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Parliamentary Representation (England)

It is a pleasure to be here under your distinguished chairmanship, Mr. Chope. I am grateful to everyone for leaving me a very reasonable amount of time in which to address all of these complex and important issues. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt) on securing the debate. As we have heard, these are immensely important issues for our country and it is good to have the opportunity to discuss them. We have had a number of very interesting contributions from the hon. Members for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), and for Cambridge (David Howarth) and, briefly, from the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone), who sadly had more pressing business than to stay for the conclusion of this debate. We have had a very interesting debate, but I am afraid that I can agree with very few of the propositions that have been put forward. Instead, I want to make the case for the Union, for the United Kingdom, and for the measures that will support it. The starting point for everyone we have heard today is that the Union is a very precious institution for all the peoples of these islands and that we must do everything that we can to preserve and enhance it. I was very pleased to hear the stirring defence of it by the hon. Member for Epping Forest. I agree with every word that she said about that, but unfortunately with very little else that she said, but I will speak about that in a moment. What lies at the heart of all the concerns that have been expressed today is a belief that, somehow, devolution has threatened the continued existence of the Union. That belief is mistaken. It is our view that devolution is not a threat to the United Kingdom; it secures the Union. The virtue of our Union's constitution is that for centuries it has been able to accommodate the differences within these islands. It does so on the basis of asymmetry. Constitutional arrangements to protect the interests of minorities inevitably differ from arrangements to protect the interests of the majority, and this nation, as hon. Members have said, has an asymmetrical balance of power in which England is overwhelmingly dominant in terms of both population and representation in Parliament. Asymmetry is what gives rise to the West Lothian question, among other things, but it is not the same as imperfection. The hon. Lady sought to say that it was, but I am glad that she slid away from that proposition in her later remarks. At the beginning, she seemed to be hankering after some perfect symmetry. I think that that also lies behind the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey. Asymmetry in our constitutional arrangements is nothing new. It has existed for hundreds of years. Legislative devolution in Scotland built on the distinctive Scottish institutions that remained after the Union of 1707, including the legal and educational systems. Extensive administrative devolution, built around the office of Secretary of State for Scotland from 1885, also provided the basis for the creation of the Scottish Executive and Parliament.