Wales Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, Amendment 2, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas, seeks to enable the National Assembly to extend the right to vote to 16 and 17 year-olds. A number of amendments have been grouped with this one and they point in the same direction. If the amendment is passed, the Assembly would be empowered to determine whether those aged 16 and over could participate in Assembly elections, Welsh local authority elections and any Welsh referendum that may be held. Subsection (3) of the proposed new clause ensures that no such change could occur unless,

“two-thirds of the Assembly members participating in the voting”,

support the provision. As might be expected, the amendment was drawn up partly in response to the decision of the Scottish Government to empower 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the September referendum, and having noted the outstanding take-up of that right in Scotland. By polling day, 109,533 16 and 17 year-olds had registered to vote in the Scottish referendum. The impact of that referendum has understandably been felt keenly in our debates on the legislation before us. Whatever people’s politics may be, I hope that I would be correct in asserting that the decision to allow those aged 16 and over to vote in that referendum was commendable and opened up democracy for a new generation. The sheer level of engagement in the referendum was staggering, and if we in Wales and indeed across the United Kingdom can try to emulate such engagement in politics and public life, that will be a tremendous success.

In terms of principle, I believe that there should be no taxation without representation. Young people aged 16 and 17 can have left school, be working and thus paying tax. They should have the right to vote on their representation in Parliament and the Assemblies which determine any such taxation. In 2012, the National Assembly for Wales voted in favour of lowering the voting age to 16, but at present, of course, it does not have the necessary powers to implement that decision. Amendment 2 would give it the powers to do so.

Voting at16 is common practice in many European countries, including Austria, Germany and Norway, as well as in Latin America, in countries such as Argentina and Brazil. I would like to see Wales lead the way in this matter, especially as Assembly Members have already signalled their intention to introduce such measures. My party, Plaid Cymru, is committed to this, and I know that other parties in Wales are also committed.

The other amendments in this group have the same objective. I realise that if the amendment is carried, the Government might want to tidy it up in another place, although the advice that we were given was that the wording was both effective and clear. At the very least, I hope that the Government will realise that there is a widespread wish for this to happen and will not stand in the way of such progress. I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendments in my name in this group—Amendments 3 and 19—I can be relatively brief, since I proposed similar improvements to the Bill in Committee, as those who participated then will recall. The principle of including 16 and 17 year-old fellow citizens in the franchise is now an accepted fact. All parties in this Parliament have endorsed this change. Contrary to the doom mongers’ forecasts, a very high proportion of this age group registered to vote in the Scottish independence referendum—nearly 110,000, which is a remarkable figure. Incidentally, I received the Answer to a Question today indicating that nearly 500,000 young voters in the age group 16 to 18 are currently registering under the new system, so this is a success story under IER.

On 18 September, a very large percentage of those—thousands of them—voted in the actual referendum. In the words of the Intergenerational Foundation newsletter,

“16 to 24 year-olds actually favoured staying in the union by a small margin (35% to 33%) ... the idea that the vision of an independent Scotland would appeal to an iconoclastic streak among the youngest members of the electorate appears to have been misplaced”.

That is putting it mildly. Curiously, it seems that middle-aged men, not women, were the most influenced by the fantastical claims of the separatists. Therefore, if we were to exclude the less mature, the less well informed and the less rational, we might wonder just which cohort we should be excluding from the franchise. It is not the most young; it is others.

There was another testimony from the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke:

“Does the Minister agree that the quality of debate among 16 and 17 year-olds during the referendum debate was astonishing? I admit I was wrong; I was one of the people who thought that it was wrong for the franchise to reduce the voting age to 16. I was comprehensively proved wrong. I heard some of the best debates I have ever heard in a lifetime in politics from 16 and 17 year-olds”.—[Official Report, 16/10/14; col. 295.]

My noble friend Lord Cormack, whom I am pleased to see in his place, made a similar confession on 29 October:

“My eldest grand-daughter voted at the age of 16. I do not necessarily agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, on that, but I know that my grand-daughter and all her classmates took this matter exceptionally seriously”.—[Official Report, 29/10/14; col. 1261.]

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Of course they did, and I will say something about that if I have an opportunity later. However, I did not, do not, and do not think I ever will, agree with extending the franchise to 16 year-olds universally.

[Lord Tyler]

My noble friend is the personification of constitutional rectitude, so I will not be surprised if he finds my argument absolutely conclusive, that having extended the franchise to this particular group in one part of our United Kingdom, we should look at the relevance of that to other parts. That brings us to the heart of the matter: it is surely unthinkable that this hugely successful precedent could or should be simply overturned. I ask my noble friend to think about this: if my brother, long-since resident in Wales, had a grand- daughter aged 16, and there was a similar referendum vote there, which Member of your Lordships’ House—including my noble friend—would deny her the franchise? Which noble Lords would dare to suggest that Welsh young people are less mature, less well informed or less rational than their Scottish counterparts?

Anyone who still doubts that we have moved on—that the dam has broken—should read the excellent Youth Select Committee report, published last week, entitled, Lowering the Voting Age to 16. With remorseless logic, the committee examined all the familiar arguments and then arrived at this clear conclusion:

“We recommend that the Government introduce legislation to set the age at which people become eligible to vote in all elections at 16”.

As the Select Committee makes abundantly clear, we are no longer discussing theories. Any of my Conservative friends who retain misgivings must now accept the facts: the time to resist on principle has passed. The precedent is unanswerable.

My two amendments deliberately distinguish between elections to the Welsh Assembly, on the one hand, and any future significant referendum in Wales on the other. The latter, of course, is even more relevant after the Scottish experience than the former.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My noble friend is making a very strong argument in principle for 16 year-olds benefiting from the franchise, but why not extend that to allowing them to stand for election? Why not extend it to the general election? Where is the principle here that he is applying?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I do not know if my noble friend heard some of the discussion earlier about the piecemeal way in which we are attacking these problems. It would just be inappropriate—as he will know, as a very distinguished parliamentarian—for me to try to insert this into this particular Bill, so I am not trying to do so.

Since Committee, the Minister and her officials have responded most helpfully and with continuous attention to the points I raised then. She has been fully committed to the positive answers that she gave to me and the rest of your Lordships’ House, and I am enormously grateful to her. I note that in Amendment 2, noble Lords opposite have taken up a suggestion I made in Committee, that the referendum issue should be treated on a similar basis as that in Scotland. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There is clearly a strong case for the decision to be taken in the Assembly, but we believe that a strong steer from this Parliament is appropriate on something as crucial as the franchise.

Here I would like to refer to the similar exercise that took place before the Scottish referendum. In the Edinburgh agreement, in paragraph 10, there was this statement:

“The Scottish Government’s consultation on the referendum also set out a proposal for extending the franchise to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the referendum. It will be for the Scottish Government to decide whether to propose extending the franchise for this referendum and how that should be done. It will be for the Scottish Parliament to approve the referendum franchise, as it would be for any referendum on devolved matters”.

That was not the end of the matter, and I would be grateful if the Minister would consider this point, because there was then a vote on the Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Bill in the Scottish Parliament on 27 June. There was a vote, and the Deputy Presiding Officer told the Parliament that the result of the Division was: 103 for; 12 against; abstentions, nought. I think we should record abstentions in this House, because abstentions would usually outnumber those attending, but that is a different matter for a different occasion. The reason for mentioning that is, of course, that that was a simple majority in the Scottish Parliament, and I would like the Minister to give some consideration to that in her response to this group of amendments.

The main point, which I hope the Minister will now accept, is that the case in principle is unanswerable. I hope that she therefore will be able to give us a very positive response to these amendments today. I hope that, if we are not able to conclude the matter today, we can do so before the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House.

It would be surely be constitutionally improper, in what has now been reinforced as a United Kingdom, to differentiate between the basic civic rights and duties of citizens here, simply on the basis of their area of residence. If, as I believe, the franchise is the foundation stone of our representative democracy, then discrimination on that basis must surely be totally unacceptable.

As a footnote, on 11 November 2014, we can recall that young men and women gave their all in two world wars to secure true representative democracy. This is just one more step to advance that cause and prevent unfair discrimination between our fellow citizens.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord is absolutely right about the significance of grants that I hope would continue to be made from the Government in London—the Government of the United Kingdom. I have some anxieties that the conferral of tax-raising powers on Wales may be the prelude to a rather drastic withdrawal of redistributive taxation and grant giving across the United Kingdom as a whole. The noble Lord is quite right that these are very difficult issues. I acknowledge the force of what he said on that particular point.

