Voting Age

Debate between Philip Davies and Fabian Hamilton

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

When the hon. Gentleman was in those schools, telling the young people how well educated, well informed and intelligent they were, and how they should be able to make all those decisions, did he also explain to them why he did not think they were intelligent, informed or educated enough to make a decision on whether or not to smoke?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I share the view of the hon. Member for Bristol West that there is not one age for everything. We allow our young people to drive at the age of 17, but not to vote at that age. Why are they deemed old enough to be in charge of a vehicle that could be a lethal weapon, but not old enough to vote? Why do we allow them to join the Army or get married at the age of 16, but not allow them to vote? There are different ages for different activities in our society. Also, protecting young people from the pervasive influence of the dangerous habit of smoking—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) wish to intervene on me again?

[Philip Davies]

It was the hon. Gentleman who was leading with his chin and telling us how well informed and well educated those young people were. They are either well informed and well educated, or they are not. If they are so well informed and well educated, surely they are more than capable of making a decision on smoking, too. We cannot say that they are well informed in one area but absolutely clueless about everything else.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I do not believe that they are clueless; a lot of young people are well informed. The issue of smoking and health is different from marriage, driving a vehicle or fighting for one’s country.

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[Fabian Hamilton]

I would answer my hon. Friend—and he is a very good friend—by saying that we have to make a judgment, and that young people have to demonstrate whether or not they are able to make the sorts of judgments we expect in their choice of who they want to represent them. In my experience—and, I am sure, in my hon. Friend’s experience—a 14-year-old does not quite have the maturity or ability to make that judgment, whereas most 16-year-olds certainly do. The point was well made by the hon. Member for Bristol West—we will not have loads of 16-year-olds suddenly heading off towards the polling station when they become 16. In fact, the young people are more likely to be 17 or 18 when the election comes about—unless it is in local government, as many of our towns and cities have annual elections three out of four years.

The age may well come down to 14 as young people get more mature, but we are debating votes at 16. In that case, I think, as many hon. Members and most of my party colleagues think, that from 16 onwards young people are mature enough, bright enough and educated enough to make those judgments. [Interruption.] That is my view; I know my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has a different view.

Let me move on to the issue of school councils. I do not know whether many Members have attended elections for school councils or spoken to any school councils, but I have been invited, as I know have many Members, to meet them—including often to primary school councils, too. [Interruption.] I am staggered—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Shipley wants to keep on making comments from a sedentary position, I will allow him to make an intervention. Otherwise,I would be grateful if he stopped.

[Philip Davies]

If the hon. Gentleman is using school councils as an argument for extending the vote, he should remember that he himself said that they take place at primary school level, too. By that ruthless logic, I presume he is now going to advocate giving primary school children the vote.

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[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I will do my best to stick to that time scale, Mr. Speaker, because I am anxious for other Members to have an opportunity to speak.

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). As she knows, I admire her greatly. On this particular issue, however, I am afraid that I cannot support her.

It is a topsy-turvy world that we live in, Mr. Speaker. Today I found myself agreeing with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—I had thought it very unlikely that I would ever find a subject on which I could agree with him, but I am delighted that we have finally settled on at least one—and also listening to members of the party of the nanny state on the Opposition Benches giving lecture after lecture about the benefits of giving people responsibility for making decisions about their own lives.

I have been in the House for eight years. For eight years I have sat opposite Labour Members who have lectured us on how we cannot let people take responsibility for their own lives. People cannot make decisions for themselves; the state must intervene and make the decisions for them. Yet, today of all days, we have been told that it is absolutely crucial for us to give people responsibility for their own lives and trust them to make decisions. I hope that the same pattern will be followed when it comes to other issues, and that from now on the Labour party will adopt the approach of trusting not just 16 and 17-year-olds but people over the age of 18 to make their own decisions on how they live their lives. If that is the only consequence of today’s debate, it will have been worth while.

I tried to jot down the arguments that I heard today for reducing the voting age to 16. A common theme emerged: Members had visited local schools, had spoken to 16 and 17-year-olds at colleges and in sixth forms, and had been so impressed by the quality of the questions that were asked and the opinions that were formed that they concluded that it was time to give those young people the vote.

[Fabian Hamilton]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I would normally, but I want everyone to have an opportunity to speak.

Let me say from the word go that I spend a lot of time visiting schools in my constituency—primary and secondary schools—and that, in my view, some of the most challenging questions that a Member of Parliament is ever asked are asked by people who are at school. I have thoroughly enjoyed debates with very talented people of all ages in schools, some of whom have been greatly interested in politics and some of whom have had no interest in it at all.

As with so many other issues, the voting age is always a matter of judgment. There will always be exceptions to rules. There will always be 16-year-olds who have the deep interest and maturity that would enable them to make informed decisions when voting, and there will always be 18-year-olds who do not possess the same level of maturity and interest. There will always be anomalies of that kind. This debate is not about individual cases; it is about what we think should be the general principle. That is the judgment that must be made.

In my view, the argument that many 16 and 17-year-olds ask very intelligent, very searching questions and are able to engage in a sensible debate is not a sufficient argument for giving them the vote. In fact, I would contend that the most searching questions that I am asked as a Member of Parliament come from kids at primary school rather than from 16 and 17-year-olds. Primary school children tend to throw questions at us that we would never have expected, and which we have never heard of or thought of before. They catch us totally off guard.