A Kent Tory MP has called for a radical overhaul of Parliament, including the abolition of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Roger Gale, Conservative MP for North Thanet, said the current Tory proposals to have English MPs voting on English issues “do not go far enough”.
He has suggested a system whereby separate parliaments are established for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each with its own First Minister. There would then be a senate made up of two elected members from each county that would select the Prime Minister. The Queen would remain as head of state.
Mr Gale said: “When I first put forward my proposals, getting on for ten years ago, in the context of the creation of a Scottish parliament and the abolition of the hereditary peers, I was regarded as at best eccentric and more probably as plain bonkers.
“This is, though, a debate the time for which has arrived.
“I am constantly told that this would be 'very difficult to implement' but it is always possible to find either excuses why something cannot be done or to find ways in which something can be achieved. What we have now is a camel of a horse designed not even by a committee but by apprentices tinkering with machinery that has worked for centuries.
“Now that we are where we are the time is surely ripe to take a grip of the whole constitutional issue and to address it through radical surgery.”
POSTED: 29/10/2007 09:48:39
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