Where I have a reservation about this group of amendments is that they seem to envisage perpetual referendums. There is a reference in all of them to referendums. Personally, I very much hope that the people of Wales will not reach a point in their politics when they conduct a referendum on independence for Wales. I do not want to contemplate that. Nor would it be a good idea if the people of Wales developed the habit of conducting a series of referendums on ad hoc issues. To the extent that we resort to referendums to solve tricky issues in our domestic politics, we tend to undermine representative government and the Parliament of Westminster. I will just finish the point and then give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. We would equally undermine the authority of the Welsh Assembly if it became a habit or reflex to have referendums, however populist that might be.

[Lord Tyler]

I just wanted to draw the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that there is of course a very considerable section of the Bill dealing precisely with referendums—or referenda, as I prefer to describe them. The noble Lord will have to accept that these are entirely relevant to the Bill and therefore a very likely prospect in Wales at some point.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

They are relevant to the Bill but the fact that the Bill deals with referendums does not make referendums any more desirable. On the question of gerunds and gerundives, I hope that there is perhaps a noble Lord in the House who can resolve this issue between the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and myself, and tell us whether they should be referred to as referenda or referendums.

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In answer to my noble friend, I say that we are indeed legislating here for Wales, and I am sorry that the approach has been piecemeal. Of course the Bill will go through, but with as few additions as possible, I hope.

[Lord Tyler]

Does my noble friend not accept that, if there is to be a comprehensive exercise involving a royal commission, a convention or whatever, it will take quite a long time? I think that he and I will both wish to make representations to it, and on past form the whole process could take several years. Would my noble friend be kind enough to address the question that I put specifically to him and to others in the House: if there is to be any sort of referendum, in the terms of the Bill, within that period, is he prepared to deny to my notional great-niece in Wales what his granddaughter experienced, enjoyed and took such good advantage of in Scotland? During the period before the comprehensive exercise is complete, is a 16 year-old in Wales to be denied what has been permitted to 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland?

[Lord Cormack]

I do not favour votes at 16, so I would be hypocritical in the extreme if I said, “Yes, of course”, to the idea. I think that we made a mistake in Scotland, and the whole thing needs looking at very carefully. If, as a result of that careful deliberation, the consensus solution—as my noble friend Lord Crickhowell puts it—is votes at 16, so be it. But I do not wish to move further in that direction at the moment. I do not think that is a necessary part of this Bill; that is a further answer to my noble friend Lord Wigley. I therefore hope that the Government will resist these amendments, however persuasively they have been put by people for whom I have real regard and affection.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, if I had had the vote at 16, I would have voted Labour, but I grew out of it. I grew up and I grew out of it. The experience of the Scottish referendum was remarkable. I guess that those on my Front Bench probably want me to make a short speech. If I was to make a short speech, I would say: “I told you so”.

When we agreed that the Scottish Parliament could decide the franchise for the referendum, we gave up the argument. It became impossible to resist the argument for referenda in other devolved areas. We did that, I believe, without giving the matter proper consideration. We have not at any stage had a debate on the franchise. I asked my noble friend Lord Tyler whether he would extend it to general elections and candidates, and he gave me a politician’s answer. He did not answer the point; he said that it is not relevant to the Bill; but it is, it seems to me. If we are to give 16 year-olds the vote, why should we not allow them to stand as candidates for the bodies for which they have the vote as councillors or Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly? Why should we limit that?

Other issues arise. Why do you have the right in Scotland to decide to break up the United Kingdom but not the right to buy a packet of cigarettes? We need to have a considered debate about what rights should apply to 16 year-olds. My noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Cormack emphasised earlier today that you cannot proceed with constitutional reform on a piecemeal basis; it must be looked at in the round.

I am becoming desperately alarmed at the way in which the political parties are now engaged in a competition to use constitutional reform to get votes. That is disastrous. I was brought up in a tradition where constitutional reform was something which you did not do unless you had consensus, unless you could show precedent and unless you had taken a considerable time to consider the implications and unintended consequences, which always follow from constitutional reform. I am very much in the camp of the Labour Party in wanting a constitutional convention, a royal commission, or something to look at all the issues in the round, recognise how far we have gone so far and do something about it.

