07/10/2014
Federico de Montalvo Jääskeläinen, lecturer of Constitutional Law, UP Comillas (ICADE)
The recent referendum in Scotland has given, once again, great topicality to a longstanding controversy that arose a few decades ago in the British Parliament: the West Lothian Question.This seems to be caused by the renewed desire of the English of reordering some old issues which had been left without a clear answer under devolution and, more specifically, with regard to relations between the British Parliament and Scotland.
The West Lothian Question arises in discussions on the devolution of powers to Scotland and refers to the distortions it causes in a clearly asymmetric territorial organisation such as the one in the UK, where Scottish MPs can vote and even determine the final decision on issues that only affect England, as these powers have been returned to Scotland, while the English cannot vote when the same subjects are discussed in the Scottish Parliament. The MP for the constituency of West Lothian, Tam Dalyell, stated in Parliament in November 1977 the following question: "Why can domestic matters affecting England be decided by non-English MPs when English MPs are not able to decide about these matters for Scotland?”
This distortion of the British parliamentary system as a result of devolution has been exposed on several occasions regarding issues of particular importance such as education and health, in which the final decision depended on the vote of Scottish MPs, when it came to matters which had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
All this has led to the establishment of different parliamentary and non-parliamentary commissions to analyse the best possible solution, having proposed formulae such as creating an English Parliament in which issues concerning England and not Scotland would be discussed, allowing only Commons elected in English constituencies to vote, or even reducing the Scottish representation in the British Parliament. More recently, the Commission on the consequences of devolution for the House of Commons, also known as the McKay Commission, created in February 2012, issued a report in March 2013 which proposed to incorporate a new constitutional principle to the British system as follows: "decisions at the United Kingdom level with a separate and distinct effect for England should be taken only with the consent of a majority of MPs for constituencies in England." However, along with that principle solutions such as creating a double-voting system for the passing of a bill were proposed, requiring its approval not only by the majority of Commons but also in a second vote, by the majority of the English Commons.
The greater or lesser number of Scottish MPs in the British Parliament does not depend on the existence of regionalist and nationalist parties, as the number of constituencies, and therefore of seats in the House of Commons which correspond to Scotland is the same. However, devolution increases the problem, since the establishment of a Scottish Assembly modifies the party system, producing as a result, as has happened in Spain, the emergence of new regionalist and nationalist parties that not only aim to compete at a regional level, but also seek to run for seats in the national parliament. The problem is not really the number of Scottish MPs, but the different way of acting and voting of those who, being Scottish, have been chosen under a national party, from those who have been chosen under the banner of a regionalist or nationalist party. While the first will generally act in line with the ideology and principles of their party, serving beyond the interest of the constituency they represent, the second will mainly or only attend to regional interests over their own ideology.
The configuration of the Lower Chamber as the Chamber of domestic interest would thus be diluted, as the voting criteria of each are different, not to mention the problem arising from the fact that the latter are quite prone to give up their own ideological principles in exchange for certain grants of interest to the region they represent.
This scenario does not seem to differ much from the one experienced by the Spanish Parliament when neither of the two major parties has achieved a sufficient majority to rule, especially after the collapse and disappearance of third national parties. Not that long ago, there were Parliamentary votes where nationalist parties offered, in order to ensure good governance, to support the provisions of the party in government making concessions in favour of the territory of the former, even though the disparity of ideologies and interests of both were more than significant.
What is unique, in any case, is that what has been shown as commonplace and accepted as "normal" in our Parliament, constitutes, for those that shaped the contemporary parliamentary model, a real mismatch of the system. The apathy shown toward a common phenomenon in our Parliament contrasts with the reaction of those who, already in the 18th century, made Parliament the centre of the political system and the guarantee of people's sovereignty. What would Blanco White say about this today? It doesn't seem that difficult to guess.