If pro-hunt campaigners think English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) legislation will help them, they are wrong.
Just an hour after the Government announced it would be postponing the vote on amending the foxhunting ban, Leader of the Commons Chris Grayling published more details on EVEL.
The common thought is the changes would stop Scottish MPs voting on English only, or English and Welsh only, matters.
However, that is not what is being proposed.
What is actually being considered is that English MPs would have a veto on laws which only affect England.
The most common example used is when Labour introduced tuition fees in England, and was able to rely on its sizeable number of Scottish MPs to get the law through the Commons.
If a majority of English MPs had voted against the plans, then it wouldn’t have made it into law.
Therefore, the legislation has a purpose when the Government is relying on the support of MPs from Scotland.
The legislative process with EVEL
But the current Government is not in that position. The Tories have just one Scottish MP - David Mundell who represents Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. The Tory majority is based on its success in England.
What the EVEL changes actually mean is the government would have to secure two majorities on English-only matters.
First, from English MPs, and secondly, from the House of Commons as a whole.
An extract from today's announcement by Chris Grayling
So in the fox hunting example, even it was decreed as an ‘English only’ matter, the SNP could still defeat any changes at the ‘second majority’ stage.
EVEL is only useful if the Government of the day is being propped up by a large number of Scottish MPs. If it is not, then it is effectively meaningless.
When these proposals were first put forward by William Hague in the wake of the Scottish referendum, many Tories did not think the plans went far enough, including influential backbencher Bernard Jenkin.
The real reason why David Cameron will not get his way on changes to the foxhunting law is that a number of his own MPs, including Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, are set to vote against them.
These anti-hunt Tories are the ones keeping the return of foxhunting at bay – not the SNP.