Parliamentary representation at Westminster and devolution: from the "in and out" to EVEL

On 13 July 2021, the House of Commons voted to rescind the English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) standing orders. This result, a victory of Gove (the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and allegedly a strong proponent in recent months for repealing the offending standing orders) over EVEL, brought to an end the most recent attempt to use the procedures of the House of Commons to tackle the complexities of Parliamentary representation for devolved territories within the UK Parliament. For as long as there have been debates about devolution, there have been questions about what devolution should mean for the rights of MPs from the affected areas. These questions have emerged as a result of the Westminster Parliament’s dual-hatted role as a Union-wide legislature as well as a sub-state legislature for the various constituent parts of the UK. While this dual-hatted role was less obvious when Westminster served as the domestic legislature for all of the constituent nations of the UK, it became more problematic with asymmetric devolution which has carved out Westminster’s role in some, rather than all, parts of the UK. This article will offer a retrospective look at the six year experiment in EVEL, starting with an examination of the history of the debate about parliamentary representation post-devolution, noting the different attempts which have been made to resolve the West Lothian Question (and its predecessor question—which one might dub the Belfast West Question), before looking at how EVEL became Conservative Party policy and why the EVEL experiment ended after six years with the repeal of the respective standing orders