The most widely
discussed dilemma posed by devolution is the West Lothian question, named as
such by Enoch Powell after the then constituency of Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP
who argued against the 1970s devolution proposals. This is about the anomaly created if a wide
range of social and home affairs issues are devolved to a Scottish Parliament,
but remain with the Westminster Parliament in England. Consequently, Scottish MPs could vote in the
Commons on such issues affecting England but not when it affects their own
constituents north of the border.
The Government has tried to
overcome this problem by having English Votes for English Laws. What they have created is a bureaucratic
nightmare with little if any accountability.
In order to overcome the West Lothian question England should have its
own Parliament. The total number of
parliamentarians in England, Wales, Scotland Northern Ireland and Westminster
(United Kingdom) should not exceed 600 including the devolved Parliaments.
A
Federal structure for the United Kingdom should be created with each country
within the Kingdom having its own Parliament.
The Government
White Paper on Scotland’s Parliament,
published by the Scottish Office in July 1997, stated explicitly that “The UK Parliament is and will remain
sovereign”. The Scotland Act 1998 repeated the phrase.
The Scottish
Parliament has legislative competence over matters that once were the
responsibility of the Scottish Office, such as health, education, local government
and law and order. It also has tax-varying powers. It can add up to 3p on the basic rate of
income tax.
Having
established a Federal structure each national parliament can then decide which
powers are devolved and to what level.
There is a never-ending
conflict between central government and local government. Both claim to have a democratic mandate and
both claim to know what is best for the people. Local government wants to provide the
relevant services for their locality and to prioritise them. Central government wants to retain financial
control and to ensure that national standards are met so how can this conflict
be resolved? Let the people decide!
The parliaments
of each nation would set out enabling legislation showing what powers could be
devolved to a local level. A local
constitutional convention could then be held to consider the constitution of
the proposed authority and the particular powers to be transferred to it. The convention would produce a proposal
which would be subject to a referendum in all the local authority areas covered
by the proposal. The result of the
referendum would be final.
Local government
should be self-financing, itself raising the money that it spends. In such a scenario there is a strong case
for as much power as possible to be transferred from central government to
local government and in order most closely to meet the wishes of the people
that power should be devolved to the lowest level of local government as
possible. Democratic accountability
would then ensure that those responsible for raising the moneys locally were
also accountable for the way those monies were spent By these measures the aims and objectives of
both local and national government could be reconciled and their aims and
objects clearly delineated.
All the
expenditure of local government should be financed out of taxes raised by local
government subject to an adjustment for special needs financed by central
government.
Devolving power
carries with it a greater responsibility on the citizen to participate, so when
power is devolved:
Local citizens should be left in no doubt that their
system of government is going to change.
The change will involve them taking greater responsibility for their
environment and services. They must be
left with no excuses if they refuse to participate. Localism tends to involve, most immediately
and controversially, variations in local taxes. Such variations concentrate the democratic
mind. That is the franchise
biting. That is what drives people to
vote. “Big
Bang Localism by Simon Jenkins
The methods
chosen for elections at local level vary considerably, but in England they are
based on the First Past the Post system of election. This produces much distorted results. In the 2006 local elections in the London
Borough of Newham, Labour with 41.8% of the vote got 90% of the seats. At a National level, in the 2002 local
elections the Conservative Party got 72.2% of the seats with only 43.9% of the
votes. It is one of the scandals of
local politics and no doubt contributes to the reason why turnout in local
elections is so low.
This is clearly wrong and produces wholly
unrepresentative local government. In
future:
Local government elections
should be conducted under the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional
representation with three members in each ward.
One final point,
democracy in Northern Ireland is distorted by entrenching the rights of
minorities and entrenching the sharing of power. The Belfast Peace Agreement can however
claim one major success – after many years of terrorism it brought some
stability to Northern Ireland and drastically reduced the number of terrorist
acts. This was critical. However the democratic fault lines are now
becoming apparent. Because of power sharing there is no way for
the will of the people to be fully exercised.
Minorities have to be protected, but that protection has to be with the
consent of the majority and there has to be some mechanism by which ultimately
the majority can exercise their will. By giving a minority effective control in
particular areas, at some point, the majority will rise against what is being
done.
Over a period of time the blocking mechanisms in the
Northern Ireland Assembly should be reduced, eventually to zero, to bring
Northern Ireland into line with normal democracy.
