There are two West Lothian constituencies in the UK: one in Scotland, one in Lancashire. Those in the Scottish constituency can vote on matters affecting the Lancashire one, those in Lancashire constituency cannot vote on matters affecting the Scottish one because only the Scottish Parliament decides Scottish issues.

Whilst some are arguing for only English constituency MPs to vote on purely English issues, two main questions have arisen:

1. What is a purely English issue? For example: (hypothetical) what if the English decided to build a new airport on the Scottish border?

2. What if, say, something benefits the south-east of England disproportionately and is to the great detriment of, say, the north-east or south-west? Would that be fair?

An example of future problems might be, say, if a future Olympics is again in the UK: should only England pay for Olympic facilities in England, should more sports be spread out amongst more regions of England or the UK, or, if everything was to be in London, should that city pay all the costs or, if a mainstream sport took place in, say, Newcastle which built a special venue, should Scots contribute to it?

Another problem is: what is a “region” for legislative purposes – would it be the south-west, Devon, Devon and Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, Devon and Dorset, greater Exeter … as usual, the devil is in the detail and none of the mainstream parties seem to have worked through the ramifications before making promises to Scotland.