Responding to Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny’s analysis of last week’s English votes for English laws proposals, Jim Gallagher argues that the really challenging issue that EVEL raises relates to taxes and public spending.

The analysis by Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny of the government’s proposals for English votes is helpful in setting out what these plans might mean for legislation. I agree with much of their analysis. These are plans at the aggressive, though perhaps not the most aggressive, end of the spectrum. But the really challenging issue they raise is not about laws, but about taxes and public spending.

Not the Barnett formula

This isn’t about the Barnett formula. The idea that Scottish MPs should vote on purely English legislation because it will affect Scottish spending through the Barnett formula is simply wrong. The government has made this even clearer than it already was by explicitly exempting the legislation which determines spending from the new process in its proposals. A lot of nonsense is being talked about this. Even though they might have spending consequences, Acts of Parliament do not of themselves affect budgets. Spending plans will still be voted on in legislative processes in which all MPs – Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, as well as English – will have a vote. So the discovery by the SNP that they are now entitled to vote on English measures suggests they haven’t read the government’s plans.

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