We are engaged in highly dangerous stuff. If you do not believe that, look at the opinion polls in Scotland today. We have just won a referendum. We won the argument decisively. What has happened? The unionist parties have seen their support slump. According to the opinion polls, Labour is looking at having only four seats in Scotland. The Tories have our lowest ever recorded share of the vote—that is saying something—at 8% to 10%, and the nationalists are romping ahead. Why? Because of that last-minute promise made of extra powers, not defined, and the consequences that have followed from that. We are in grave danger of dismantling our British constitution like some fine clock, taking out the wheels and finding that we no longer know the time of day.

[Lord Tyler]

Perhaps I may take my noble friend back from his party-political forays to the issue of principle, with which I have sympathy. He said that two things were essential: consensus and precedent. Does he accept that there was consensus? The Prime Minister led the consensus that the Scottish Parliament should be permitted to include the franchise for 16 and 17 year-olds. He may not agree, but there was one between the parties. Secondly, the noble Lord must accept that there is now a precedent. Young people in Scotland have exercised the vote in a referendum. We know that the commission—or conventions or whatever it may be—that will look at the constitution in the round will take some time. In that intervening period, does he not recognise that for young people of comparable age in Wales, in a comparable referendum, the precedent is established?

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Wales Office (Baroness Randerson) (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 3 and 19, in the name of my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Thomas of Gresford, and Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Morgan, would reduce the age for voting in an election to the National Assembly for Wales and any referendum held under Clause 12 from the age of 18 to 16. Amendment 2, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, would devolve to the Assembly the power to lower the voting age to 16 for elections to the Assembly and local authorities, as well as referenda.

The debate around whether the voting age should be lowered has of course been given fresh focus by the independence referendum in Scotland. As many noble Lords have made clear in their remarks here today, that was the first major poll in the UK in which 16 and 17 year-olds were able to participate. Whether your Lordships regard that as a mistake or not, it was a very successful mistake. Taken as an exercise in civic engagement, it was extraordinarily successful. As a long-time supporter of lowering the voting age, I very much welcome the fact that so many young people took advantage of the opportunity offered to them to have their say on that vital question on the future of Scotland. I share the joy of my noble friend Lord Tyler that so many of them appear to have voted to preserve the union.

However, I recognise that lowering the voting age is in itself no magic bullet. For example, in the Isle of Man the voting age is 16 and it still suffers from very low turnout rates. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that children do not grow up overnight and that there is a period of transition when young people are trying out their wings, if I may put it that way, in which they need support and proper civic education. Yet it can work well, as the Scottish situation has proved.

The Government have recognised the strength of feeling in the House, expressed in Committee and by a number of noble Lords this afternoon, that 16 and 17 year-olds in Wales should have the same opportunity to participate in the income tax referendum that their counterparts enjoyed in Scotland. The ability of 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in that referendum represented the will of the Scottish Parliament, answerable to the Scottish people. It was not a decision made in Westminster, as Amendments 2, 3 and 19 would be. That is why I can today commit that, at Third Reading, the Government will bring forward amendments to enable the Assembly to decide whether 16 and 17 year-olds should vote in the income tax referendum, whenever it is held.

My noble friend Lord Tyler referred to the vote of 103 to 12 in the Scottish Parliament; noble Lords can do no better than to read the debate on this issue in the Assembly record of 24 September to gain an impression of how the Assembly would vote on this issue. There is overwhelming support in the Assembly for votes at 16.

[Lord Tyler]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend and to her officials for all the discussions that have taken place since Committee. I want to ask her one particular question. She referred to the Scottish Parliament decision which I read. The Scottish Parliament does not have the same internal regulations about the nature of the vote. It was a simple majority. Am I right in thinking that in the Welsh Assembly there is a precedent for decisions of this sort to require a two-thirds majority? That is an important difference. In giving a lead to the Assembly at Third Reading, as she is proposing, we may want to consider that matter.

