We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to grant the English people a referendum on independence for England.”
Details of Petition:
“68% of English people want an English Parliament. 59% of English people want Scotland to leave the UK. The will of the English people for self-rule within the United Kingdom is flagrantly ignored because, we are told, an English Parliament within a federal UK would break up the Union. Well maybe English people would prefer independence to being 3rd class citizens within a United Kingdom. Let’s ask them.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
The Government supports the Union of the United Kingdom. We recognise that the devolution settlement is an issue of continued public interest, but we do not believe that there is a groundswell of support for an English Parliament.
The Government believes that it is not necessary to establish a separate English Parliament to balance the current devolution settlements in the United Kingdom as England is already the dominant partner and English interests are fully represented. English constituency MPs currently total over 85% of Members in Parliament and they represent over 85% of the population of the UK. An English Parliament would only be a fraction smaller than the existing UK Parliament. Furthermore, such a Parliament would dominate policy decisions and it would be likely to become bureaucratic and difficult to pass legislation, particularly if there were a different party in Government at Westminster, than that of the suggested English Parliament. The Government is taking steps to increase regional accountability including through the introduction of Regional Ministers.
The Union is bound together not just by common identity and citizenship but by the enduring interests of the nations that form the Union. Inside the Union, all of its parts share resources, and pool risks, to the benefit of each. The UK shares access to its natural resources, but more important the human resources that are the diverse people living here. The risks that are pooled, and carried together, are inherently uncertain, and increasingly volatile. They include the challenges of thriving in an increasingly competitive globalised economy, whose demands vary ever more swiftly, the constantly evolving threat of international terrorism, and major challenges like climate change: in meeting all of these, the United Kingdom is stronger together.
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