by Our News Desk

ENGLISH and Welsh MPs were handed new powers in Parliament yesterday in the government’s hurried bid to answer the so-called West Lothian question.

The “English votes for English laws” measures passed through the Commons by 312 to 270.

The changes, which will be in place for a year before review, create new stages in the legislative process where the Speaker declares a Bill, or clause within a Bill, is English or English and Welsh only.

All MPs will continue to speak and vote on the existing legislative stages but only relevant MPs will be allowed to vote at the new phases.

It’s the Tory answer to the anomaly that allows Scottish MPs to vote on matters such as health or education in England that will not affect Scotland.

A series of amendments to the plans were defeated by Tory MPs following four hours of debate.

Shadow Commons leader Chris Bryant argued the plans to create a veto stage for English MPs, or English and Welsh MPs, would create two tiers of MP and break with an 800-year-old tradition and convention that they are all equal.

SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire Pete Wishart described the government’s plans as “stupid” and insisted they would make Scottish MPs “second-class citizens.”

And Communist Party general secretary Rob Griffiths warned that the “desperately cobbled together” plans would “end up satisfying nobody.”

He said: “The only consistently democratic and progressive alternative to Tory fixing and Scottish separation is a federal structure which treats the countries of Britain equally and redistributes wealth across the nations and regions of Britain.”