish MPs, to be responsible for, and what the role of MBPs (members of the British parliament) should be. Can you imagine how ludicrous the formal job description of a Scottish Westminster MP would be under the present set-up? 'Be diligent in towing the party line and voting on matters that do not concern your constituents and have nothing whatsoever to do with the realisation of any development plan for your constituency'.

In the present context, such job descriptions make sense only for English MPs because at least they are legitimately involved in legislation and policy decisions for England. Ending safe seats and introducing PR? Deciding on a PR system for the present Westminster parliament before deciding whether to introduce an English parliament - or as a way to avoid dealing with the English Question - is like putting the cart before the horse: is it 'proportionate' to have a House of Commons elected under PR in which Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish MPs can still enact legislation and policy that affects England only?

Let's have the PR debate in the context of a discussion about re-designing the whole constitution and system of parliamentary governance in the UK, rather than compounding the present mish-mash of parliaments, assemblies and electoral systems where the one thing you can be certain about is that England will not be allowed to govern its own affairs. In other words, an English parliament changes everything. Our willingness to engage with this idea and its implications will be the sternest test of our commitment to radical democratic reform in Britain.