Half a day a week for Welsh MPs would damage the Union, says Lord Falconer STOPPING Welsh MPs from voting on English-only issues would mean they would be at Westminster for just half a day a week, a senior Cabinet minister suggested last night.   

The so-called West Lothian question – the issue of what to do with Scots and Welsh MPs in a post-devolution age – has returned to the political agenda in recent weeks after the Tories suggested it needed resolving.

The Government is adamant that any changes would create a two-tier system and help break up the United Kingdom, but critics say Welsh MPs should not vote on health and education issues at Westminster which only affect England.

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor and a key ally of Tony Blair’s, said yesterday people in Wales and Scotland felt “much more comfortable” after the formation of the Assembly and Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference, Lord Falconer said MPs could end up “perhaps attending half a day a week or one day a week. Is that a process that’s going to promote the Union? I don’t think so for a second.”

He added, “Scotland and Wales get a proportion of the money spent on English public services. If they can’t vote on these issues they can’t determine how much money is going to be spent in Scotland and Wales.”

Just a reminder – Lord Falconer is the unelected North British Lord Chancellor of England.

There is a simple way to address all of Falconer’s concerns about English Votes on English Matters – establish an English Parliament just like the one that he campaigned for for his native North British.  The people of North British and West British might be “much more comfortable” with their own devolved governments but unfortunately, the 50m English people who are being discriminated against since devolution was introduced in 1997 are distinctly uncomfortable with MP’s that nobody in England elected or can vote out interfering with legislation that only affects England.

Even for Labour, Falconer is an über-tosser.  He sits in the British government despite never having been elected.  In the historic class system that Labour is so bent on destroying he comes only behind the royal family in the pecking order.  Next to the Queen he is the highest legal authority in the land and outranks the Prime Minister in all respects.  He appoints judges and can change the legal system without reference to parliament.  He campaigned for the North British Parliament and West British Assembly and is very much in favour of the Northern Irish Assembly.  Yet this man, this unelected cabinet minister who answers to nobody, says that to give England the same democratic rights that he helped to give to North Britain and West Britain will damage the union.

I have to stop now because if I don’t I’m going to start using some really traditional Anglo-Saxon words.