I also enjoy my noble friend’s speeches, whether or not I agree with them, because he takes us back to Wolf Hall and other Tudor examples of the behaviour of Governments. In this case, we can look
at more recent history. It is not true, as was implied by the Constitution Committee and my noble friends, that this matter suddenly appeared on the political agenda; that is simply not true.
I shall take just one example. I am amazed that no one else in your Lordships’ House seems to have read the excellent Youth Select Committee report from last autumn, published soon after the example that we were given in Scotland, which was very properly given some extra credence by Mr Speaker in the other place. In that report, the very cogent argument for reducing the age of the franchise to 16 is set out in great detail, answering a lot of the points that have already been made in your Lordships’ House. Also, as my noble friend Lord Purvis said, at the end of their secondary school experience with citizenship, in the parental circumstances that they are likely still to be in, young people are much more engaged in the issues that affect them than they are when they go off to work or higher education at 17 or 18. That is why, interestingly, the turnout in Scotland was better among the 16 and 17 year-olds than it was among the 18 to 24 year-olds. Not only that, and I do not know whether everyone in your Lordships’ House will agree with this, but they also voted by a majority to remain in the United Kingdom, while middle-aged men—I emphasise “men”—voted by a majority to separate. It was young people who saw with maturity the advantages of remaining in the United Kingdom.
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My point is that if the merits of this order are to be considered carefully, we have to think about the implications for other parts of the United Kingdom. Already, as my noble friend has mentioned, as a result of an amendment that I tabled to the Wales Bill before Christmas, we have made some advances there. The Assembly in Cardiff will have the opportunity to match the change in the franchise that has been demonstrated in Scotland. Similarly, since then, not only has there been this unanimity in Holyrood that has been referred to, but the Prime Minister himself has said, I think, that although he does not personally feel that the time is right for this change, he accepts that there will have to be a vote in due course on extending this further. I think he said that he anticipates there being a free vote in the House of Commons.
Incidentally, there has been a free vote in the House of Commons on this issue, on a Back-Bench day, and there was a majority for making the change. My noble friend Lord Purvis also pointed out that the Labour Party is now committed to this change and has adopted the Liberal Democrat policy. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, is looking so enthusiastic about this change: it is obviously a step in the right direction.
Earlier, I heard my noble friend saying that he became a member of the Liberal party aged 16. I can tell him that on my 16th birthday, which coincided with the then Government sending RAF planes to bomb Suez—which, for international reasons, I thought was outrageous—I decided that I was a Liberal. I fear that noble Lords may think that this is an unfortunate coincidence and it would be much better if I had stayed completely unaware.
It is true that there has been extensive discussion of this issue. It goes back many years. In the past two years—nearly three years now—there has been a steady evolution of thinking about this. It goes back to the Edinburgh agreement in 2012, when my right honourable friend Michael Moore agreed that this was a sensible way forward. There has been, as has been said several times already today, the clear example of what happened in Scotland on 18 September last year. There has been the discussion of this issue in the Scottish Parliament. There is already some consensus in the Welsh Assembly on this issue. I think I am right in saying that the Conservative leader in Holyrood has accepted the logic of this case.
On the critical point, however, I am not sure that I am quite on the same wavelength as the Government. It seems to me to be absolutely classically so—I am disappointed that the Constitution Committee did not pick this up—that if, as I was just arguing, the franchise is still the bedrock of our representative democracy, we cannot have geographical discrimination between different parts of the United Kingdom. I do not think that it has been mentioned today, but reference has been made in this context to the evolution of women’s suffrage. Yes, of course it was a gradual process, but at no stage was it suggested that women in Scotland were more mature, more ready for full citizenship than women in other parts of the United Kingdom. We have to look at this as a United Kingdom issue.
Therefore, I think the Constitution Committee is right to say that ad hocery is not appropriate here. Incidentally, I hear from some of the same sources that ad hocery is just what we want as far as the constitution of your Lordships’ House is concerned: we do not want any big change, do we? We want a little ad hocery every generation or so. Nevertheless, on this issue, it is essential that we think through the consequences. There, I think the Constitution Committee has a point.
My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness said in his introduction to this debate that he anticipated, as, indeed, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland anticipated, that this process is now unstoppable. I say: godspeed.