Scottish MPs will have their voting rights restricted on English-only laws under new plans to be brought before the Commons next week.
The timing of the announcement is intended as a deliberate provocation of the Scottish National party at the start of its annual conference, according to Tory sources.
Ministers are planning to reintroduce plans to restrict the voting rights of Scottish MPs with a vote a week today on a reformulated plan for English votes for English laws, which has come to be known as “Evel”.
Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, will claim the proposals have been looked at by the procedure committee and hopes to push the measures through.
This follows a government climbdown in the summer when the plans had to be withdrawn after Conservatives threatened to oppose them. At the time, some Tory MPs argued that the plans to implement Evel did not go far enough, while others claimed they were too strong.
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There was also resistance to the process and claims that the government was rushing the proposals through parliament. There has been cross-party outrage that No 10 has proposed implementing Evel by changing parliamentary rules than by enacting primary legislation.
Mr Grayling was forced to announce in July that the government would redraft the controversial proposals and postpone the vote until the autumn.
The move to block Scottish MPs having a say on legislation that only affects England was first promised after the Scottish independence referendum as a countervailing measure to the devolution of more powers north of the border.
Evel is loathed by the SNP, which has made clear that it will fight to block any attempts to clip its wings in parliament. However, rebel MPs are understood to remain concerned by the measure and Mr Grayling is likely to have a fight on his hands to push it through the Commons next Thursday.
Nicola Sturgeon will announce today that a vote for the SNP in next year’s elections will be a vote for Scottish independence, as she opens the party’s conference in Aberdeen.
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The first minister will put her party on an election footing as she makes the opening remarks to what will be the biggest SNP conference in history.
Calling on her party to secure an “unprecedented third term” at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon will make an audacious pitch for those who voted on both sides of the constitutional divide last year.
The first minister is acutely aware that many of the 3,500 SNP activists who will gather in Aberdeen this week want her to commit to a second referendum on independence if, as expected, the SNP is returned to power next May.
In an attempt to appease these calls, Ms Sturgeon will make it clear that the SNP remains the party of independence.
“For those who want Scotland to be independent, there is only one vote next year that makes sense — and that is a vote for the SNP,” she is expected to say.
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However, the first minister will make it clear that the Holyrood elections will be as much about domestic issues as they will be about independence. “I don’t just want to win the votes of independence supporters,” she will say.
Meanwhile a new poll to be published today reveals that Scots do not want to pay more income tax to fund increased benefits and tax credits.
Almost 60 per cent of voters say that the Scottish parliament should not use its new powers over the tax, due to come in for the 2017-18 budget, to increase the payments.
Such a move does not even find majority favour among supporters of independence or the SNP, which has pledged to reverse Westminster austerity.
The findings in the poll by YouGov for The Times reveal the quandary that the Nationalists have been bounced into by David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, who has said that he will bring forward the devolution of income tax to 2017.
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He has told SNP ministers that they will have the powers, through the Scotland Bill, to increase the levy to top up tax credits and welfare.