Why no English Parliament?

[glallotments]

I’ve just been listening to the news and the Prime Minister talking about the Scottish government and British government and who should have made the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber.

I just find it very strange that Scotland, Wales and N Ireland have parliaments and assemblies and can set some of their own laws and regulations but that there is no equivalent English parliament. English laws and regulations are set by the British government where all four nationalities vote. Does anyone else see this as a bit unfair?

Stands back and waits for the worms to crawl out of the can?

[alan refail]

Open worm can

Could it be because the Saeson - Saxons - English occupied Wales Scotland and Ireland and the three "colonies" have been given back varying degrees of autonomy

[retropants]

yes, that's right, but I think gl was trying to say, is that we don't get to vote on all SC/Irl/Wal laws, but SC/Irl/Wal get to vote on all ours??

(don't shoot!)

[glallotments]

Yes Retropants that is sort of what I was saying - just that we should have an English Parliament to set the sorts of things for England that the Scots etc do for themselves.

For instance the Scots can vote on education in Scotland and also on free prescriptions etc but then are able to vote on education in England and not to let the English have free prescriptions. It should really cut both ways shouldn't it?

[alan refail]

Look at it another way:

English MPs - 529
Scottish MPs - 59
Welsh Mps - 40
N Ireland MPs - 18

Isn't that a predominantly English parliament?

[glallotments]

But it isn't English is it?

Surely we should all be equal and have our own parliament and then have representatives from each of the Parliaments to form a British one to discuss issues that affect all of us.

[Cider Boys]

You raise a very important issue Glallotments, but thanks to this present government we the English are being badly represented, personally I was against any form of devolution.

If the Scots or any others vote in favour of seperation from the United Kingdom then the sooner we kick them off the better.

The English have for far too long subsidised these people that don't appreciate the support that they receive by being a member of the British Isles.

They can't have it both ways either they're in or out and not having the best of both worlds whilst supported by the English and the crazy Barnett formula.

Barney

[Stephen]

Alan: your numbers reflect the over-representation of the "Celtic fringe"
Wales has just 3M people or 5% of the population. 5% of the Commons is 32 MPs, Scotland with 5M have 8% so should be represented by 52 MPs; only NI with a tiny 3% of the population is skightly under-represented.

My solution to these conundrums is to have an English single-house parliament and an elected national parliament instead of the House of Lords. Thus each part of the UK would have their own lower chamber and the nation would have an upper chamber. How about that?
P.S. no it's not really thought out but it adds to the debate

[glallotments]

Apparently there once was an epeition asking for an English parliament and this was the response.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page14224

[Cider Boys]

It's alive and kicking!

http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

and looks like we are not alone in our thoughts

http://www.englishdemocrats.org.uk/

Barney

[Geoff]

I agree Barney, no to devolution. The defeated should remain defeated! Look what happens when you go round the world unscrabbling old conquests. The world is fragmenting into its old ethnic and religious divisions and becoming a much more dangerous place as a result. I have often said the rest of the world should declare Virginia a native American homeland, they could then take over West Virginia and discriminate its residents into ghettos then perhaps Americans would understand why the Middle East is destabilising the world.
Anyway, who wants another level of government, think of the expenses!

[Johnboy]

When it comes to Census time you can declare that you are Welsh, Irish or Scottish but an English person cannot call himself English he has to state that he is British whatever that means!
JB.

[alan refail]

When it comes to Census time you can declare that you are Welsh, Irish or Scottish but an English person cannot call himself English he has to state that he is British whatever that means!
JB.

Actually, you could tick "Any other White background" and write in ENGLISH. In fact it was not possible in 2001 to tick "Welsh" on the Welsh census form - "Any other White background" had to be ticked and WELSH written in.

[Johnboy]

Hi Alan,
You are talking about the Welsh Census Form and unless you write something other you are assumed to be Welsh but on the English Census form if you wrote English a Census Monitor either returned the form to you with a new form to fill out or you had to strike out English and initial it. English was not allowed to be seen on the form. The word permissible was British.
JB.

[alan refail]

Hi Alan,
You are talking about the Welsh Census Form and unless you write something other you are assumed to be Welsh
JB.

Hi Johnboy

Definitely not so! On the England and the Wales forms the question was the same - a choice between British, Irish or Any other White background. Have a look at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pdfs/H2.pdf.
If you did not fill this in you were definitely NOT assumed to be Welsh, but to have failed to complete the form. I can assure you this caused a great deal of fuss throughout Wales.


[edited to add[

You will also notice that there was no possibility on the English and Welsh forms to tick that you were Scottish.