David Cameron is poised to draw back from proposing to slap an all-out ban on Scottish MPs debating and voting on so-called English-only legislation in a "compromise" move, according to a well-placed senior party source.
The Herald has been told by an Opposition front bencher that the Conservative leader, who is studying a report by Ken Clarke, the former Tory Chancellor, about the West Lothian Question, supports a technical parliamentary solution to the constitutional conundrum.
Mr Cameron will reject the so-called East Lothian Answer proposed by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Scottish Secretary, involving the setting up of a stand-alone English grand committee.
Last month, Mr Clarke brushed aside as a "parliamentary niggle" concerns about the fact that Scottish MPs can vote on so-called English-only matters while English MPs do not have a similar ability to vote on Scottish legislation because of devolution.
This anomaly has led to Tory MPs accusing the Labour-led UK Government of using its Scottish MPs to get through contentious English-only legislation; the Tuition Fees Bill is often cited as a case in point.
Mr Clarke preferred the situation whereby the Speaker would designate English-only matters. He said: "I don't believe it is not possible to identify a small amount of legislation which is totally English."
But the senior party source claimed Mr Cameron supported the method of an English-only bill being debated exclusively by English MPs at just its key committee stage. While Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs could debate and vote on the legislation at the later stages of a bill, they would not vote against what English MPs had overwhelmingly decided at the scrutiny stage of an English-only bill.
This solution, he added, would enable all MPs to have a say and a vote on a matter.
The source noted how a convention had been established that decisions by the Scottish Parliament were not opposed by MPs at Westminster even though, technically, they could overrule anything Holyrood decided.
Yet such a compromise would rest on some potentially unworkable factors.
One issue would be defining "English-only". Much legislation focusing on England has elements that affect people in Scotland.
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