Nick Clegg Charged with Considering the West Lothian Question

The BBC reports that Nick Clegg will be in charge of 'considering' the West Lothian Question.

He will also be in charge of considering the "West Lothian question" - the longstanding anomaly which sees Scottish MPs voting on matters affecting England, but not vice versa.

The letter that I recently received from Nick Clegg's office tends to suggest that Clegg favours mitigating the West Lothian Question rather than answering it.

We recognise that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland poses difficult questions for the governance of England within the Union. I think it’s important to be honest about the fact that it is difficult to find an immediate solution. The idea of ‘English votes for English laws’ is extremely complicated to implement – particularly because many laws actually extend to England only in some parts, while covering other parts of the UK in other areas. Given the fact that changes in spending on English services which would be devolved in the rest of the UK directly affect the devolved administration’s budgets, it is also often the case that ‘English’ legislation actually will affect devolved issues outside of England.

We believe that we can only really deal with this question by looking at it as part of the wider political system. We need to do more, first of all, to give more power to people locally in England – so that they, too, have more control over their own affairs rather than being micromanaged from Whitehall. We want to give local communities real power over their health services and policing, through fairly elected local health boards and police authorities – as well as freeing the hands of local councils, removing power from Westminster and Whitehall. Ultimately, we want to move towards a federal United Kingdom – devolving power within England further and thus resolving this question.