Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I had not intended to speak since I did not hear the whole speech of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart—although I can anticipate what he said—but I decided that I would intervene in the light of what my noble friend Lord Lucas has just said. I will provide him with a bit of bad news and a bit of good news. The bad news is that he will not be surprised to know that I am going to argue against what he just said on votes at 16. The good news is that I support him on his particular amendment for lowering the qualifying age for candidature to public office. My reason for advancing that is simple. If you reduce the voting age to 16, you empower 16 year-olds; if you lower the qualifying age for candidature to 16, you empower electors. I am all for widening the choice of electors. Perhaps I may deal with the first amendment and then show how it leads into what my noble friend has argued. As we have heard, we have to make a choice on the appropriate age at which people can vote. I had one graduate student who argued recently that there should not be a voting age at all and that children of any age should be allowed to vote. I think we would regard that argument as unacceptable, not to say bizarre. However, if we take that view, then we are conceding that there has to be a cut-off point, an age point below which individuals do not yet have the qualities we require for exercising the vote. I take the view that, on balance, 18 is the appropriate age. We accord 18 year-olds rights and opportunities that are denied 16 year-olds. This applies in the financial world as well as the political; it applies to personal choice. We ascribe to 16 year-olds a vulnerability that we do not ascribe to 18 year-olds. I have made this point before. Sixteen year-olds formally require parental consent to marry and 16 year-olds in the military are not sent to the front line. In short, we do not treat 16 year-olds in quite the same way as we treat 18 year-olds. People may be maturing at a younger age, but we are not yet prepared to put 16 year-olds on a par with 18 year-olds. As I argued in Committee, when we accord rights to 16 year-olds, it is often in terms of rights that can be exercised usually only with the involvement of others. My noble friend has referred to the fact that, under the Company Law Reform Bill, 16 year-olds can become company directors. Some may indeed set up their own companies, but in most cases it will be other people deciding to appoint them to the board. Sixteen year-olds can apply to join the Armed Forces, but it is the forces that decide which particular individuals have the requisite qualities to be accepted. If we lower the qualifying age for candidature, which I will come on to, 16 year-olds may present themselves to the electors, but it will be the electors who decide whether to elect them to office. In short, we are not according rights that can be exercised directly by all 16 year-olds. It is an important distinction. When I developed it in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, described it as ““ingenious””—which appeared to mean he had not thought of it before. He argued that young people were able to make decisions about their sexual activity at 16, so they should be able to vote. There is, I suggest, a real difference between the two. One is, in effect, saying that we will not criminalise a certain activity that we can do little to prevent. The other concerns the exercise of a civic right where we can determine whether it is exercised or not. I turn briefly to the other argument usually advanced in favour of lowering the voting age. We are told that lowering the voting age will generate greater engagement with politics by teenagers. I wish to question that. I think it confuses consequences with causes. Young people are interested in politics, but they are primarily interested in issues. They are less interested, nowadays, in mainstream party political activity. Political parties have difficulty competing with other interests and distractions. Single-issue groups can absorb young people’s enthusiasms much more effectively than large, catch-all political parties. Re-engaging young people with mainstream party political activity is important, but I do not believe that that will be achieved by reducing the voting age. I fear that, in advocating reducing the voting age, we may be seeking easy solutions to a complex problem. There is no easy solution. People will vote when they have a reason to do so. Voting is more a consequence of engagement than a cause of it. By focusing on the voting age we are in danger of distracting attention from the real causes of why young people do not engage with mainstream political activity. I would remind your Lordships that Parliament lowered the voting age to 18 in 1969 and that that has not served to increase the engagement of young people with the political process. Voting among 18 year-olds has traditionally been low and it is getting lower. We also know that public opinion is against lowering the voting age. I readily concede that we should not be bound by public opinion. There may be compelling reasons on occasion for exercising leadership and going against what public opinion polls are telling us. However, to do that we need a clear and compelling reason. I do not believe that on this occasion such a reason exists. I do not believe that the case has been made for change. Rather, I do not accept that the case has been made for lowering the voting age. That brings me to my noble friend’s amendment, which caused me to rise. I have no objection at all to lowering the qualifying age for candidature. I believe in protecting and as much as possible widening the freedom of choice of electors. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, may recall, I indicated opposition to the dual mandate for Members of the European Parliament. It is also why I have spent the past 30 years arguing for lowering the qualifying age of candidature to 18. I am delighted that the provision is in the Bill. I have no objection to lowering it further. As I have argued, it empowers the electors. Electors should have as much freedom as possible in selecting whoever they wish to represent them. If they want to elect a 16 year-old, that is entirely up to them. In practice, I suspect that the utility of the amendment will be to political parties in recruiting flag-waving candidates in local elections and enabling some young people to gain political experience, but it is the principle that is important. For the reasons I have given, there is no need for the voting age to be in alignment with the qualifying age for candidature. They are separate, which is why we have normally dealt with them in separate legislation. I am not persuaded of the case for Amendment No. 53, but I see no reason at all not to support Amendment No. 54. There is an issue as to who should form the electorate, but those who are electors should have as much freedom of choice as possible.