Government of Wales Bill

My Lords, I reinforce the argument put forward by my noble friend on the Front Bench. There are three points to be deployed in respect of what has been said. First, as my noble friend said, this is the wrong Bill in which to incorporate such a provision. It should be a matter of public policy nationally and therefore should be the subject of national debate. Secondly, the amendment does not address the problem that the noble Lord mentioned. There is a question of how to involve young people in politics and there is a much wider discussion to be had about how to get people more engaged with political activity. But I do not think that this is the best route for that; it is a far more complex problem than this proposal suggests. The third problem with the amendment at this stage is that we have heard nothing new compared with what was raised in Grand Committee. We responded to the arguments put forward then, and there is no value-added element in the amendment at this stage. The noble Lord says that 16 year-olds can marry and can become boy soldiers. But that is not the case in the sense that they do not choose to be boy soldiers. It is the Army that chooses them, if they apply, and so there is a sifting process before they can exercise the benefits or positions that we permit them to have. On the other hand, voting is an absolute power that can be exercised directly. A significant qualitative distinction can be drawn between the two and therefore there is no clear argument for the proposal. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, was right: when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, one argument for doing so was that it would get young people more engaged in political activity. However, that has not been the consequence, and I do not see why it necessarily follows that further lowering the voting age to 16 would have the desired effect. Therefore, like my noble friend, I see no virtue in the amendment at this stage.