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11.21 am
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon): I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, as I think that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) has made some very interesting points. Although I think that he was a little harsh to say that there has been no response from
the Government to the West Lothian question, it is certainly true that there has been no convincing response to the challenge that is posed by devolution to Scotland and Wales. I should make it clear that I welcome moves to devolution in Scotland and in Wales, but I also recognise that devolution has implications for England, many of which have been touched on by the hon. Gentleman.
One of the contributions towards answering the West Lothian question has to be devolution to the English regions. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire and I disagree on that issue. However, I think that he was right to say that devolution to the English regions will not in itself be an answer to the West Lothian question.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman was wrong when he said that there is absolutely no appetite for English devolution. A recent MORI poll found that two thirds of voters would like decisions to be made closer to home. We are one of the most centralised nations in the democratic world. Far too much is decided at Westminster and in Whitehall that people would instinctively welcome being decided nearer to home, at a more community level.
Mr. Laurence Robertson:
Is that not the purpose of local councils?
Mr. Harvey:
That is not the purpose of local councils. Local councils are responsible for running public services in their communities.
Although many services in this country are operated on a regional level, those regions are not conterminous from one sphere of public service to another. We have one set of health regions; we have different Departments operating in completely different regions; and we have the media operating in still different regions. Every organisation in this country divides itself to form a regional footprint of one sort or another, and there is absolutely no commonality between them in how they do so. We are almost unique in the democratic world in doing that.
Some people say that because England is small geographically, there is no need for division into the provinces, states or regions into which other countries divide themselves. I appreciate that point, but in England we are trying to organise public services for far greater numbers of people on the basis of a far more centralised footprint than almost any other country in the world. I therefore believe that, over time, there will be more demand for devolution in England.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire that, currently, either in his constituency or in mine, there is not a clamour for the creation of a south-west regional parliament.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us, as he develops his remarks, whether he would retain parish councils, district councils, county councils and regional councils--plus this place, plus the European Parliament? If so, how would he explain that to his taxpayers?
Mr. Harvey:
I have every intention of addressing that issue, and shall come to it in just a few moments.
Mr. Maclean:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Harvey:
No; I shall make a little progress, if I may.
We organise services regionally, but in a very muddled and inconsistent manner. I agree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire that the footprint being used by the Government's regional offices, which is being duplicated for tomorrow's European elections, is simply wrong, and that the boundaries that they use make absolutely no sense. The boundaries are slightly more sensible in the north of England than in the midlands. However, in the south of England, it is sheer nonsense to suggest that one should pass through only two regions in driving from Penzance to Dover, which is a distance equivalent to that from London to Edinburgh. As a result of that nonsense, there is certainly much less support for moving towards regionalism in the south of England than there is in the north.
Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I very much agree with the Government's moves to establish regional development agencies. My only regret is that the agencies do not have bigger budgets and greater powers. However, I hope that, over time, those will come. Currently, although the RDAs' budgets total about £800 million, all but 10 per cent. of that is simply funds drawn together from schemes that already existed and put under a different form of management.
I recently met the chairman and chief executive of the south-west RDA, which is making good progress in developing an ambitious but realistic economic strategy. Like me, however, I think that people at the RDA are concerned that the scale of their success will be limited by the lack of resources and freedoms available to them.
Regional chambers are developing alongside RDAs. In a sense, the chambers are an embryo of directly elected regional assemblies, which I also welcome. However, at least for the time being, the chambers are nothing more than talking shops. The Deputy Prime Minister has been rather slow in designating chambers as the official bodies that the RDAs must consult, and that has not enhanced the RDAs' credibility. Nevertheless, we are able to see where the Government are beginning to go with the policy.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) that the Government's policy on regional devolution is part of a ghastly plot to do away with the nation state, but believe that it will simply put us on the same basis established by other nation states.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow):
Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate the fact that whenever hon. Members talk about taking powers from this Parliament to other bodies--whether to the European Parliament, regional assemblies or to any other devolved body--they are really talking about depreciating and devaluing the importance of this House of Parliament and the importance and relevance of its Members?
Mr. Harvey:
The starting point of my speech was that Britain is too centralised. Therefore, if we decentralise, we shall by definition be taking powers away from this House. Personally, I have no great paranoia about that. In a sense, we are too centralised, and it would be a good thing to decentralise. I think that my constituents would welcome the idea of decisions being made nearer to where they live.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Harvey:
No; I shall make more progress, if I may.
I have mentioned the fact that the boundaries are not realistic, and that they should be revisited before we go any further down the devolution path. However, the Government must themselves take the lead in using a common definition of "region", and they should ensure that Departments that currently are not organised according to the regional footprint become so organised. Nevertheless, as I said, that will be only part of the solution to the West Lothian problem, and it cannot be the whole solution.
Neither I nor anyone else would want different English regions to have different criminal laws, different school systems or leaving ages, or completely different health provision systems; and we certainly would not want people in the east midlands to drive on the left, while those in the west midlands drove on the right. Therefore, many important issues will still have to be decided at Westminster in primary legislation. Once certainly cannot say that devolution to the regions is the whole answer to the West Lothian question, because it certainly is not. That brings us to the West Lothian question.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Wiltshire that, in the long term, it is not sustainable for Scottish and Welsh Members of Parliament to come to this place to vote on and run English services. The issue will come to a head most particularly when we have a general election with the type of outcome to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It is entirely possible that, in a tighter general election, on current party lines, there could be a Labour majority across the United Kingdom, but a Conservative majority in England. I have no difficulty with that. It would not result in a constitutional crisis. The situation would be similar if we had a Conservative majority across the UK and a Labour majority in the Scottish Parliament. We should not be hugely concerned about that.
Mr. Harvey:
The hon. Gentleman has been dying to get in, so I shall give him his moment.
Mr. Bercow:
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for charitably giving way. To prevent the House from being enveloped in a fog of confusion, would he care to answer two simple questions? First, does he, individually or on behalf of his party, believe that twin-tracking--or, as some people impolitely call it, double troughing--whereby a Member of this House is also a Member of the Scottish Parliament, is in principle wrong? Secondly, given that he has said that he has no objection to a decentralisation of powers, are we to take it that he objects to the centralisation of powers? If so, will he explain his tergiversation on entry to the euro, which manifestly involves the centralisation of power in the European Union?
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