Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, the effect of the amendment of my noble friend Lady Hayter would be that the voting age for the referendum would be lowered to 16. Two bases are put forward to support the amendment: first, that those who vote at between 16 and 18 in the referendum will be voting on the voting system that they will be using in a general election and therefore they should be allowed to contribute to choosing it; and, secondly and separately, that 16 is the right age for people to be able to vote in a general election and therefore they should be able to vote in the referendum. I do not regard the first basis as a strong argument. If we as a nation conclude that 18 is the right age to vote in a general election, 18 is also the right age to participate in the referendum. In those circumstances, two issues are raised by the amendment: first, should the voting age be 18, which should be addressed as a matter of principle; and, secondly, if the House were to conclude that 18 is the right voting age, are there practical reasons why people should not be entitled to vote in the referendum because, for example, it is too late, too complicated or too confusing? Let me address those two critical issues. First, should the voting age be 18 or 16? The Labour Party position is that there should be a free vote in relation to this. In my view—this is a personal view; I am not expressing the view of the Labour Party—the voting age should be 16 for the following four reasons. First, we allow people of 16 to do things that are only consistent with being an adult—joining the Army, marriage, paying taxes. In those circumstances it is quite difficult to see a basis on which not to allow them to vote. A possible basis could be that we think 16 year-olds are not mature enough to vote whereas 18 year-olds are. However, I do not think there is much evidence in relation to that. Secondly, as a matter of history, we have always taken a time to recognise that younger people than previously are capable of doing things. My noble friend Lady McDonagh made the point that in 1918, when we allowed women the vote for the first time, we said that they had to be 30 before they could vote. That was not a view about how mature or otherwise women were; it was society’s attitude to people. I suggest that the position now—just as it was in 1969, when Parliament rejected the view of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, who is no longer in his place, that the age should be 20—is that society is much more trusting of people than it was before. I think that 16 is an age at which people can vote. I speak as an expert in that I have a 17 year-old son and a 20 year-old daughter, one of whom is completely uninterested in politics and the other of whom is very interested. I do not put this forward on the ground that there is a clamour from 16 year-olds—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I have always been rather despondent about the lack of clamour and interest in politics—but that is not the issue: a judgment about maturity can be made by each Member of the House individually. One hears people say all the time, ““Of course they are mature enough”” or, ““Of course they are not mature enough””. I was struck—and this is my third point—by what my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws said. She had done some work on the Power commission and received evidence that people between 16 and 18 and their teachers were in favour of it. My fourth point is that this matter was debated in the other place; there was a vote and 200 Members of Parliament voted in favour of reducing the age from 18 to 16. So I, like the Liberal Democrat Party, am in favour of reducing the voting age from 18 to 16. I suspect it will happen at some stage and we should grasp the nettle as soon as possible. On the second issue—are their practical reasons which indicate that it should not be done at the referendum stage?—three points have been raised. First, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that there would be confusion. There is scope for confusion in relation to this but the people who are likely to be as little confused as anyone are those between 16 and 18 who know that all that he or she can do is vote in the referendum. So I find the confusion argument unpersuasive. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked how you will get 16 year-olds on the register by 5 May 2010. That point needs an answer. I was struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said in relation to that. He believes that it could be easily done because the Department for Work and Pensions has a list of all 16 year-olds because it is sending out national insurance numbers to them. I do not know whether that is the answer and I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says in relation to that. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, delivered a magisterial statement along the lines of, ““Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t put it into this Bill””. In my view, if the practical difficulties can be overcome—I shall listen to what the Minister says in relation to this—then, because I favour votes at 16, as do the Liberal Democrats, I will support the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. However, I make it clear that I do that in a personal capacity, not on behalf of my party which has indicated that there should be a free vote in relation to it. Let me make one final point. I regard this as a wholly appropriate issue to be debated in relation to the Bill. I find the suggestion that there is something wrong about debating this issue both offensive and wrong. I regard the debate that has taken place as good and worthwhile; I do not regard it as a worthless debate because no Tories took part, except for the noble Lord, Lord Newton. This is the kind of thing we should debate in relation to a Bill whose self-stated purpose is to reform the way in which we elect MPs.