Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has brought forward the Bill. It is a rare and giddy moment that we find ourselves on the same side of a debate, and I suspect the mood will pass. However, today I am pleased to support his Bill. I come to this debate with perhaps the zeal of a convert.

The right of citizens to vote at the age of 16 is an issue about which I have become passionate, and I was delighted that the Labour Party’s leader, Ed Miliband, made his and our party’s commitment so clear. That said, I do not agree with all the arguments often made in favour of such a move. The claim that it will somehow improve, for example, the percentage turnout is not at all relevant to the debate—I have no idea whether it will do so. I suspect that initially a significant proportion of 16 and 17 year-olds will not take up that right, but it is a matter of principle as to whether it is the right thing to give them that right. I should like to make three points that changed my view and convinced me that this is the appropriate way forward.

First were the views of young people themselves. As a member of the other place, I would regularly engage with school-aged students and young people. At one particular event with around 60 or 70 school students of around 15, 16 and 17 years they quizzed me and discussed a whole range of issues: the environment, jobs, education, the economy, animals, and local, national and international issues. The students were of different ages and abilities, and from different parts of town but few did not engage in some way in that discussion. They were interested and knowledgeable about issues that affected them, and in issues that involved their families, neighbours and communities. Some were involved in and were members of local and national groups and organisations.

Perhaps most important for this debate, they were really interested in issues that affected their futures. If it does not sound too grand to say this, I sensed that they were interested in the future of the country and the world—in the decisions that were being taken now that would affect the world in their lifetimes. It was a lengthy wide-ranging discussion. I then asked if they thought they should be able to vote at 16, and noble Lords may expect me to say that they said that they should be able to do so. I certainly expected that response. However, I was staggered that the overwhelming majority said that they did not think that they should have the vote at 16. Given the debate that we had been having, I thought that I should probe and challenge that view. What were their reasons for not wanting the vote? They said, “We don’t think we know enough about it”, and that they were not interested in politics, despite having discussed a range of political issues, because they did not have enough information, hardly ever read a newspaper, and did not know much about or much like political parties.

All those views could equally apply to many people who already have the vote, so I found myself playing devil’s advocate. These bright, lively, some slightly stroppy, kids were engaged with issues and interested in their communities but were not at all confident about how much they knew. Yet they had views—often strong and some not yet fully formed—but were working their way through them, like the rest of us do. They were worried about not being able to vote at 16 not because they did not care about issues but because they cared too much. They thought they should know more, have more information and engage more before they voted. How impressive is that? If only every voter would want to be as well informed and concerned about issues that affected them.

Political engagement is not just about voting and then leaving it to those who are elected for the next four or five years. These young people were engaged but had not yet connected that engagement—that campaigning and caring about issues—with voting. Too often the young think they cannot engage or contact their elected representatives because they do not vote. In 1958, Eddie Cochran said in his hit “Summertime Blues”:

“I’m gonna take my problem

To the United Nations.

Well I called my congressman

And he said, whoa

I’d like to help you son

But you’re too young to vote”.

Perhaps more Members of your Lordships’ Chamber will recognise that than would Members of the other place. Politicians should always try to be consistent. It would be completely inconsistent to encourage voting at an earlier age, want to increase the number of people engaged enough with their communities to recognise the value of voting, and then support the Government’s appalling lobbying—or gagging—Bill, which seeks to disengage campaigning from the political process of elections. We want young people to engage and we should oppose measures that then put inappropriate and undemocratic boundaries on that engagement. Many people I meet start to engage in politics, even if they do not recognise it as such, through campaigns and issues, and we should encourage, not curtail, that.

The second experience that led me to think that this was a way forward occurred in May on local election day. I was out and about in part of my former constituency doing what the politicians call “knocking up”—encouraging voters to come out and vote. Some did, as always, but some preferred to stay at home. I met a young woman who was walking along the street. She was about 18 or 19 and she had a baby in a pushchair. I asked her whether she was going to vote. She recognised me as I had spoken at her school a few years prior to that, and I think that she felt confident that she knew me and was able to talk to me. Her comments were ones that I have heard before and I think that they are very relevant to this debate. She said, “I want to go and vote. I’ve been looking at such and such, and I’ve seen this in the paper. I want to go and vote but I’ve never done it before. I don’t know what to do”. It was not that she did not have views or was not engaged but she did not know, practically, what to do in order to vote. That was all that was holding her back. She did not know whether her friends would vote and she did not have anyone to go with. It struck me that if, at the age of 16, young people were given the right to vote while still at school, collectively they would engage and find out what to do. Schools could support them with that basic knowledge in, for example, citizenship classes. I am not talking about how to vote or necessarily why they should vote but the simple mechanics of what to do and how to do it.

The third reason is perhaps the one used most often. It is a nonsense that young people of 16 can go out to work, pay taxes, join the Armed Forces and have children, with all the responsibility that that entails, but that they cannot have a say in their own future when it comes to choosing their Member of Parliament, their Government or members of their local council. Yesterday, I spoke to councillor Andrew Gordon of Basildon. He said to me, “If you can pay taxes at 16, you should be allowed to say how those taxes are spent”. Andrew is the councillor for Nethermayne ward on Basildon Council. He is the first Labour councillor in that ward for 20 years, and that in itself is something of an achievement. He lives in the ward he represents. The very first time he voted it was for himself, and he won that election. Andrew was only 18. Did he suddenly, on his 18th birthday, become interested in issues that affected his community? Did he suddenly, at the age of 18, decide that he wanted a bigger role politically? Of course he did not, but like many young people he had views, he cared and he wanted to do something.

If I am honest, despite the fact that he won the seat, there were those in his community who were sceptical that one so young could represent them. However, when he spoke out recently at a public meeting, supporting more than 200 people on a very important local issue, it was clear that they had made the right choice. Whether or not they agreed with his politics, here was a young man fully engaged with the community and understanding local issues, and he did a first-rate job of representing them. He got a standing ovation at that meeting—the only councillor who did.

I am not advocating a whole council of 18 year-olds any more than I would advocate a whole council or parliament of 50 year-olds or 70 year-olds, but too often councils and parliaments are full of older people like us. Decisions taken today affecting our futures include the futures of 16 year-olds, and they will be here long after I have gone. Therefore, should we not be engaging people under the age of 16 and those of 16, 17 and 18 in the democratic process and decision-making?

There is a lot of discussion and there are many press reports about politics being more representative, and that usually refers to women and black and Asian people, but there are two issues that we have shied away from for too long—class and age. Now we have the opportunity to rectify one of those. The Bill has my total support.