Mr. Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op):
I want to bring the debate back from the somewhat intriguing vision of an imperial Parliament, covering all the parts of the globe that are still coloured red, to the practicalities of the Conservative proposals.

Mr. Savidge rose—

Mr. Lazarowicz:
I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a little while. The practical difficulties cannot simply be laughed off as the Conservatives have tried to do today. Members on both sides of the Chamber have given examples that show how the proposals would not work in a practical sense. I want to dwell on two of those in more detail and take some of the lessons that need to be drawn from them.

First, the Higher Education Bill, which comes to the House next week, has been mentioned. Clauses on tuition fees will not be applicable to Scotland, but they have implications for Scotland. Large parts of the Bill will be directly applicable to Scotland as well. Therefore, clearly, that cannot be regarded as an English-only measure.

Last year's legislation on foundation hospitals was applicable only to England, although it clearly had UK-wide implications, including many sections that applied to other parts of the United Kingdom as well. A couple of years ago a number of hon. Members who are present in the Chamber served with me on the Standing Committee considering the Proceeds of Crime Bill. That contained provisions some of which applied to the UK as a whole, some of which applied only to England and Wales, some of which applied only to Scotland and some of which applied only to Northern Ireland.

The consequence of the Conservatives' proposals would be to have what my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) so graphically described as a hokey-kokey, with Members from different parts of the UK having to run into the Chamber, vote on those provisions affecting only their areas, then leave again as the English Members came in for their bits and went out again to be replaced by the Northern Ireland Members. There would be no way to have any serious debate of broad issues of principle.

At what stages in the process would the voting ban on Scottish Members, and perhaps in due course Northern Irish and Welsh Members, apply? Would it just be on Report, when we deal with specific amendments and clauses? Or would it apply to Standing Committees as well? Would it apply to Second and Third Readings, when we are voting on proposals as a whole? Would it apply just to those measures that are exclusively English, of which there are hardly any? Or would it apply to those measures where the bulk of a Bill perhaps applies to England only, but where there are certain important Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish consequences as well? How would that new system work?

Would we have two-, three-, or four-stemmed Second Reading debates, in which we voted for the Scottish bits, the Northern Irish bits, the Welsh bits and the English or UK bits? What should we do if a measure received Second Reading approval for the English bits, but not the Scottish or Welsh bits? How should we resolve the differences? Clearly, it is a recipe for constitutional chaos and could not be managed meaningfully within this Chamber.

The only arrangement that would be even more unworkable is that which I understand is favoured by the Scottish National party. The present proposal at least has some clarity, in that measures that were applicable only to England would not be ones on which Scottish Members could vote. The Scottish National party would replace that with a pick-and-mix system under which a Scottish Member could choose the issues on which he or she wanted to vote. The reality is that there is hardly any issue that one could not, if one wished, suggest had some implications for Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish constituencies.