ENGLISH DEVOLUTION NEXT.

As debate over the consequences of the Scottish referendum rages on, it's becoming increasingly clear that the constitutional implications are extensive.

It is now very clear that there must be an English parliament. There cannot be separate legislative bodies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland while denying the same to England and attempting to do so will result in enormous unrest within the UK's principal member. Also, the position of the House of Lords must now be under serious question as it does not scrutinise devolved matters and, with an increasingly devolved nation, it's role will be reduced to almost nothing.

David Cameron has put forward some very broad proposals aimed mainly, it seems, at discomfiting his Labour opponents and wrong-footing UKIP. Miliband has made it clear that he wants everything to do with an English parliament and the UK government subjected to a constitutional review; in other words, he wants the whole notion of further reform dumped. Clegg doesn't seem to have said all that much yet, but it's likely that whatever he does say will be largely ignored by everyone. Regardless of who's said what, the truth is that we now have an almighty mess on our hands.

The solution is, to my mind, relatively obvious. An English parliament has to be created, preferably elected in the traditional way but with fewer members than the present House of Commons. There are currently 59 Scottish MPs, 40 Welsh and 18 from Northern Ireland out of a total of 650; thus, an English-only body should have no more than 533 and preferably a good few less. Personally,

I'd settle for 450 which would be approximately 1 for every 120,000 of the population though those in power may not like it.

In addition to this we should reduce the existing House of Commons to a 'rump', serving only to deal with those matters which cannot be devolved, principally top-level finance, defence, foreign affairs, and other issues with nation-wide effects such as major infra-structure projects. This revised House, the United Kingdom Parliament, would continue to be the over-arching government of the nation and would be its representative body overseas. In order for this House to be considered genuinely representative, it's membership would need to be elected on a proportional representation basis; ideally, I'd see, possibly, 2 representatives from each current county or similar local authority area across the 4 countries of the UK with the Prime Minister leading this body. At the same time, the House of Lords should be reduced to a relative handful of elected members, perhaps 100 or so, or, even, abolished altogether, given that the extent of its scrutiny of legislation would be substantially less than now.

While all of this seems perfectly right and proper to me, the actual outcome will be subject to the partisan whims and fears of the major players. Labour will fear losing power at Westminster for ever while the Tories hate PR. All sides love the idea of putting on ermine robes and 'lording' it in the House of Lords; enthusiasm for an elected upper chamber is limited and the idea of reducing its size has been regularly pushed to the back of the queue. Above all, the 2015 General Election is looming large in their minds.

One has to wonder whether the future will bring much at all other than more in-fighting, back-biting, recriminations, finger-pointing and broken promises.