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House of Commons (Participation) Bill

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) in three respects: first, on being lucky in the ballot; secondly, on the way in which he set the tone of the debate, allowing interventions and lively and thoughtful discussion; and thirdly, on keeping up his long-standing interest in constitutional affairs. Several years ago, the hon. Gentleman and I worked together on the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, to which we took a constructive and consensual approach, although we did not get the measure entirely right. We need to re-focus on the Electoral Commission and although we did a lot of work on restrictions on donations, the issue of loans passed us by, which has had consequences for all the political parties. When I saw that the hon. Gentleman had produced a new constitutional Bill, I was keen to examine it in some detail. However, on this occasion, I have to depart from him. I think the Bill is wrong in principle, as I shall explain, and that it cannot work in practice. If it became law there would be major consequences for this place. When the Bill was published, the hon. Gentleman issued a press release. It was interesting that, as far as I can tell, it appeared not on his website but on the ““Campaign for an English Parliament”” website, which tells us something in itself. In that press release and in his opening remarks today, he said that the text of the Bill would be based on a Bill introduced in the House of Lords in the last Session by Lord Baker. As a philosopher, like some of my colleagues in the Chamber, I have made a textual analysis of both scripts. The texts of both Bills are basically the same; the words are almost identical. There are some differences in layout, two of which are significant, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. The first difference is in clause 2(7), where Lord Baker lists four categories of Member, while the hon. Gentleman has only three. The hon. Gentleman explained that he had put together the English and Welsh categories. As he says in his press release, that is because"““The new Bill will regard and England and Wales as one, until such time as the Welsh Assembly might acquire primary legislative powers””." There has already been argument about what devolved settlement means. I believe that settlements will not remain static. There is a thirst in this country for more devolution, to move power and resources away from Westminster and Whitehall and closer to the people, so that we can do things differently in Nottingham and Newcastle, and Wakefield and Whitehaven can have different services. That move towards devolution is inevitable—it is unstoppable. In the year since Lord Baker produced his Bill there has been acknowledgement of change and the settlement for Wales has already been discussed in the House and changed. There will be more changes. No settlement is for ever. The second point of departure from the Baker Bill relates to clause 4. The hon. Gentleman’s clause 4 is entitled ““Special provision relating to Northern Ireland legislation””. As the hon. Gentleman has explained, because of the political discussions in Northern Ireland, it has become clear that all the political parties cannot be represented in an Executive and therefore discussions on Northern Ireland issues ought to take place in this House. It would be wrong for the 18 Members who represent Northern Ireland, five of whom have not taken their seats, in a sense to dominate the Northern Ireland agenda. The discussion on Northern Ireland highlights the fundamental point that settlements change. If there has ever been a case in point, it is Northern Ireland, where we have seen the balance of power and the settlement change over a period of years.