Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Fuller

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I am calming down. This group, in which most of the amendments are mine, is related to the third group but there is more detail this time. I am trying to put your Lordships’ House in the shoes of the 16 year-old casting their first vote on their birthday. Statistically, 1,917 16 year-olds are likely to be able to go down to the polling station and vote on their birthday, and I am thinking of them. This cohort will not have voted before. There is a serious need for neutral information about the mechanics of the election for those whom the Government want to vote for the first time.

My Amendment 34, which goes with the rub of the Bill, proposes that the Electoral Commission is given a special statutory duty to design media that appeals to the inexperienced cohort about how elections work, how you prove your identity, how not to invalidate the ballot paper by marking it with your initials—a mistake I once made as a youngster—and so forth. I spoke to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, earlier; times have changed since we were young. We were brought up on “Play School”, “Blue Peter”, “Bagpuss”, “Crackerjack!”, and Kate Adie and Alastair Burnet reading the news. Nowadays, news is consumed in snippets on social media, phones and tablets—at home or on the go—and youngsters are not interested in what the BBC says any more, still less than the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. It is important that the information produced by the Electoral Commission is not just produced in an age-relevant manner but distributed appropriately, and that means online.

That brings me to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 and the amended Online Safety Act, which give the Secretary of State powers to restrict access to social media for those under 16. We understand the reasons, but sometimes legislation requires a trade-off to prevent a greater harm. The Act gives powers to segment that ban by age and material, so I am not proposing something revolutionary that would nullify Parliament’s decision. I want to use the powers in the Act to carve out an exception for people under 16 who are, importantly, registered to vote, allowing them access to election-related materials on social media in advance of an election. This would include those who will vote on their 16th birthday, who would otherwise have been excluded up to and including the day before.

How can these children be expected to form a view of whom to support at the ballot box if they cannot see in advance the full gamut of election materials through social channels, including practical information from the Electoral Commission about how the mechanics of the vote work? My probing amendment seeks to bring into focus the obvious dichotomy that, on the one hand, youngsters are mature enough to play their part in choosing the governance of our nation but, on the other, they are so immature that they need to be shielded from the messages on which that election depends. This is the consequence of the muddle that this Government have created in blurring the boundary between childhood and adulthood.

My amendment says that a social media ban that keeps youngsters away from the candidates, and more particularly from the Electoral Commission’s information, would be the greater harm, by undermining the democratic foundations of our nation. Technically, Section 214A of the Online Safety Act 2023, added by Section 70 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, would be amended—if you are registered to vote, you would be able to join the social media revolution. The Government say that they want to improve young people’s engagement in democracy; I cannot think of a stronger recruiting sergeant for democratic involvement than incentivising youngsters who are preparing to vote by giving them access to the socials. That is why I suggested in group 3 on Monday that the age of voter registration should be set at 15, not 14, partly because 15 would be an appropriate age as those who had registered could access social media. I am sure that we will return to this on Report.

However, there is another second-order consequence of my proposal. We currently have no definitive method to authenticate somebody under 16 proving their age for the purposes of the Online Safety Act. Ofcom is getting in a right muddle, trying to think of four different ways by which youngsters can prove their age. If they were registered to vote, they would be on the database and that would be enough, so there are some other areas in which this would enable internet service providers to fulfil an identity and age check. At a stroke, it would lift a weight from parents, who are subject to intolerable peer pressure from their children and their friends to let them have a social account when we know that, if they are too young, it is just not in their best interests. Amendment 39 would strengthen the hand of parents and the current system of age verification.

Amendments 35 to 37 cover the schools angle, which was covered in group 3 earlier today. At Second Reading, I warned that the Bill brings party politics into schools. I am not talking about the pedagogy of politics but of political partisanship. The Bill puts teachers in a difficult position. It drives wedges between pupils and invites parents to complain that their own political prejudices have not been adequately reinforced. It is our job to set the statutory ground rules for how electoral politics is treated in our schools. I heard the Minister earlier, but we need to show teachers, pupils and parents that we will not permit a Wild West that disrupts classrooms and increases tension. We need to strengthen their hand and resist providing a conduit for party activists.

My amendments do not suggest that schools should not discuss the election at all. After all, the young people will not have voted before, and teachers will have a role in explaining the process. However, that does not mean that schools should be a dumping ground for all manner of party leaflets. Otherwise, schools will become a magnet for activists, who will conclude that they can reach hundreds of voters at once—which is a damn sight easier than knocking on hundreds of doors.

My amendments are not just about party activists; I am also interested in protecting children from the undue influence of a teacher’s personal political predispositions. My Amendment 35, on the duty to be impartial, is intended to strengthen teachers’ ability to insulate themselves from outside influence and ensure that learners aged 14 to 18 can make neutral, informed decisions about their vote. My Amendment 36 prohibits the display of election materials in educational establishments outside the structured classroom environment, which must be scrupulously impartial. Amendment 38 seeks to ensure that hustings held in schools are politically balanced and that all candidates are given reasonable notice and the opportunity to attend, although whether they actually turn up will be up to them.

This is an important group. The other place failed to consider the practicality and second-order consequences of extending the franchise to those who are so young that they are still at school. We must stop turning schools into political battlegrounds, sowing division and reinforcing sectarianism. This happens in some areas with campaigning in Urdu, which places teachers and schools in an invidious position. Just as importantly, this group will allow those who are mature enough to vote to look at the socials, provided that they have exercised the privilege of registering to vote in the first place. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Amendments 34, 35, 36, 38 and 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, do us a favour in that they force us to consider the second-order consequences of a very big constitutional change. Regardless of one’s views on votes for 16 or 17 year-olds, it is a hugely important shift in the franchise and we should take seriously what it means for how society and politics operate. I therefore found just thinking through these issues very important.

I want to raise something I have been wondering about, which is not quite reflected in this but comes from it, which is a nervousness about electoral or party politics coming into the classroom. Will there be a different atmosphere among teachers who are actively engaged in politics—and we want them to be; that is what you want citizens to be like—when instead of just educating pupils, they might want to win their votes and not just win their hearts and minds to ideas?