My Lords, this House will do itself a real disservice if it is not prepared to look at the example that is already taking place in Scotland. This happens to be exactly my message on this amendment, too, but my noble friend Lord Shipley made that point very well just now.
I start by reminding the House of these words:
“We have heard arguments for a change in the voting age. However, my concern is that that is part of a wider debate and it would not be appropriate—as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said—for any such change to be implemented in these quite specific circumstances. I have concerns as well about the administrative complexity of running an election in an area based on a register that would include 16 and 17 year-olds and running other council elections or referenda in the same area, quite likely on the same day, on a different basis with a different franchise. These are circumstances in which the risk of confusing the electorate is very real and this can only weaken, rather than strengthen, our local democracy”.—[Official Report, 22/6/15; col. 1464.]
I am sure that the Minister recognises those words, because they are hers. I compliment her not only on the wisdom of that contribution but on the fact that she used the word “referenda”, which sounds much nicer than referendums.
I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was giving an infallible answer to the Labour Front Bench about the franchise for the mayoral elections. It would indeed be confusing if 16 and 17 year-olds were allowed to vote for a mayor but not in the general or local elections that might well be taking place on that same day. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues entirely agree. We believe that all our fellow citizens should be enfranchised on the same basis for all local authority elections. Our amendment would deal neatly with all the Government’s very proper objections of practicality and potential confusion. On that basis, we can now move forward with the amendment by consensus.
Of course this will not satisfy all our fellow campaigners, since our ultimate objective is to expand the electorate in all elections in this way, but it would mean that we would have some logic, symmetry and standardisation in the continuing reform process. I have been campaigning for this extension of the franchise for many years. I have presented Private Member’s Bills in a succession of Sessions and in the current Parliament. They have enjoyed widespread support across the House. I am especially grateful for the consistent support of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on the Conservative Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on the Labour Benches and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, on the Cross Benches. Most recently, the Labour Party has officially endorsed this campaign and we are delighted that noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench have co-signed our amendment.
I admit that my original enthusiasm for this extension of the franchise was based on my own experience of the growing maturity of this age group, their increased responsibilities and their acknowledged fact that their citizenship course should lead inexorably to voter registration and then participation in the democratic
process. There is good reason to think that young people are more likely to register to vote, and to start a lifetime of actually voting, if they are still in the home environment. Once they leave home, whether for jobs or further education, they often become more elusive. All the other distractions kick in and their involvement in the life of their home area weakens or ceases altogether. Those in the 18-plus age group all too often disappear off the electoral scene.
Of course, on average, the first vote cast by a 16 year-old in a general election would probably take place when he or she is 18. Nevertheless, once registered at 16 the likelihood is that they will continue on the register, if only because the ERO will be responsible for keeping them there and there is an obligation, backed by a fine, to continue giving the regular information needed to stay there. As the well-respected Intergenerational Foundation has identified, there is a growing democratic deficit caused by the increasing longevity of the UK population, which is well represented in this House. Quite simply, the young citizens with the most long-term interest in the consequences of their vote are outnumbered by ever larger numbers of pensioner electors.
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Of course, since September last year we have had hard empirical evidence from Scotland. I hope at least on this issue that colleagues on all sides of the House will be prepared to accept that this is extremely relevant to the present Bill, because in Scotland the readiness among young people for taking on this vital civic function was demonstrably most impressive. The huge success of the extension of the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds in the referendum, negotiated by my right honourable friend Michael Moore but agreed to by the whole coalition Cabinet, was thought by some to be a step too far.
I suspect some guessed that Alex Salmond was characteristically so in favour of it was because he believed it was going to help him. The interesting thing is that it did not, not in the least. In fact, the very successful levels of registration among that age group, and then their actual vote, demonstrated that those young voters took the whole democratic opportunity very seriously. There has been lots of evidence of that from other Members of the House who witnessed what happened. It is also true that that 16 and 17 year-old cohort voted very responsibly. They voted in a more mature and balanced way than some of their elders, and the blandishments of the separatists fell on very deaf ears. It was middle aged men who actually went the way of the separatists, not the young voters.
In summary, the new young voters proved themselves to be better informed, more conscientious, even more mature than many of their elders. They blew to smithereens all those misgivings and dire warnings of the doomsayers. As a result, in the debates on the Wales Bill in your Lordships’ House last autumn, I successfully argued that a similar referendum in the Principality could not, rationally and in justice, exclude this age group. We should all be grateful to the then Minister and her then colleagues in government for accepting the logic of that case, and authorising the
Assembly so to provide. My understanding is that all parties in the Assembly have decided that they should do so.
Since the referendum in Scotland, the Parliament in Holyrood has moved on to ensure consistency in this extension of the franchise north of the border, again, with the assent of the UK Government. I understand that the Prime Minister here has accepted that there will have to be a vote in the Commons to the same effect in respect of the EU referendum. Given the support already indicated by some Conservative MPs, I hope that this will eventually happen on a free vote.
Meanwhile, in your Lordships’ House, any noble Lord who remains resistant to this logical change must ask themselves two simple questions. First, what evidence have they that the young people in this specific age group in England and Wales are less mature, less responsible and less well informed than their compatriots in Scotland? Secondly, if this is truly a United Kingdom, how can they justify discrimination in such an absolutely crucial matter as the electoral franchise, which will exclude young people south of the border? Having answered those questions, I challenge them to put on record their remaining objections to this reform. I beg to move.