Wickham's musings from Chalke

A few years ago we just had a Westminster parliament covering all the UK and local councils. Now we have the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and Stormont for Northern Ireland as well which is just more bureaucracy and cost.

In a week’s time there will be three elections in London, one for the local councils, one for the mayor and one for European MPs – all this and it still excludes the Westminster MPs.

I realise that in an expanded Europe there is a need for a European Parliament to harmonise strategic pan-European issues such as company law, food standards, human rights, maximum lorry weights and sizes and so on and we still need local councils to organise street cleaning and other local issues, so where do the other parliaments and assemblies fit in?

I have heard that food labelling such as salt and sugar content is likely to be standardised at European level. This is another example of the whittling away of the Westminster parliament’s powers.

Another complication is that Scottish MPs can still vote in the Westminster parliament on issues concerning England, Wales and Northern Ireland but Westminster’s non-Scottish MPs cannot vote in the Scottish parliament. The argument is that Scottish MPs need to vote on Westminster issues that affect Scotland and other joint issues like tax and defence, but it is still duplication to some extent and they aren’t excluded from voting on non-Scottish affairs.

There is so much argument between the Westminster parliament and local councils over funding, rate capping and the level of the central government grant that it might be better to get rid of the Westminster parliament altogether. It won’t happen of course because it is too powerful to get rid of itself.

Defence would still be a problem because most people wouldn’t want it under European control, so some form of joint defence committee formed from the district councils would be an answer. All other matters would be handed down to local level or up to European level.

Taxation is another issue that people wouldn’t want controlled at European level. Local authorities already have the ability to raise taxes and control health, education and other major issues so all taxes would be raised at local level, giving flexibility for the regions. There would be a levy by the European parliament for their funds.

We don’t have a federal system like the United States, but there the states have strong powers and varying laws and taxes quite successfully. We could do the same. Most people wouldn’t want taxation, VAT, education and health to be determined at European level, except possibly in regard to overall standards.

We increasingly see judgments in our courts disputed at various levels right up to the House of Lords then taken to the European Court as a last resort. This is undermining the authority of our courts especially when our laws and judgments are often found to be wrong, out of date or in conflict with European law.

It would have another effect of giving more choice. Presently if you don’t like the taxes or laws in the UK you have to move abroad to live and work in a very unfamiliar environment and a different language. If control was more in the hands of local councils you would not have to move far to experience different taxes and laws, possibly still being near enough to commute to your original job.

It seems that the influence of the European parliament and European courts will increase every year, so the conflicts with our UK parliament and courts will also increase. Something has to give.