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Mrs. Fyfe: The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. In my constituency, disabled people were being turned away at one polling station until access was made available. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman supports my view on that.
It is important for the Parliament to be genuinely representative of all our people. When women Labour Members raised the issue of equal representation for women, Opposition Members sniggered. I hope that they will say why they found that funny. They have not yet offered any thoughts on equal representation, but perhaps they will. The Parliament can provide equal opportunities through legislation, and will be entitled to do that.
Mr. Stephen Day (Cheadle):
The hon. Lady decries what we said on this matter. Has she not considered that people should be elected to this place and to other democratic assemblies on merit and not because they belong to a specific class, sex or party?
Mrs. Fyfe:
Sometimes I think that I am psychic. I knew that the hon. Gentleman would say that. What is wrong with Scottish Tory women? Few have been elected. Are they inadequate? The hon. Gentleman speaks about merit. On 1 May, the Scottish people certainly offered an opinion on who had merit and who did not.
Mr. Swinney:
Does the hon. Lady agree that some Conservative women in Scotland may be appalled at the prospect of representing what currently constitutes the Conservative party in Scotland?
Mrs. Fyfe:
I am sure that that goes for the majority of Scots women. Some women in Scotland support the Tory party, but it gives them little support. Not many of them are chosen as candidates because the Tory party is very much a male club.
One important thing that this Parliament can do is to have a system that genuinely listens to people and is open to them. It is appalling that this Parliament found time for children's legislation affecting Scotland only once in 25 years, but, when it did so, various bodies in Scotland gave evidence, which was a valuable part of the process and which the Scottish Parliament will follow through on.
I must watch the time; I have been giving way too generously. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)--and he is a friend--said earlier that the Scottish Parliament would not last 10 years, but he blithely went on without giving a shred of evidence for that remark. It will last for as long as the Scottish people want it to. It could last for a long time, but it all depends on what they want.
Mr. Dalyell:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mrs. Fyfe:
I am sorry. I cannot because of the time.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough):
It is a matter of some pride to me that, three hours into this debate, I am the first Englishman representing an English constituency to be called to speak, and I have a right to speak. Hon. Members might expect me to launch into a tirade against Scottish devolution. I intend to do no such thing. In my few comments, I am not going to start lecturing people in Scotland about what the nature of their government should be. I will analyse simply what the legislation will mean for my English constituents. When England wakes up to what is proposed, there will be considerable debate about these issues.
For the sake of argument, I will assume that the referendum is passed and that devolution happens--I do not think that that is such an absurd assumption--and I will be entirely agnostic about the merits or demerits of devolution as it affects Scotland. Last week, after the statement by the Secretary of State for Scotland, I again had the honour of being the first Englishman to be called--on that occasion, after 34 minutes. I put this question to him: why should he vote on the future of a grammar school in Caistor or in Gainsborough in my constituency, when neither he nor I would have the right to vote on education in his constituency?
Of course, the Secretary of State had no answer to that. His response was a variation of the argument that might is right. It seemed to be that Parliament is sovereign, can do what it chooses and has decided to do this. That is fair enough. I accept that at face value. The Scottish Parliament is going to happen. We knew that it was going to happen. We cannot stop the Labour party using its majority to achieve those ends. Of course, Parliament can decide to act unfairly or treat people in one part of the UK differently from those in another part of the UK, but, when it does act unfairly, this Parliament usually decides, in the course of time, to put things right. Devolution is going to happen, but I predict that this anomaly will be put right.
As an Englishman, I, too, have a claim of right. I and my constituents have a right to be treated fairly. I proclaim this principle: no representative should make a decision on behalf of people in other parts of the nation unless those people have a right to run affairs in that representative's part of the nation. That is an elementary democratic right. It is the principle of reciprocity, and we in England have a right to proclaim it. I say to the Scottish people: as the years go by, we will proclaim it with increasing force.
The first union that this country was involved in was with the United States, and it broke up more than200 years ago on the cry, "No taxation without representation," so England shall awake--[Interruption.] There is no point in Scottish representatives laughing. Just as, in recent years, the European debate has dominated our affairs, so the devolution debate will increasingly dominate them.
The Government's answer is, "We accept this. This is the old West Lothian question. We have had all this before. It has been discussed for 18 years. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has bored us rigid about it, but no system is perfect. There will always be some imbalance." But, sometimes, something can be so unbalanced that the scales do not just tilt or sway, but come crashing to the ground. I suspect that that will happen within five, 10, or 15 years in this Parliament.
The answer from the Liberal Democrats is the obvious one: "We accept all this; the answer is the federal solution," but I suggest to my Liberal friends that, if a federal solution is to work, there has to be some similarity in size between the different regions, and a tradition--as in Germany and Italy, which were not nations before 1870--throughout the nation of devolved government. That is not the case in the UK.
South-east England has a population and an economy infinitely greater than that of Scotland. There is no separate sense of nationhood in south-east England. People who live in Sussex do not feel that they are different in any particular way from people who live in Leicestershire, although that would be in the east midlands region, while Sussex would be in the south-east region. In Lincolnshire, we have no right or desire to be run, as would happen, by the Leicester Labour party. We want to run our own affairs through our county and district councils, and we want our national affairs to be run here in London, not in Leicester.
