The members of the commission set up by the UK government into the West Lothian Question have been announced.

The commission will be chaired by former House of Commons clerk Sir William McKay and is made up of non-partisan experts with “constitutional, legal and parliamentary expertise”.

The rest of the panel are senior parliamentary lawyer Sir Stephen Laws, his predecessor Sir Geoffrey Bowman; the UK’s former ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, as well as two academics, Professor Charlie Jeffrey, the head of social and political science at Edinburgh University, and Professor Yvonne Galligan, a researcher in gender politics at Queen’s University Belfast.

Ever since the 1970s the West Lothian Question has plagued parliamentary relations between the nations of the UK. First posed by Tam Dalyell, then MP for West Lothian, it queried how a Scottish MP at Westminster post-devolution could vote upon policies affecting English seats, when that same MP could not vote on the same issue affecting his or her own constituency because it would have been devolved to a Scottish Parliament.

Today, the question more commonly challenges how Scottish MPs (and Welsh and Northern Irish members) continue to vote upon English matters while MPs from England have lost the power to influence the same policies, now devolved to the nations. There have been previous attempts to remedy the situation – notably reducing the number of Scottish MPs – but the discrepancy became particularly stark under the last Labour government, where Labour’s MPs from Scottish constituencies enabled the passing of controversial legislation for England like foundation hospitals and tuition fees.

The commission has been tasked, by the original coalition agreement drawn up between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with recommending new ground rules for MPs on the Westminster Question. It will not cover financing, or the number of MPs: its purpose is rather to recommend a solution to the problem of who votes on parliamentary business covering England in Westminster that is under the auspices of the devolved assemblies elsewhere.

It seems unlikely that the commission will settle on all or nothing.

Burke’s dictum that “You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament” won’t soothe the sense of injustice after over a decade of Scottish MPs dictating domestic policy for England. Nor is Pete Wishart MP’s suggestion, speaking on the announcement of the commission members, that “There is only one clear answer to the West Lothian Question and that is for both Scotland and England to be fully in charge of their affairs by becoming independent and equal nations”, likely to gain the approval of the coalition government at the moment.

So with neither all MPs voting on everything, or no Scottish MPs at all being outcomes the commission is likely to reach, one possible solution is a ‘gentleman’s agreement’, whereby MPs from devolved nations refrain from voting on matters pertaining to England alone, as SNP MPs do at the moment. It was the aim of Conservative backbencher Harriet Baldwin’s Legislation (Territorial Extent) private member’s bill, which fell at its third reading last September, largely due to Ministers preferring the commission to be left to do its work.

I doubt MPs representing devolved constituencies will enjoy being relegated to not quite full Members of Parliament, meaning the restriction on voting will have to be made mandatory rather than voluntary. The archaic divisions in the House of Commons, coupled with the ways votes are called, could make implementing this a nightmare, although that indicates to me the need for more reform of the practices of parliament rather than an insurmountable obstacle in and of itself.

An alternative solution is federalism: an English chamber for discussing English issues. Sittings in Westminster Hall could change to focus on such legislation and only MPs from English constituencies would attend. It’s a reasonable option, soothing some of the issues West Lothian Question poses.

The Question of course only arises because of power moving closer to the people, or at least for people living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Restricting what legislation certain MPs can vote on might resolve the Question in neat terms of day-to-day House of Commons life, but it does little to right the fundamental imbalance in power and influence which drove Dalyell’s original point.  Each nation’s representatives legislating on issues affecting that nation alone naturally brings more power and influence to all people in the UK. Whether the commission on the West Lothian Question will recommend this solution, at a time when most parties at Westminster oppose constitutional changes like independence for Scotland, will be interesting to see.