Must we answer The England Question?

A report published today by the think-tank IPPR in association with Cardiff and Edinburgh Universities suggests that a growing number of English voters feel that the devolution settlements of the three other nations in the UK leave governance in the UK in a worse state than before.

According to the BBC, the survey found that:

31% of people thought the Welsh assembly had a negative impact on how Britain was governed, compared to 11% in 2007.
Those who thought devolution to Wales had made no difference fell to 24% from a high of 66% in 2003.
About a quarter (26%) thought Wales got more than its fair share of UK public spending, with slightly more (28%) saying it got “pretty much” its fair share.
Only 7% thought England got its fair share, while 40% thought it got less than it deserved.

Furthermore, the BBC states that ‘a proposal to adjust procedures at Westminster so that only English MPs vote on matters affecting England was supported by 79% of people.‘

I have to say that this is indeed something that I support. It cannot be right that while AMs, MSPs and MLAs are the only people who decide on certain issues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively, England’s lack of devolution means that MPs from all across the land have the right to vote on issues which are exclusively English.

Speaking with BBC Radio Wales, Eddie Bone, the Chair of the Campaign for an English Parliament said that ‘the English no longer trust the UK government to highlight English concerns and that it’s too focused on Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.‘ He continued to say that ‘it shows that the people of England have finally woken up to the fact, really, that their tax money is subsidising the rest of the United Kingdom.‘

Now this is not a view that I recognise. Frankly, the UK government is anything but focused on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In recent years, it would be fair to argue that it has quite nearly neglected those countries. The UK government may claim that its actions are in the interest of the UK as a whole, it [the government] can at times be extremely narrow-minded in the way it acts, often ignoring Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as undermining the democratically-elected leaders of those countries. Furthermore, to argue that English tax money is subsiding the rest of the United Kingdom is a dud argument. Why does he think that Wales’ 4 largest political parties are in agreement on the need to reform the Barnett formula? It’s because we don’t get our fair share.

UPDATE: In his first press conference of 2012, the First Minister demonstrates a counter-argument to Mr Bone’s. Watch from around 2:30 in the video, below.

If the four (yes, four) nations of the UK aren’t to have fiscal responsibility each for themselves, then I’m in favour of taxes being pooled and redistributed to each nation individually, according to need and deservedness, in order for them to spend on the issues which affect them individually, with the rest of the money being spent on issues which remain under British jurisdiction.

So yes, I do support English devolution, and sorting out The England Question, or the West Lothian Question, but Mr Bone does nothing to help his cause – and that is a cause that I cannot support.

For Wales, CRhJ.