Devolution proposals
March 28th, 1992
A letter to the Times which was published on 28th March 1992.
You play down Tam Dalyell’s posing of the “West Lothian question” by asserting that the Scots have had to put up with “unrepresentative government” since 1707.
It is true that in the last 13 years of Conservative government Scotland has returned a majority of Labour MPs, but so what? In 1974-9 England, with an electorate nine times that of Scotland’s, was subject to a Labour government whose majority derived not just from Scottish Labour MPs, but from the over-representation of Scotland at Westminster which still persists.
On an electorate basis Scotland was entitled to 59 seats instead of 72 in the 1987 parliament and Wales 32 instead of 38. In any case Scotland has not always been a Labour fiefdom. As recently as the 1950s a majority of Scots seats were Conservative.
The fact is that if there are to be assemblies or parliaments in any or all of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there will have to be a parliament responsible to the people of England. The simplest (and cheapest) way of achieving this is for MPs representing English constituencies to constitute themselves, for devolved affairs, as an English parliament, which is after all what they originally were.