I am heartened by the right hon. Gentleman’s optimism in that regard; I always think that achieving consensus in these matters is much easier to talk about than to get. Frankly, that is a debate that England now needs to have for herself. It is certainly not for us to intervene in it, any more than we would have welcomed the intervention of the English, Welsh or Northern Irish in the constitutional convention discussions of the 1990s. I wish the English every bit as much joy with it as we have had in Scotland with our constitutional debate over the years.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has tabled a new clause proposing a constitutional convention, and there is a great deal in it that I find worthy of support, particularly the requirement that it be convened within a month of the Bill becoming an Act, because I do not think that these matters become any easier by being left. I am also impressed by the fact that it has a reporting date, which I suggest would serve to concentrate minds.
Speaking as a Scottish Member, I think that the hon. Gentleman’s proposal has the further benefit of allowing a constitutional convention to go ahead; we would be saying today that it is something that is going to happen, but it would not in fact delay the passing of the Bill. In order to hold faith with the 55% of the people of Scotland who voted no last September, I think that we
should proceed with the Bill with all due dispatch. I do not think that it would be acceptable for the passing of the Bill to be somehow contingent on constitutional arrangements being refined elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
I would have preferred—inevitably so—to see included in the remit of the proposed constitutional convention the question of electoral reform, for which I think there is now greater support in the Labour party, but I would not let that omission stand between me and supporting the Bill today.