Brown urged to debate an English parliament or lose core voters

Published on Tuesday 3 June 2008 10:23

GORDON BROWN should lead a debate on an English Parliament or risk seeing large numbers of Labour's core vote defect to the Tories or British National Party, a former minister warned today.

Frank Field claimed the current devolution settlement had become "one of the festering sores in English politics" because many voters in England believed they were treated less fairly than people in Scotland and Wales.

He said English voters resented policies such as free care for the elderly, freedom from university top-up fees, abolition of prescription charges and NHS provision of drugs – such as Lucentis to treat sight loss – which are not available in England while the UK Government spent 1236 more per head in Scotland than it did in England.

In a speech today at the University of Hertfordshire, Mr Field was to say: "My constituents do not believe it is fair that they should face a constitutional discrimination as well as meeting additional costs which identical people in Scotland, and to a lesser extent in Wales, do not face. This is the English Question."

He said the "inevitable" result of growing anger over the devolution settlement would be an English Parliament to match the devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, with a UK Parliament dealing only with matters which have not been delegated to the four nations of the United Kingdom.

"Failure to act may not simply benefit the Conservative Party. Further inaction could provide the BNP with another political bridgehead into the core Labour vote."