The operation and abolition of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ in the UK parliament: differentiated voting rights and English ‘legislative consent’

Abstract

In 2021 the UK House of Commons rescinded its short-lived ‘English Votes for English Laws’ (EVEL) procedures, which had delivered differentiated voting rights to MPs to compensate for asymmetric territorial governance arrangements. This article evaluates the operation and abolition of EVEL by recognising it as an atypical equivalent to ‘legislative consent’ processes that already governed relationships between Westminster and the UK’s three devolved legislatures. Drawing on comprehensive original data about EVEL’s operation, it finds that this system delivered similar outcomes to devolved legislative consent, whilst also displaying some instability resulting from its atypical design. The decision to abolish EVEL may thus be interpreted as partly reflecting elite attitudes towards devolution rather than solely direct failings of this system. The findings are of wider relevance given that asymmetric governance is not unique to the UK, with other legislatures elsewhere having faced similar democratic questions.