Member News
A giant St George's flag has been projected onto the side of the Houses of Parliament as part of a campaign for an English Parliament today, St George's Day.
Carried out by the Power2010 campaign, the stunt was designed to highlight what some see as the injustice of the 'West Lothian question'.
The pressure group says the ability of MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to vote on English matters that do not affect their constituents is a "basic failure of democracy at the heart of the UK".
Calls for the constitutional anomaly to be resolved are likely to increase if the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru wield increased influence in a hung parliament.
Power2010 was launched in the wake of the expenses scandal and asks people to contribute ideas on how to change the political system.
Meanwhile, Tory leader David Cameron joined London Mayor Boris for a walkabout in the City this morning to celebrate St Georges Day.
Speaking on the day the British National Party launches its manifesto, Cameron said he wanted to "reclaim" the English flag from the far-right party.
"Today we are celebrating St George's Day, and we are reclaiming St George's Day as an important day I think for good reasons," he said.
"We should be reclaiming the flag from the BNP and saying the flag belongs to the English people, all of them."
The Conservative Party has pledged to introduce new rules so that legislation referring specifically to England, or to England and Wales, can only be enacted with the consent of MPs representing constituencies in those countries.
The Liberal Democrats want to address the status of England within a federal Britain, through a Constitutional Convention set up to draft a written constitution for the UK as a whole.
Labour does not mention the issue in its manifesto, but does call for an all-party commission to "chart a course" to a written constitution.
The proposal to introduce "English votes for English laws" will be welcomed by the SNP, which will welcome further separation of English and Scottish law making.
SNP MPs already follow a self-imposed ban on voting on matters that only affect England.
The UK Independence Party, by contrast, would like to see the members of the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments replaced with Westminster MPs from the nations, meeting one week a month on devolved business and the rest of their time at Westminster.
English MPs would meet in Westminster for English-only days as an English Parliament.
The 'West Lothian question' derives its name from that constituency's MP, Tam Dalyell, who in 1977 raised the issue of Scottish MPs (of which he was one) exerting "important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics".