European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Cathain and Baroness Morgan of Ely

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

Of course we understand that the other House has spoken on this issue, but it has also invoked financial privilege. I am trying to address the issue of costs in this amendment. The problem is that there is no threshold—or we do not know what it is. What does that mean for the ability of this House to engage at all, in any way, with the Representation of the People Act?

Perhaps I may continue. The people we need to focus on are those who will attain the age of 16, the new age of voting in the referendum in the forthcoming year. Let me emphasise, in response to the comments of the Electoral Commission—I shall come to the point made by the noble Lord—that our amendment does not preclude electoral registration officers from chasing up 16 and 17 year-olds and it does not stop them using all available methods to identify and encourage registration. The Association of Electoral Administrators does not think it would be difficult to make changes to the electoral registration service. A relatively simple—and, I emphasise, extremely cheap—way of registering young people would be writing directly to schools to ask for help in sending out emails with the registration form attached, as is currently done with university students. I do not know of many, if any, secondary schools that do not provide their pupils with a school email address. The costs of registration would therefore be absolutely minimal.

Nor would this be a tremendous increase in work for electoral registration officers. If, as has been suggested, we are talking about an additional 1.5 million voters, given that there are 380 electoral registration officers—one for each relevant local authority—we are talking about each ERO registering on average only an additional 4,000 voters, which is not an enormous new burden. The organisation Bite the Ballot is co-ordinating a national voter registration drive which aims to inspire hundreds of thousands of 15 to 24 year-olds to register this February. It will include a national network of schools, colleges, sixth-form teachers, school leavers, student unions, youth clubs and charities, so this is being done anyway at no additional cost. The Electoral Commission itself has noted that EROs should be working with schools and colleges in their area because this is a key activity that we need and expect all EROs to explore. We are asking EROs to do only what they are expected to do anyway.

I turn now to the issue that seems to be vexing the Government: that this is not the right place to make such a change and that it should be debated seriously as part of a wider debate on franchise. We are happy that the Government agree that there is a need for a wider debate on franchise, and it would be useful to have a timetable for such a debate. Can the Minister give me a concrete answer to that specific question? The Government say that this should not be done in a piecemeal way. We on the Labour Benches believe that there should be a comprehensive constitutional convention to address this and other issues relating to our democracy. But I was under the impression that the Government enjoy piecemeal change. It was this Government who gave permission to 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the Scottish referendum campaign. It was this Government who allowed the Scottish Parliament to determine whether 16 and 17 year-olds should be able to vote in its own election, and it was this Government who allowed the Welsh Assembly to determine for itself whether 16 and 17 year-olds should be allowed to vote.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

It was not this Government who did that; it was the coalition Government.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Cathain and Baroness Morgan of Ely

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

I am absolutely not making light of it. In fact, I have spoken directly to electoral registration officers within some of the counties where this would have to be done. They recognise that an increase in resource would be needed, but it is not impossible to do. We know where these people are and we would have their names, so the process of identifying them would not be difficult. It would be different from, for example, trying to find British citizens in the EU who are over the age of 15. That would be a difficult process. This is not a difficult process—we know exactly where these people are.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness please tell me how many people this affected at the time of the Scottish referendum? How many millions, thousands or hundreds were there? How does that compare with the 1.5 million who would have to be included this time?

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

It was not millions in Scotland —there is no question about that—it was thousands, and they were able to do it in the timeframe that they were given. It is important for us to understand that it is possible to do this. We know where these people are. The electoral registration officials have said that this is a possibility, and we should accept their say.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

With the leave of the House, may I pursue this question? The noble Baroness said it was probably thousands. But how many thousands? Was it 99,000, 3,000 or 5,000? I just want to get this straight in my mind.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

It was proportionately exactly the same as it would be in Britain. There are about 5 million Scottish voters and in the UK there are 60 million voters. The noble Baroness is probably better at maths than I am, but if we know that it is 1.5 million for the UK then we can work out what that would be as a percentage of the 5 million voters in Scotland.