Letter to Shropshire newspapers

The Campaign for an English Parliament must be hitting a few raw nerves as so-called main stream political parties appear to be campaigning against the idea. They usually claim it will break up the Union and/or create more bureaucracy. The Conservatives claim that English Votes on English Matters (EVoEM) is the possible solution.

Firstly, the Union was fatally fractured when Tony Blair and his crew created the hotchpotch Devolutionary system that they imposed on the United Kingdom. They created it solely to ensure they had somewhere to govern if they lose a General Election.

Secondly, why should there be any more bureaucracy? All that is needed is to transfer most of the current Government ministries to the English Parliament. The UK Parliament would only be left with tax raising, foreign affairs, defence and a few international matters; they would only need 2 and 2 half ministries. They might want to retain that part of the Home Office that deals with naturalisation matters but it too could be transferred as over 96% of immigrants settle in England. The UK Parliament could then be cut to 80 or so MPs.

EVoEM is nonsense, for the following reasons:

· The proposal is for the Speaker to declare an item an EVoEM. Currently, the Speaker is a Scottish MP so presumably he would have to leave the Chamber and hand over to an English Deputy. On that basis, the incumbent would be missing for about 85% of the Common’s business. So will he still get paid for NOT doing his job?
· The current Secretary of State for Transport (for example) is a Scottish MP. Does that mean he would be unable to introduce or speak about his own Bill? If so how could he be Secretary of State?
· What about a Scottish person who represents an English Constituency – might he/she not end up being accused of being biased?

At the end of the day, no man can serve two masters (neither can any woman) so the Scottish Parliament serves the people of Scotland, the UK Parliament the people of the United Kingdom and the English? Well, they have no one serving them.