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Parliamentary Representation (England)

We will bring forward details shortly, so the hon. Gentleman will just have to be patient for a few more weeks—that also answers my hon. Friend's sedentary question. This debate highlights the very difficult problem, for all of us who must confront such issues, of the composition of such Committees. However, I shall come to the nub of the question about an English Parliament, or Grand Chamber, which in effect would be a precursor to an English Parliament. Such questions are raised very frequently. At the heart of the promotion of such measures lie two myths, which the hon. Members for Isle of Wight and for Epping Forest have perpetuated again today. The first is that it is in the Labour party's narrow self-interest to resist them, because we do not have a sufficient majority of MPs in England, but historically that simply has not been the case. I shall take up a little of the Chamber's time to give a few figures for recent elections. In the following elections, the Labour party had a comfortable majority of English MPs: 1945, 1966, 1977, 2001 and 2005. So the hon. Lady's comments simply are not rooted in fact. In two elections—1964 and 1974—the Conservatives had a majority of English MPs under a Labour Government. In October 1974, and in 1950, there was no overall control. Astute Members will have spotted that when a Labour Government have had a comfortable working majority, over the UK Parliament as a whole, they have also had a comfortable majority of English MPs, as logic would suggest—irrespective of what she implied. Under a very narrow majority—as there was in 1950, 1964 and 1974—there have been problems, but of course any Government with as narrow a majority as that which the Labour Government had following those elections will have all kinds of other problems in managing their majority. It simply is not true, therefore, that our opposition to the sorts of proposals put forward today is in the Labour party's narrow self-interest. We are concerned solely with the preservation of the Union.