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Dr. Fox: Having failed to answer the previous two interventions, will the right hon. Lady tell us, given that
she is committed to such a democratic solution and understands the problems here at Westminster, whether the Government intend to do anything to answer the West Lothian question, which was first raised by a Labour Member, not a Conservative?
Mrs. Liddell: I shall come to the West Lothian question. The decisions that we hope that the Modernisation Committee will take on issues such as the Standing Committee of Regional Affairs should give the regions of England an opportunity to have a voice. The hon. Member for Woodspring shakes his head. I seem to remember his one-time friend, Mr. Michael Forsyth, saying that the Scottish Grand Committee could be an alternative to a devolved Parliament. It patently is not. The same gentleman marched up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh behind a large stone, believing that that would give democracy back to the people of Scotland. I immediately think of the emperor and his new clothes.
I promise that we shall not pack the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs with Scottish Members in the way that, over nearly four decades, Conservative Governments under Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Lady Thatcher and the right hon. Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) and for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) packed Scottish Standing Committees with English Members to vote down the will of the Scottish people. I remind the House of one case in particular--the poll tax. The hon. Member for Woodspring talks about the West Lothian question as though it were a new problem. It is not. We in Scotland suffered from the home counties question, the Devon question, the Cornwall question, the Norfolk question and the Suffolk question week after week as generations of Members of Parliament from the Tory shires, press-ganged into Committee service, marched into the Division Lobbies to vote down the Scots without ever having heard a word of the debate. That is what I mean when I say that they have not lost their cheek. Let them come here and confess how they treated the House and the Scots within it. I promise the House that this Government will not repeat the mistakes of the previous Government. We believe in the new politics and the new democracy, even if some Conservative Members give us cause to wonder whether they are worth it.
Dr. Fox:
In that case, why do the Government not propose to reduce the number of Scottish Members at Westminster at the next election?
Mrs. Liddell:
The hon. Gentleman is well aware that those are matters for the boundary commission, whichis independent. [Hon. Members: "Ah."] Opposition Members are now challenging the independence of the boundary commission. I wonder whether the leader of their party agrees that the commission is not independent.
Mr. MacGregor:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell:
I should prefer to make progress, but I shall allow the right hon. Gentleman to intervene later.
The House is not the English Parliament. It has not been reduced to being a rump Parliament. It has been, is, and will continue to be, the Parliament of all the United
Kingdom. That is what the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland want. They are not separatists. Last week's votes in Scotland and Wales were votes against separation, not--whatever the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru may claim--the first step towards it. The most separatist statements that have been made since last weekend were made by the hon. Member for Billericay in today's newspapers and, I understand, in a pamphlet that will be issued tomorrow.
The majority of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have no difficulty in viewing themselves as British. It is clear from the reaction of ordinary people in England that the vast majority wish the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales godspeed. The English are not well served by the hysterical ranting of Conservative Members.
Mr. MacGregor:
The right hon. Lady has not addressed any of the issues or answered any of the questions. She has made many bogus points, including a reference to the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs. Is she seriously suggesting that such a Committee is equivalent to the Scottish Parliament, and is she aware that there may be only one debate on the regions every two years? Is she further aware that no votes are taken in that Committee and it is simply a talking shop? That is why, when it was last tried, it was abandoned.
Mrs. Liddell:
Perhaps we are witnessing the right hon. Gentleman's inability to accept the facts, which is part of the problem of the Tory party's collapse at the previous general election. The Standing Committee on Regional Affairs is not envisaged as an alternative to the Scottish Parliament. If the right hon. Gentleman is advocating an English Parliament, I would be interested to know the view of his Front-Bench colleagues on that matter.
It is necessary to take account of, and articulate the differences between, the various regions of England. We are anxious to find an opportunity better to address those subjects in debates in the House.
Mr. Grieve:
If it had been suggested during our debates on Scotland that regional variations in Scotland should cause us to set up two Parliaments there, I am sure that the right hon. Lady would have been the first, followed by her many Back-Bench colleagues with Scottish constituencies, to cry foul. Why, therefore, does England have to be regionalised in the way that she describes when there is an English identity?
Mrs. Liddell:
It is a matter of what the English people want. Even after all this time, the Conservatives have not caught on to the distinctive difference between Scotland and England on legislation. Devolution has existed for the better part of a century because we have had separate legislation for Scotland. The hysterical ranting of Conservative Members would put to shame the rivalry on football and rugby pitches.
Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East):
Will the right hon. Lady try to resolve a problem which may arise? Would the Government and the Secretary of State take the view that they had the power to intervene if, for example, the Scottish Parliament decided to abolish tuition fees? I have friends in Scotland who believe that the Government could intervene under section 35(1)(b) of
Mrs. Liddell:
Those are hypothetical matters, which are under discussion at present. I remind the hon. Gentleman--who was once, I recall, the Member for a Scottish seat now represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton)--that devolution means devolution.
We have heard the sterile arguments of the separatists and the anti-devolutionists, and those have now been exposed. It is time now to concentrate on those English Tories--I say "English" deliberately, because at present there is no other kind--whose xenophobia about Europe has now developed into spite about other parts of the United Kingdom. Yes, devolution means a substantial transfer of power, but in no way does it mean that the responsibilities of the House will be reduced to matters that are reserved to it or, indeed, to matters relating to England. The Government will continue to be accountable for the activities of all the main Government Departments, and none of the UK Departments, apart from the Scottish and Welsh Offices, will have its activities reduced after 1 July.
Mr. Grieve:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell:
No, I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already, and I want to make progress. Other hon. Members on both sides of the House want to intervene.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley):
Referring to the West Lothian question, the right hon. Lady said that it would be up to the English people to decide whether they wanted their own assembly or Parliament. Is she therefore stating that the English people--I mean those in the whole of England--will be offered a referendum to decide whether they want their own Parliament?
Mrs. Liddell:
I wish that the hon. Gentleman would listen. I made the point clearly that it would be up to different parts of England to decide whether to have their own assembly. We shall introduce the necessary legislation to ensure that those assemblies could be set up if they were required.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West):
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell:
No, I want to make progress.
The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) does not want to acknowledge that the Government are prepared to listen to the people of the different parts of England, as we have listened to those in other parts of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Evans:
If the right hon. Lady is listening to the people of England, will she therefore state whether the people of England as a whole will be offered a referendum on whether they want their own Parliament?
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