From Rhetoric To Democracy

"To counter public cynicism about political institutions and low levels of turnout in elections, we have to find new ways to engage citizens in the political process. More devolution of power and the active involvement of local communities in decision-making are essential if we are to rebuild confidence in our democracy locally and nationally."

So says former Labour local government minister Nick Raynsford following the publication of a report by an informal grouping of peers and MPs known as the Chamberlain Group calling for central government to give local authorities more freedom to respond to local needs.

Coming a day after the Local Government Association demanded an extra £250m a year for councils to deal with the impact of migration on public services, the cross-party report says local councils should be given more freedom to run their budgets, perhaps including the ability to issue their own bonds (just as Mayor Ken Livingstone has been allowed to do in London to help fund investment in the city's transport network) or to take a share of national taxes such as income tax or vehicle excise duty.

Given that all three major political parties claim to believe in more localism, as one of the most centralised states in Europe, perhaps it is not unreasonable to hope that some of their rhetoric will now be translated into a genuine restoration of local democracy.

Rifkind's East Lothian Compromise

Today's constitutional debate has its roots in the unfinished business of Scottish devolution and picks up on a proposal presented at the start of the month by Sir Malcolm Rifkind to a conference fringe meeting in Blackpool.

Since Labour first started creating havoc with the country's historic institutions, there has been an unresolved issue of why Scottish MPs can vote on issues that only affect England but that English MPs cannot vote on issues that only affect Scotland. The former lord chancellor, Derry Irving, maintained that the best answer to this so-called "West Lothian Question" (it was first raised by Tam Dalyell, the former West Lothian MP) was not to ask it, for fear of damaging the Union. Such a position is, of course, untenable.

Sir Malcolm's suggestion, dubbed the "East Lothian Compromise" as the MP for Kensington and Chelsea still regards his house at Inveresk in East Lothian as his main residence, is to create an English Grand Committee, similar to the long-established Scottish Grand Committee, which would allow English MPs exclusively to consider English domestic legislation. Less simplistic than an "English votes on English issues" policy, such a committee would not have the executive powers of a full English Parliament and whatever it decided would theoretically be subject to the will of the entire Commons. However, there could be a convention whereby Parliament would agree never to overrule the committee's decisions, in the same way that Westminster is precluded from exercising its power to overturn decisions by the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh or Northern Ireland assemblies.

Rifkind is to be applauded for his creative plan and, when Kenneth Clarke's democracy task force reports to the Conservative Party, it can only be hoped that it finds such workable solutions to all areas of Labour's constitutional vandalism, such as its unfinished reform of the House of Lords.

ON SECOND THOUGHTS: And yet ... do we really need another committee when the simple alternative would be to devolve to county councils those powers that have been devolved to Scotland, thereby negating the whole West Lothian question and re-empowering local democracy in one swoop?