Tory shuns Cameron's vote plans

Published on Saturday 26 April 2008 19:50

CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron's latest plans to stop Scottish MPs voting on English laws were last night dismissed by one of his own MPs as "too timid" and "unworkable".

Cameron is proposing a complicated system in which English MPs would have the exclusive right to amend laws affecting only England at the detailed committee stage. Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would be banned from these discussions.

All MPs would have a vote when the bill was first introduced and again when it returned to the Commons for its final report stage and third reading.

But the Government would be bound by convention to accept any amendments made by English MPs.

The scheme is being proposed by a task force appointed by Cameron. Former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke, who heads the democracy task force, has concluded his report into how to deal with the so-called West Lothian question – why Scottish MPs should be able to vote on English laws while English MPs cannot vote on similar issues devolved to Holyrood.

Mark Field, the Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said he and many of his colleagues viewed the scheme as "inadequate and unworkable".