[Baroness Randerson]

I may stand to be corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, whose experience of Assembly Standing Orders is much more recent than mine, but I believe that the two-thirds majority would still stand on issues such as this. I can see that he is nodding so there would be a requirement for a two-thirds majority, which is an Assembly Standing Order requirement.

I think we would all agree that this is a significant step in terms of Welsh devolution.

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[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, it is 94 years since the voice of the bishops in Wales has been heard in this House but, as my noble Lord Roberts implied, I thought it right to consult the Church in Wales, and the Archbishop of Wales in particular, about the amendments, which seem to me to have a great deal of merit, to see whether their voice might be heard today indirectly, as it were. As a result, I can say that the Archbishop of Wales has asked me to convey to your Lordships’ House that the bishops of the Church in Wales are very supportive of the amendments. Indeed, I understand that they also support the extension of the franchise, as was proposed and discussed earlier, but I chose to concentrate my consultations on these amendments.

As are Members of your Lordships’ House, the bishops in Wales are very conscious of and concerned about low levels of political engagement in Wales. The Church in Wales has been working hard on its own structures to increase participation in its governance, especially among young people, so it is very glad to give its backing to the amendments as practical steps in national government both to encourage a higher level of voter registration, especially among young people, and, as a necessary corollary, to further political education in the schools and colleges of Wales.

On a more personal level, I believe that the bishops of the Church in Wales are right to support the amendments. I hope that what is done in Wales will model ways forward—somewhat along the lines described by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth—as laboratories of best electoral processes for the whole of the UK, as was underlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We need ways to improve levels of voter registration and to educate and, moreover, inspire young people in the responsibilities and opportunities of political engagement.

The amendments seem to me to be of great help in hooking young people into the political process, so that when they are entitled, they are primed and ready to go.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am delighted to be a cosignatory of Amendment 15 in the name of my noble friend and others. I want to take issue to a very limited extent with both my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who I think are being slightly too pessimistic about the level of interest of young people in registration. The Scottish example is wonderful in that respect, but it is also true that Bite the Ballot, to which reference has been made, has made some real progress this year. It has been by making sure that it there is peer-to-peer encouragement—I do not mean Peer in the sense of Members in this House, I mean the real reference of young people to young people of the issues that are at stake. I have today had an Answer to a Question from the Minister for the Cabinet Office. My Question was:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to improve electoral registration rates among those attaining the age of 18”.

I will not read the whole Answer because it is substantial, but just two important paragraphs:

“To support the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, the Government has invested £4.2 million in 2013/14 shared across every ERO in Great Britain and 5 national organisations to support the costs of activities aimed at increasing the rate of voter registration.

The Government has also introduced online registration in Great Britain. As of midnight 28 October, 478,177 16-24 year olds had registered online”.—[Official Report, 10/11/14; col. WA 4.]

In a relatively short period this is a success story. I do not think that we should be too depressed or pessimistic about this problem.

As the Minister will know, I have sat for some time on a small cross-party informal group advising the Electoral Commission. Therefore I take very seriously indeed the guidance it gives us. In its note on this part of the Bill and the amendments to the Bill, it says:

“We strongly support the principle of EROs—

that is obviously electoral registration officers—

“visiting schools and talking to young people about democratic participation. This should form part of their local strategies to promote electoral registration generally and to target those groups who are least likely to be registered to vote … All 22 EROs in Wales have specific plans in place highlighting how they will work with schools and the further education sector in order to engage with attainers and young people”.

I think there is a consensus across the House—certainly among all those who have already spoken—that this is an important issue. Maybe, however, the concern some of us have is whether it is appropriate for statute. Is it appropriate to be in the Bill to this extent and in this detail? Hence the very brief amendment that I endorse.

I accept, however, that my noble friend the Minister may well feel that the Government are already committed —in supporting the Electoral Commission financially, and in terms of guidance and instruction where that is appropriate—to make sure that what we are seeking will happen with or without this amendment. I therefore look forward with interest to hearing how the Minister feels that we can best achieve the objectives which I think we share throughout the House.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, is it not a principal purpose of education to enable young people to think for themselves, to form views on informed and discerning bases and to take good decisions? In no sphere of life is this more important than democracy. Education should be a preparation for democracy. That is why I support these amendments, and very particularly Amendment 14.