Therefore, the Liberal solution, the so-called federal solution, is bogus. It will not happen. There is no call or desire for it in the English regions. In any event, we would be offered in Leicester, Plymouth or wherever not a Parliament, but only an assembly, a souped-up county council.
What will happen? The only solution--and I do not suggest this as a desired state of affairs, but as something that will happen--is that the Speaker will mark every Bill that relates to matters such as health and education that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and Scottish Members will be prevented from voting on that Bill. That will be a significant step forward or perhaps, in some people's view, a step back.
Scottish Members will still be able to vote on a considerable range of matters. As we know from the White Paper, they will vote on defence and constitutional matters that are reserved to the UK Parliament. In a spirit
of compromise, I have no doubt that they will also vote on matters relating to finance. After all, the size of the block grant influences many decisions relating to education and health, but Scottish Members will be prevented from voting on operational matters.
What are operational matters? The obvious example is the one that I put to the Secretary of State, which was whether we should preserve the remaining 164 grammar schools in England. As long as the people of Scotland are aware that, ultimately, their Members of Parliament will be prevented from voting on such matters--I suspect that that will be the case--they can go ahead and vote for devolution. They may say that they do not want a vote on such matters as they have no interest in English education.
It has been said that that is unlikely to happen and that there are huge constitutional objections to the Speaker marking Bills. What would happen if Labour Members outnumbered Tory Members in the United Kingdom Parliament as a whole, but, as in both the 1974 elections, they did not outnumber the Conservative Members in England alone? That would be a major objection, but the Government would have to carry on. The Government would have to be based on the total number of Members of Parliament, because those Members will decide what happens in the really important issues such as the Budget, the constitution, defence and foreign affairs.
I have already given a warning to the people of Scotland about their declining influence, but the Labour party should look to the future, too, and realise that it will not always have this enormous majority. There will, one day, be another Conservative Government and there will be pressure to introduce changes. The Labour party will find that its ability to influence matters such as health and education in England will be severely restricted.
There may be difficult or even absurd situations. For example, a Scottish Minister in the Cabinet would be able to decide the fate of grammar schools in England because the Cabinet is an informal structure. However, in the Division at 10 o'clock, he would not be allowed to vote. However, as the Government have said, nothing is perfect and, as they have rejected the apparently neat device of a federal solution, this will have to do.
What is the history of all this? Is this just the hon. Member for Gainsborough coming out with a few ideas that have not been talked about in the past? Of course not. I have done some research. I have been talking about what is known as the in-out solution. The idea was first suggested to Gladstone by Lord Rosebery at the time of the Irish home rule legislation. There were two arguments against the in-out solution. Gladstone told Rosebery that it put too much power in the hands of the Speaker. He said:
The second objection was raised 100 years ago, again on Irish home rule legislation, when it was suggested that such a procedure would be constitutionally impossible.
As I have said, the parties could have different parliamentary majorities in Scotland, Wales and England and it could bifurcate the Executive.
We could overcome these difficulties. There would be a considerable problem because, together, Scotland and Wales have 112 Members of Parliament. Let us make no mistake; this is no small issue or small constitutional point that need not worry the people of these islands.
In 1969, the Kilbrandon commission dealt with all the objections to the in-out solution, but said that it was the most logical answer. The hon. Member for Linlithgow will know that section 66 of the Scotland Act 1978 said that where a Bill in the House of Commons which does not relate to or concern Scotland receives a majority on Second Reading only by virtue of the votes of Scottish MPs, a second vote will take place at least 14 days later, and only if a majority is achieved on that second vote will the Bill be deemed to have been read a Second time. That section was eventually passed by one vote.
There is nothing new in this. It is going to happen and it has been talked about in the past. It is a real threat, if it is thought of in those terms, to the influence of Scottish Members of Parliament.
There is another threat of which Scottish Members must be aware and, as an Englishman, I am entitled to mention it. There will be a further reduction in the number of Scottish Members. During the debate on Irish home rule, the question of Irish representation was bitterly disputed on the Floor of the House. Gladstone's first home rule Bill of 1886--this will delight our friends in the Scottish National party--entirely removed Irish representation from this House. His subsequent Bill of 1893 gave the Irish a reduced number of Members--they had 107 and it was reduced to 80. Originally, the 1886 Bill contained an in-out restriction such as I have described, but it was dropped in Committee. In 1914, the legislation for the Government of Ireland proposed 42 Irish Members, with no in-out restrictions.
All the debates that we are likely to have were aired 80 or 90 years ago. We all know that, when the Northern Irish Government was set up, the number of Members was reduced. There were originally 13 Members but it was reduced to 12 in 1947 with the loss of the university seats. In 1918, in the pre-Stormont Parliament, Ulster had 30 Members. At one time, the number of Northern Ireland Members was 13, but it was increased to 17.
"I am afraid that the Speakership would hardly bear weight of your proposal."
I do not believe that Gladstone was right. You have broad shoulders, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I believe that you could bear the weight. It would be easy for you to determine the issues that relate purely to Scottish operational matters. You would then mark them and Scottish Members would not be allowed to vote on them.
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