David Cameron has given his strongest indication yet that Ken Clarke's solution will be in the next Conservative manifesto.
Mr Cameron backed the proposal drawn up by his party's democracy taskforce chaired by Ken Clarke, the former chancellor who is now shadow business secretary, to create an "English Grand Committee" at Westminster which would be closed to MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and which - apart from exceptional circumstances - could not be overruled by the Commons as a whole.
All MPs would be allowed to vote on England-only laws at their third and final reading but the new parliamentary arrangement would prevent any party using Scottish votes to block amendments made by English MPs. - Herald
It's a piss poor solution but from a Tory standpoint, not an English standpoint, it represents an advance on their past three manifestos which contained the unworkable "English Votes on English Laws".
Why have the Tories come up with such a convoluted technical solution to the West Lothian Question?
It's not about good governance, it's just a way of mitigating the WLQ and responding to an English sense of grievance, whilst engineering an inbuilt Conservative majority at certain stages of certain bills.
The thing to bear in mind - when considering banning Scottish MPs - is that it's an unconstitutional measure. Because the Barnett Formula allocates money to Scotland as a proportion of what is spent in England, any decision affecting the English budget (Health, Transport, Education) has a knock-on effect on the Scottish budget. In this respect there is no "English-only" legislation, at least not until the Barnett Formula is scrapped.
"No taxation without representation"
The Tories are being disingenuous because Scottish MPs have a constitutional right to vote on anything that determines how their constituents' taxes are spent - in other words political federalism requires fiscal federalism.
The Barnett Formula is key because it is the Barnett system that helps provide the social glue that underpins the welfare state and the common contract that we all (as Brits) have with one another. This is why the SNP want it scrapped even though it is biased in Scotland's favour. At the moment we can pretend that we have a 'National' Health Service (even though in terms of policy and delivery we actually have four national health services) because it is funded from a common pot - we all put in and we all take out. This principle of British solidarity "British funding for British institutions" - to paraphrase our prime minister - is endangered by fiscal federalism.
Importantly Ken Clarke's solution allows Scottish MPs to vote on the principle of the bill but not the detail, thereby preserving their say in a British veto over spending plans for England, and consequently the Scottish budget. This helps to sustain the veneer of "Britishness" of institutions like the NHS.
Parliament itself is probably even more important to our sense of British identity than the NHS. According to Prof Vernon Bogdanor to be British is "to wish to be represented in the House of Commons", and there will be many who claim that this Conservative policy will create "two classes of MP" by reducing Scottish MPs' involvement in the House of Commons. This is nonsense because thanks to devolution there are already two classes of MP: those that can vote on legislation pertaining to the health and education of their constituents and those that cannot.
The real problem is that highlighted by an unnamed Labour spokesman:
A Labour spokesman said a policy of English votes for English laws would destroy the relationship between the House of Commons and the executive, and "catastrophically undermine the Union".
The Conservative solution means that it would be illogical, but not unconstitutional, for Scottish MPs to have an executive say on matters that they cannot vote on, so logic dictates that the future UK Cabinet should be disproportionately English, with non-English MP only permitted executive responsibility in reserved areas; it also has the potential to set an English bloc of MPs against the UK Government, encouraging English MPs to speak for England against the executive that governs England, and; it introduces nationalism into the Union parliament, encouraging MPs to split along national lines instead of party lines.
None of this will be a huge problem if there's a large Conservative majority, but a Labour or coalition government, or a minority or weak Conservative administration, could well find themselves beset by contradictions between UK-interest and English-interest. For an English nationalist that's all well and good, and we can only hope and pray that it comes to pass.
How will the Conservative's enemies react to this policy?
I imagine that some English nationalists will be in favour, seeing it as a "slippery slope" to an English parliament, while others will regard it as a sop. The Labour and Lib Dem parties will be against it, but in the face of a Tory landslide they may well come to see it as a 'least damaging' solution. The SNP will be against it in public, but in private, because their MPs observe a self-denying ordinance, they'll be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Scottish Labour MPs becomming side-lined and increasing irrelevant at Westminster. Previously the other parties could just ignore Tory grandstanding on the question of England, but no longer. Because the Tories are likely to form the next government we can expect an extremely heated debate on this, and also on Tory plans to abolish the RDAs and assemblies.
There will also be people inside the Conservative Party who object. There are those who object on a technical basis, people like Malcolm Rifkind who point out that this solution would have made no difference to the votes on tuition fees, foundation hospitals or fox hunting, and there will be others like David Davis, Roger Gale, John Redwood and Mark Field who will say that it doesn't go far enough.
Personally I agree with Alistair Carmichael of the Liberal Democrats:
"If [David Cameron] were sincere about trying to solve this problem, then he would look seriously at the creation of an English parliament or regional assemblies, whatever the English people themselves decide."
Pissing about with technical Westminster solutions to the question of England, whether it's 'English votes' or 'Regional Ministers' will not answer the English question. Only the people of England can answer the English Question and we deserve the opportunity to have the decisive say about how we are governed. England deserves a distinctly English voice, not only in parliament but in government also.
Time for a National Conversation.