A cloud no bigger than a man's hand

The cover design of the report by the Conservative Democracy Task Force Answering the Question: Devolution, the West Lothian Question and the Future of the Union shows bright blue sky edged by wispy white cloud. The thought that comes to mind is that familiar harbinger of catastrophe, ‘a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand’. Appropriately, Kenneth Clarke’s report is a form of ‘anticipatory conservatism’. It is a plan that anticipates potential catastrophe and advocates reform designed to prevent the storm clouds forming but is deeply conservative insofar as it advocates a modification of existing circumstances rather than radical change.

The taskforce believes that the present devolutionary arrangements are indeed a threat to the Union because the likely build up of English grievances ‘could undermine the current constitutional arrangements’. What must be avoided is the ‘sort of alienation’ experienced in Scotland in the 1980s and 1990s being replicated in England. The task force’s measure of the current state of English public opinion seems reasonably sound, for the moment at least. As the opinion research by Professor John Curtice consistently shows, the English have remained remarkably complacent about constitutional change and equally complaisant about the operation of devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Grievances there certainly are, however —especially over perceived disadvantages in levels of public expenditure between England and Scotland. But English nationalism is still a mood, not a movement, if only because the Conservative Party refuses to mobilise it as such. The taskforce’s objective is to prevent that mood becoming a movement, confirming the Unionism of the Conservative Party, something David Cameron has taken every opportunity to confirm since becoming leader.

If the report becomes party policy, which seems very likely, then the trajectory of Conservative thinking on the ‘English Question’ since 1997 is from constitutional maximalism to constitutional minimalism. It has gone from tentative support foran English parliament, through ‘English votes on English laws’ and Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s idea of an English grand committee,to this taskforce’s present recommendation of certified English bills being considered and voted on by English MPs only in committee and at the report stage. Under this proposal, the whole House would vote on second and third readings,reserving to all MPs decisions on the principle and the final passage of legislation.

Gareth Young (the ‘little man in a toque’),the most incisive of the English nationalist bloggers, argues that this represents a shift from ‘English votes on English laws’ to ‘English pauses on English clauses’. Those many critics who point out the political illogicality of the report perhaps miss the Conservative point. The logical solution to the West Lothian Question is an English parliament. Kenneth Clarke’s answer takes five pages to say what Disraeli said in one line: that England is governed not by logic but by parliament, and for the Conservatives that parliament remains Westminster.

Professor Curtice’s evidence again shows that the vast majority of English people, irrespective of the West Lothian Question, continue to believe that Westminster best protects their interests. Moreover, it is the accepted wisdom of most politicians, academics and commentators that an English parliament would mean the end of the Union and this option is specifically ruled out.

A close reading of the report suggests that, when it began to enquire deeply into practicalities, the task force realised what a damnably difficult question this really is, and that every possible answer generated only trickier questions. The report’s conclusion states that there is no perfect ‘answer’; the proposal is recommended on the basis of its practical implementation.

Unfortunately for this thesis of workability, on three occasions the report applies that magnificently imprecise description ‘not insuperable’: for the designation of English-only bills, for membership of standing committees and for reform of procedures in the House of Lords. One suspects that ‘not insuperable’ means ‘we don’t have an answer’,but a Conservative general election victory will put the West Lothian Question to bed.

There is, however, another interesting phrase used in the report which may be of greater significance for the future. That phrase is ‘an incentive to bargain’ which, it is claimed, would be a consequence of implementing these recommendations. Bargaining between the parties sounds very like the thing Conservative supporters of the first-past-the-post electoral system believe the British public are blessedly spared.

It could be argued, nonetheless, that the only form of reasoning that Conservatives find congenial — namely the Oakeshottian one that changes elsewhere make a tradition incoherent — applies now to Westminster elections. If PR is the norm for nearly all other elections, its introduction for Westminster no longer seems so inconceivable. It would invalidate the cry that ‘the Conservatives have no mandate in Scotland’, it would help Westminster to better reflect public opinion in the United Kingdom, and it might just smooth the particular difficulties this report addresses. Is any Unionist answer to the English Question now sufficient to satisfy English questions about the Unionist answer? That is the big unknown.