Should England have its own devolved government?
Well, probably is my answer, but the political pressure to have one is not as acute as in the cases of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In these cases, the perception was that their specific issues and needs were not addressed adequately by the Westminster parliament which was dominated by English MPs. If you like, there already was an English parliament. Remember in the latter years of the Conservative government, Scotland was being governed by a Conservative majority in Westminster, without electing a single Conservative MP. A devolved English parliament, though, is a response to the so called “West Lothian” question, intially raised by Tam Dalyell, the Scottish, but anti-devolutionary Labour MP. He raised the question: under a situation where devolution has occurred, should Scottish MPs (and by extension Welsh and Northern Irish MPs) have a say on purely English concerns in areas such as education, when the responsibility for such policy had been devolved to a Scottish parliame
