The Constitution Unit has this week produced two new contributions to its invaluable series of devolution monitoring reports.
Akash Paun and Edward Calow provide a good one-stop overview of the state of devolution across the UK:
The monitoring period includes the first anniversary of the elections and government changes of 2007 – which saw the SNP and Plaid Cymru entering government for the first time, devolution to Northern Ireland being re-established, and Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister. Collectively, these developments have transformed the political landscape to such an extent that it is plausible to suggest that 2007 marked the beginning of a qualitatively new phase of territorial politics in the UK. In this new political environment almost all the major pillars of the 1998-99 devolution settlement are open for renegotiation, and the agenda is largely being set in ‘the periphery’. often despite the preferences of the UK Government.
Ken Clarke's proposal to deal with the West Lothian question came too late for this particular report. However, the Unit's Director, Robert Hazell, is distinctly sceptical about his plan to block Scottish MPs from taking part in the committee stage of English legislation.
Events in Wales are the subject of a report edited by Professors Richard Wyn Jones and Roger Scully:
The period covered by this report saw the coalition government of Labour and Plaid Cymru – a political alliance difficult to imagine only 12 months previously – continuing to function relatively smoothly. But early 2008 also witnessed local elections that produced further erosion of the Labour Party’s once dominant position in Welsh political life. With the retirement of First Minister Rhodri Morgan also beginning to loom ever larger on the political horizon, Wales continues to live in politically interesting times.
A chapter by Alan Trench of Edinburgh University raises a significant issue about the implications of the Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution.
A cause for concern, particularly in Wales, has to be the fact that the Commission is supposed to have a UK-wide remit, and a brief that includes financial issues, but has no Welsh members, and indeed an approach in which UK-wide issues appear only sporadically and for what look very much like partisan reasons.
I suspect that's a concern that won't be restricted to Wales.
Comments
It's all very well for Hazell to criticise Clarke, but the fact is that he can't do any better. Although he now graciously acknowledges that an English Parliament is the only show in town, he's opposed to one, so where's his solution?
Grumble, grumble about so-called experts...
Devolution was introduced without allowing the English electorate to have any say in the matter, presumably on the false basis that their constitution was unchanged. This was untrue: until then, all MPs represented their constituents, acted on their behalf and were answerable to them for their actions. After devolution, matters were decided to a large and sometimes critical extent by MPs who represented nobody and were answerable to nobody for their actions concerning matters which, in their constituencies, had been devolved. This drastic change, which has been almost universally ignored, denied the English their right to a representative democracy. The main test of democracy is whether, if the electorate are dissatified with the actions of their chosen representatives, they can kick them out. Under the present system, the MPs from devolved areas can impose policies on, for instance, housing, education, health, etc.which are unacceptable to the people they affect but for which, as they do not have to account to their constituents for their decisions, their constituents have no reason for dismissing them.
Good points Toque, those in glass houses.....
The Cornish Democrat
"... all MPs represented their constituents, acted on their behalf and were answerable to them for their actions"
Yes, but what about the four successive Secretaries of State for Wales whose constituencies were in England?
Peter Walker, David Hunt, John Redwood and William Hague. How could the Welsh electorate have kicked them out?
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