Cameron backs England-only votes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk_politics/6272281.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Scottish MPs should not be allowed to vote on issues which concern only England and Wales, Tory leader David Cameron has said.

He said he wanted to keep the 300-year-old union together, but that the "imbalance" needed to be fixed.

However he said he was not in favour of an English parliament, but believed Westminster could work better.

Mr Cameron was asked about the union on BBC News 24 after viewers e-mailed questions to the BBC website.

He said: "I would like to see a system that, when the UK parliament is discussing purely matters that affect English constituencies, that only members of Parliament for English constituencies have the final say."

I think it's an expensive idea, I don't think it will work David Cameron on ID cards

He said it was not balanced or fair to allow Scottish MPs to vote on Scottish matters such as education and then be able to vote on the same matters at Westminster.

Among the 850-odd questions emailed to the BBC were many on foreign policy, tax and ID cards.

The most emailed topic was the government's controversial plan to introduce ID cards from 2009.

"I think it's an expensive idea, I don't think it will work," Mr Cameron said.

He said the government's assertions that they will cut crime and help with immigration were unfounded.

"We should get rid of it and use the money on more sensible things, whether it's building prisons or having proper border police or making sure we deal with identity fraud."

Asked about the Conservative's policy on immigration, Mr Cameron said it needed to be "controlled".

The Tories wanted to firstly test whether the immigrants would contribute economically and, secondly, to understand the potential cost to hospitals and schools.

Foreign policy

"Then we can come up with an overall limit on immigration, which we suspect would be lower than current level of immigration," he said.

On Iraq, Mr Cameron there needed to be more consideration of what could be handed back to Iraqi authorities, and when.

He said Britain's presence in Iraq should be able to be reduced this year. The Foreign Office has already indicated a reduction could happen.

"With foreign policy, when British troops are engaged abroad, the important thing is not to seek to create differences between the Conservatives and Labour, but to act as a responsible opposition, probing and asking the right questions," he said.

Health care

The 40-year-old, who has led the Tories into a sustained opinion poll lead for the first time in 15 years, was also asked about the cost of caring for elderly people.

He described a "partnership scheme" where people would be encouraged to put aside savings for some later residential care, say for one year, and then the state would pay for longer-term care after that.

"We've got to try and change the system so that when people try and do the right thing they are rewarded, not punished," Mr Cameron said.

He was also asked whether he would change GPs' working hours - to which he said it was not possible to turn the clock back.

However, on privatisation of parts of the health service, he did say that "we should be devolving power to the patient and the GP to allow them the power to choose".

Directly asked if a Conservative government would cut taxes within the first year of coming to power, Mr Cameron said: "You cannot give promises to cut taxes come what may. You don't know what circumstances you are going to face."