I posted this into the comments section of Caroline Hunt’s blog and thought it was worth reproducing here:

There are a couple of misconceptions in the comments thread that Gareth didn’t pick up on.

Firstly, the “huge extra cost” of an English Parliament. There is no “huge extra cost” involved. Currently, the British parliament has over 650 MPs and handles reserved matters for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and reserved and devolved matters in England. If you were to take the devolved matters away from the British parliament and gave them to an English Executive and Parliament then you wouldn’t need 650 MPs at Westminster. The standard stock argument that it’s an extra tier of government, yada yada, is rubbish – it’s not more government, it’s different government. Personally, I think that once and English Parliament has been established, Westminster needs one MP from each county in all four home nations.

Secondly, “we only need to stop Scottish MPs from voting on English matters”. This, again, is wrong. In Scotland, MSPs handle most of the domestic affairs of Scotland. They are elected to do what is best for Scotland and to put Scotland first and foremost in everything they do (like Gordon the Goblin King pledged to do in 1998 ). The British MPs elected in England are there to represent Britain and to do what is best for Britain. If that means it’s bad for England then history – recent history, even – has shown that they will do it. Under English Vote on English Matters, MPs not elected in England will still be able to propose, oppose and debate matters that only affect England even though they cannot do the same for matters that only affect Scotland.

Here’s an example of how English Votes on English Matters wouldn’t work: the smoking ban in England. The smoking ban only applied to England because it is a devolved matter. I watched the debate on BBC Parliament (yes, I understand this makes me a very sad person). I watched MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – all of which have smoking bans in their own constituencies – debating the smoking ban for England. Most of them were opposing the full ban that was originally proposed and supporting the partial ban that had been introduced as an amendment. By an MP elected in Scotland. In the end, the amendment to make it a partial ban that had been introduced by a Scottish MP was successful – English MPs had been talked around by an MP elected in Scotland where the ban didn’t apply into supporting a partial ban when previously a majority had supported a full ban and the majority of their constituents had supported a full smoking ban. Under English Votes on English Matters, nothing would have changed other than the MPs not elected in England being barred from casting a vote. If we had an English Parliament, the debate would have taken place entirely with representatives elected in England to deal solely with English matters. There would have been no intereference from foreign MPs whose own constituents weren’t affected by the bill and they would have proceeded to introduce the full smoking ban they originally supported and that the majority of the electorate supported.