British Social Attitudes - 25th Report
The 25th British Social Attitudes report has some sobering news for those of us who would like to see an English parliament:
The majority (57%, the same figure as in 2001) think England should continue to be governed from Westminster rather than by an English Parliament (17% in favour) or regional assembles (14% in favour).
Adding these (2007) figures to previous years we get this.
| Constitutional Preferences for England | ||||||||
| With all the changes going on in the way different parts of Great Britain are run, which of the following do you think would be best for England? | ||||||||
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | ||||
| England should be governed as it is now with laws made by the UK parliament | 55% | 52% | 54% | 54% | 57% | |||
| Each region of England should have its own regional assembly that runs services like health | 24% | 21% | 20% | 17% | 14% | |||
| England as a whole should have its own new parliament with law-making powers | 16% | 21% | 18% | 22% | 17% | |||
It's a finding that has sparked a measure of triumphalism from British nationalists unionists (see Alex Massie: What English backlash?).
True 32% of people in England feel Scotland receives an unduly generous share of public spending (up from 22% in 2003) and 61% think Scottish MPs should not vote on English-only legislation. But that's not quite the same as thinknig everyone would be better off if the Union were ended: in 1999 21% of English people thought it would be better if Scotland were independent and this year that figure is just 19%. More signifianctly, perhaps, just 17% of English voters back an "English parliament".
But before we all get carried away we need to consider the question that the British Social Attitudes survey puts to the public:
With all the changes going on in the way different parts of Great Britain are run, which of the following do you think would be best for England?
To which there are three available responses:
a) England should be governed as it is now with laws made by the UK parliament
b) Each region of England should have its own regional assembly that runs services like health
c) England as a whole should have its own new parliament with law-making powers.
The BSA asks the public to choose between a *new* parliament or the UK parliament, which historically is the English parliament, and finds that only 17% would like a *new* English parliament.
It does not attempt to measure support for a "parliament within a parliament" (an English Grand Committee or full blown "English Votes") which is the model that commercial polls find most support for.
Asking people to choose between Westminster (England’s traditional parliament) or a new English parliament presupposes that an English parliament must be new and/or distinct (ie not dual purpose).
Also, the BSA do not make it absolutely clear that any ‘new English parliament’ would be a devolved parliament that is subordinate to Westminster (like the Scottish Parliament), if that is indeed the option that they intended to measure support for. They do not specify what law-making powers it should have, that they leave open to interpretation. By 'law-making powers' many respondents will understand that to relate to the Home Office and Police.
For all the respondents know they are voting for a federation.
A more useful question would be something straight-forward like that which prompted the Scots to vote for a Scottish parliament in 1997:
1. I agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament; or
2. I do not agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament
I have no doubt that people like Malcolm Rifkind will take the 2007 BSA results to be an endorsement of Conservative policy. Rifkind will feel some justification given that 61% want an end to Scottish MPs voting on English legislation, yet the majority want still to be governed by Westminster. But it is not an endorsement of Conservative policy. Firstly, the Conservatives do not really have a policy, and; secondly, the policy that they did have (English Votes on English Laws) is not understood by the public.
A derisory 50% trust the UK government to look after England’s interests either ‘just about always’ or ‘most of the time’, but....The English public still want continued rule by the UK Parliament (a real shot in the arm for our beleagured national institution).
It is far from clear as to what the best option for looking after England's interests should be because we are yet to have that debate. The House of Commons will be an interesting place to be when it occurs. The Tories and Labour will seek to put party advantage over all other concerns; constitutionalists will lament the passing of a unitary parliament; the SNP will make hay; Scottish unionist MPs will cry foul, and; we English nationalists will argue for public consultation - a national conversation.
The data for the 26th BSA report will have already been collected over the course of 2008; the year in which a Scottish prime minister was crowned, then bottled a general election, and in which his reputation and economic legacy were laid to waste. In 2008 we had an SNP Government, the SNP's National Conversation and the Calman Commission, not to mention the repeated criticism of the Barnett Formula.
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I think you are right to
I think you are right to emphasise the point that most respondents don't understand what an 'English parliament' means. This is mainly because most English people are still imbued with the sense that the UK government and British state are the natural and adequate expression of English national identity and politics. The English and British identities are still joined at the hip: most people, as you pointed out in your review of the BSA survey on Labourspace, still fall within the spectrum of shared English and British identity, rather than exclusively English or exclusively British.
This is not the same thing at all as saying that they are happy with everything about the UK parliament, or that they feel that this parliament adequately looks after English affairs, as the other results in the BSA survey make clear. This would suggest that the compromise solution that would best suit consensus opinion in England would be English laws to be decided on by an English Grand Committee, excluding MPs from constituencies in the other UK nations. The problems with such an idea neatly illustrate why the two main parties don't think it's worth bothering with: 1) the EGC, just like the present UK parliament, would divide along party lines; and because of the demographics and the way the voting system works, it is in fact unlikely that the party in the majority in an EGC would not be in the majority in the UK parliament as a whole (so why bother with an EGC?); 2) if there were conflicting majorities in the EGC and the UK parliament as a whole, this would make governance very difficult if the parties attempted to conduct it along traditional lines, i.e. with the UK-majority party exercising one-party rule. So, in this instance, you'd either get what the parties would have us believe is an ungovernable situation; or there'd have to be coalition of some sort. And, of course, the parties don't want this; they just want to have absolute majorities.
So, for the moment, it probably is the case that there is not a sufficient groundswell of public opinion in favour either of a standalone English parliament or an EGC (which the parties don't want, for the above reasons, so are not trying to sell to the electorate). However, I think the crunch may come with the credit crunch. Resentment at the public-expenditure inequalities is bound to grow if they continue while public finances are under strain, which - if the gloomy economic forecasts we've had this week are to be believed - will not be felt in the short term but definitely will be with us for the long term, with public expenditure under severe control potentially for decades given the UK's huge national debt. I think it's the stresses on the Union that are going to result from all these economic and financial turmoils that may catalyse an English wish to regulate their own affairs, and seek a more equitable and sustainable distribution of the dwindling national wealth.