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House of Commons (Participation) Bill

My hon. Friend asks me to clarify the procedures, but in fairness that question is better directed at the Bill’s authors. I have not got a clue how the House would be expected to respond to that situation, and with due respect, Madam Deputy Speaker, I think that the Speaker and his Clerks would find it extremely difficult to unpick those complex matters and advise the House how to vote. I shall return to that, but the logic is that we would end up with an English Parliament and there would be no relationship between the legislation of the two Parliaments, and that would be to the extreme disadvantage of the people of Scotland and of England and Wales. To return to my theme, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said that the significance of anomalies in the constitution changes over time. I agreed and replied that factors shift and the reasons why anomalies become more important change. It is worth putting it on the record that the major reason why the debate is taking place is the unique political phenomenon of my political lifetime—the collapse of the Conservative and Unionist party of Great Britain, a country that once enjoyed significant representation through its Unionist colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. It has now become the English national Conservative party. In reality, the Conservative party of today aspires only to be a significant party of government in England. It does not aspire to play that role in any other part of the United Kingdom, and hence the focus on what is going on with English MPs and English votes. It is important that the House does not misunderstand what is dressed up as a constitutional issue as much more than the narrow interests of the Conservative party in England.