Publisher's Synopsis
The purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive interpretation of debates about devolution for England, a cause that has grown in salience in recent years and which in October 2015 culminated in the adoption of 'English Votes for English Laws' (EVEL) within the legislative procedures of the House of Commons. This broad topic-often known as the 'English Question'-has received relatively little consideration from constitutional scholars and commentators in comparison with the literature that has grown up around other keynote constitutional questions in British politics. It has also been much less analyzed than the governance and identity of the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.
One of the core aims of this volume, therefore, is to develop a historically informed analysis of the emergence onto the main stage of British politics of the question of how England is governed and represented, and to reflect upon its wider constitutional ramifications. Within this overarching focus, the book looks particularly carefully at the West Lothian Question, a constitutional anomaly that has moved from the margins to the mainstream of political life and which led the Cameron administration to implement EVEL in the Commons.
One of the core aims of this volume, therefore, is to develop a historically informed analysis of the emergence onto the main stage of British politics of the question of how England is governed and represented, and to reflect upon its wider constitutional ramifications. Within this overarching focus, the book looks particularly carefully at the West Lothian Question, a constitutional anomaly that has moved from the margins to the mainstream of political life and which led the Cameron administration to implement EVEL in the Commons.
