The UK government’s plans to restrict the voting rights of Scottish MPs in Westminster threaten the future of the union, it has been claimed.
Parts of the Conservative proposals for English votes for English laws were branded “over-engineered and potentially burdensome” by the cross-party parliamentary procedure committee yesterday. Ian Lucas, a Labour member of the committee, said that the reforms were a “gift horse of huge magnitude to nationalists”, which “threatens the UK”.
The SNP is opposed to the plans and Labour MPs are likely to reject them.
Mr Lucas, the MP for Wrexham, argued that the “hideously complex” reforms would set a dangerous precedent. “The proposals for English votes for English laws seek to address a real issue,” he wrote in a piece for Red Box, the Times political website. “But to do so by giving enhanced rights to one group of MPs at the expense of another is not the way to do it. It threatens the UK further at a very vulnerable time.”
The changes would introduce a new parliamentary stage for laws that do not affect other parts of the UK. English or English and Welsh MPs would scrutinise such legislation alone and then accept or veto it before a final reading in front of all MPs.
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The Commons votes on the issue on Thursday.
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, said: “English votes for English laws puts forward an absurd solution to the UK’s constitutional inequalities and it is clear that the proposals need to go right back to the drawing board.”