Almost 20 years after the creation of the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, England is the only country of the United Kingdom without its own devolved executive and legislative body. Meg Russell and Jack Sheldon offer their view on whether or not a dual mandate English Parliament is desirable or if it has the proper characteristics to be considered a parliament at all.
Calls for establishment of an English Parliament have been made for years, particularly following Labour’s devolution in the 1990s to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Initially such proposals were largely confined to the right of politics, and appeared a relatively fringe interest. But in the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum, and the new powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament, proposals have also begun to be heard from the political left. Nonetheless, advocates have rarely elaborated on their proposals in detail, and there are many unresolved questions relating to the likely powers, functions, structure and composition of such a body. Since autumn 2016, the Constitution Unit has been working on a research project exploring the options, and a detailed report is due to be published shortly. This post will concentrate primarily on the key institutional questions raised by what is known as the ‘dual mandate’ model for an English Parliament, which some proponents suggest could be implemented as an incremental next step from ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). We ask whether this model for an English Parliament is as innocuous as it looks, and indeed whether what it proposes is a parliament at all.
Models for an English Parliament
The most instinctively obvious model for an English Parliament is to create a completely new body, elected separately from the House of Commons, to mirror the legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Variants of this separately-elected model have been proposed by such figures as David Davis, Frank Field and Paul Nuttall. It is also favoured by the Campaign for an English Parliament, founded in 1998. Establishing such a body would be a big decision, entailing significant political upheaval and cost. The idea has many opponents, including experts such as Vernon Bogdanor and Adam Tomkins. A key concern is that a new elected body representing 85% of the UK population would, in the words of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, “introduce a destabilising asymmetry of power”. For all of these reasons, adoption of this proposal continues to appear politically unlikely.