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House of Commons (Participation) Bill

I sincerely hope that I am not entirely to be written out of the panoply of Labour power politicians, although I do not have much power at the moment. I disagree with those of my colleagues who think that the devolution settlement was the end of constitutional debate. There is never an end of constitutional debate in a country such as ours. We have seen that this week in the discussions about the House of Lords. That will continue, and I will play my part in it. Given the way in which constitutional change takes place in this country, the current devolution settlement is at a fairly early stage. It is quite early to make a judgment about how the balance of power and decision making between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster Parliament will ultimately be resolved. To give one example, I had the privilege a couple of years ago of chairing the Committee that considered the draft corporate manslaughter legislation that is due to come back to this House. In part of our report, the Committee expressed strong concern that the plan at that time was to legislate for an offence in Scotland and a similar offence in England and Wales, because of the great difficulties created for companies operating on both sides of border, for trade unions representing their members and so on. Of course, the current Bill incorporates Scotland, because the mature reflection was that a single piece of legislation that covered both legislatures was better than two separate ones. I am not an expert on such matters, but I understand that the Sewel motion has been used more often than many had predicted, which I think points to a maturing of the relationship between the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments. Having established the principle of the right to decide on autonomous legislation, there is also the mature and practical consideration of when it is best to do things in a devolved Parliament, and when it is best to do things through Westminster. We need to allow some time to pass before we can be clear about how that relationship will ultimately settle down.