Bill on Scots MPs’ voting rights ‘waste of time’

THE coalition government has been accused of wasting time after it set up a commission to look at Scottish MPs voting on English matters.

The commission into the West Lothian question, first framed in 1977 by Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP and an arch-critic of devolution, was unveiled yesterday.

A backbench private members bill on the same issue, put down by Tory MP Harriett Baldwin, was due to be debated today but is now expected to be withdrawn.

But Mr Dalyell said: “Almost a third of a century has passed since I posed the question and nobody has found an answer. Clever people, including the late Labour leader John Smith, worked on this and I am sure they would have found an answer if there had been one.”

Mr Dalyell famously also claimed that devolution was “the motorway to independence” and yesterday said that the only way to resolve how English MPs cannot vote on Scottish matters while Scottish MPs can vote on English issues was through scrapping devolution or independence.

“You may say that it impossible to go back on devolution now, but if this doesn’t happen then I think we are on that motorway I mentioned,” he added.

The commission will focus on parliamentary procedures at Westminster, and will not consider the funding of the different parts of the United Kingdom, constitutional reform minister, Mark Harper announced in a statement to MPs.

It will also set aside the balance between English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs in the House of Commons, which was covered by legislation earlier this year.

Formal proposals for the commission’s work will be announced shortly after the party conference recess in October.