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Home Affairs and Justice

Apart from using various strange historical quotations that do not seem very apposite today, the Lord Chancellor seems to be arguing that it is impossible to distinguish between UK issues and, say, Scottish ones, and that it is therefore inappropriate to sort things out. If that were the case, though, we would surely never have had devolution and devolved issues in the first place. In addition, we would be in the bewildering situation that Parliament would issue legislation with the courts of the land not knowing its jurisdiction or whether it applied only in England, or in Wales and Scotland as well. However, I do not believe that it is impossible to make such a distinction. Deciding which are UK issues and which are Scottish is a purely technical question, and resolving it is a matter of equity that need not threaten the UK. People who are legitimately elected for constituencies should be the sole determinants of what affects the people who return them to Parliament.