English MPs and EVEL: No Veto Used 2015-2021

The Government’s proposals for ‘English Votes for English Laws’ will be debated in the Commons before the summer recess later this month. Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary and First Parliamentary Counsel Richard Heaton explains what the proposed changes mean for the Civil Service.

English votes for English laws ... referendum. It allowed English - and sometimes English and Welsh - MPs to accept or veto legislation only affecting their constituents before it passed to its final Commons stage....

English votes for English laws ... ... It allowed English - and sometimes English and Welsh - MPs to accept or veto legislation only affecting their constituents before it passed to its final Commons stage....

A system which gives English MPs an effective veto on laws which only affect England should be scrapped, the government says. Michael Gove said the English votes for English laws, external (EVEL) procedure had "not served our Parliament well".

Only English MPs are able to sit ... before being voted on by the whole House of Commons. In effect, English MPs have a "veto" over laws that only affect England, while all MPs have an equal final say on every bill....

It allowed English - and sometimes English and Welsh - MPs to accept or veto legislation only affecting their constituents before it passed to its final Commons stage. It was an attempt to address the so-called "West Lothian Question", external - in which English MPs could not vote on matters devolved to other parts of the UK, but Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs could vote in Westminster on England-only matters. Opening the debate, Mr Rees-Mogg said Evel had "undermined" Parliament and all MPs should be represented equally.

This veto right has never actually been applied, meaning that EVEL has not so far altered the outcome of any Commons vote – which is unsurprising, given that the Conservative governments since 2015 have always been better represented in England ...

Currently, English stages are held at the end of a bill’s Commons passage, when most scrutiny and debate has already taken place. The report finds that there has been almost no interest in in these English stages in their current form, with most lasting around two minutes. The report finds that while the current version of EVEL is flawed, it has avoided most of the problems predicted by its critics.

But bills to legislate, for example, for a second referendum, or a Norway-style trade relationship with the EU, or to revoke or significantly delay the effect of Article 50 probably would have been caught. So they were never tried, even at a stage where there might have been an outside chance of one or other of them commanding a majority in parliament...