Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill [HL]

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for bringing us to the point of a Second Reading of this admirably focused Private Member’s Bill. I do not want to rehearse the various anomalies regarding the age at which it is possible to marry and to join the Armed Forces, et cetera, as these have been covered. Examples of countries with a voting age of 16 were given in a very good speech by my noble friend Lady Coussins.

I shall focus on maturity and political understanding. A number of noble Lords have mentioned the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18. In 1969, Lord Somers, speaking to his proposed amendment to the Representation of the People Bill and arguing against this move, made the following interesting comments. He said:

“Mental maturity can come only from experience. Recently we have seen some of the efforts of those who are 18 and over at the London School of Economics. I wonder how many of your Lordships would feel that they would be suitable electors for the Government of our country. I certainly do not. I do not think that they are more mature mentally. They are far more ready to voice their opinions; they are far more ready to question the wisdom of those who are older and wiser than they are. But that does not mean that they are more mature”.—[Official Report, 6/2/69; col. 214.]

Those are very telling remarks, which underpin a lot of people’s opposition to giving 16 year-olds the vote. As a number of noble Lords have suggested, maturity does not necessarily come with age and can diminish as we get older. It is unhelpful to generalise on the basis of age in this context.

For those noble Lords who have not seen it, perhaps I may recommend viewing an interview on YouTube with a 12 year-old Egyptian boy, Ali Ahmed. To date, it has had more than 3 million viewers. A reporter asked him to explain why he was participating in a demonstration last October. He stuns the reporter by referring to his opposition to a “fascist theocracy”. When asked by the interviewer to define this term because she did not know what it meant, he gives a critical analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood, the party at that time in power. He does not mince his words. He said that he was there to, “protest the confiscation of the constitution by one single party”. When asked about the progress the country has made, he asks right back, “Do you mean politically or socially?”. After a critique of the lack of equality for women, Ali Ahmed states that he has read the country’s draft constitution on the internet and declares that, “what is built on falsehood is false itself”. When asked how he knows all this, his reply is telling and simple. He says, “I listen to people a lot and I use my own brain. Plus I read newspapers, watch tv and search in the internet”.

Even if noble Lords have not seen that impressive interview, or watched a 14 year-old Kenyan, Richard Turere, explain on a TED talk how he developed a device that uses solar power to prevent lions from attacking his community, or missed 16 year-old Jack Andraka responding to a family death by inventing a cheap, effective test for pancreatic cancer, they surely will be familiar with the hugely impressive 16 year-old Malala Yousafzai, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize and a heroine and role model for young people everywhere.

Of course, I am not trying to argue that these young people are the norm for their age. However, what they, and many more, have in common is the good sense not to think that because they are young, they have nothing to say about their world, the way it works and, importantly, how to improve it. Unsurprisingly, the internet is an important factor. Without it, awareness of their skills, knowledge and activism would have taken much longer to penetrate our consciousness and the capacity to spread the word on their achievements would be so much less. But, importantly, for many of them it is a learning tool.

As we all know, trawling the internet does not necessarily give the surfer wisdom. Often the opposite is true but newspapers and other older media do not always confer wisdom or knowledge on the reader or viewer either. However, the internet and social media offer the opportunity and the potential to gain an in-depth knowledge of the world around us across national and cultural borders that was unimaginable 20 years ago. Instead of putting down our young people for being glued to screens in what we might see as unproductive, harmful ways, we could harness the power of social media to encourage them to engage with the democratic process and to transform it, for it surely is in need of change.

Like many other noble Lords have said today, my experience of visits to schools is that most young people will profess to be ignorant of and uninterested in politics. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, we need to challenge that view rather than throw our hands in the air and claim that all is lost. I have found that they are not interested in party politics, which again echoes what other noble Lords have said, and the stale, rehashed speeches and positions that are constantly presented to them. If you get the right subject and teach it well, help them to learn about it in a way that enables them to see the relevance, and to develop their confidence, they will get involved, even if initially it is about very local or even personal issues. That is not a problem either. I do not see that level of activity as a problem at all.

As my noble friend Lady Coussins has said, many 16 year-olds are familiar with our political structures through citizenship studies, participation in mock elections at school, schools councils, the UK Youth Parliament and so on. There are more than 1.5 million 16 and 17 year-olds in the UK, many of whom feel very strongly about the issues that directly affect them, as well as educational opportunities, and poverty here and overseas. We often refer to young people as being disfranchised and alienated. In terms of driving the agenda for enhancing their lives, they are. But are we seriously suggesting that they should not have a say in shaping their, and our, world? Many would say that they do not want to have the vote and would agree that they should not be allowed to do so. But we are not suggesting that they should be compelled to vote, or at least some of us are not; simply that they are enabled to. Enabling entails enhancing their education in civic responsibility and improving their understanding of how power works through political processes and mechanisms.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was emphatic about this issue during the Question for Short Debate we had earlier this year. He made what I think is an interesting point:

“Every school with a sixth form and every further education and sixth-form college should have a polling station, and young people should be registered to vote there—instead of there being the perversity that some schools are actually closed on polling day so that the adults can vote undisturbed”.—[Official Report, 27/2/13; col. GC181.

I heartily agree with that. Young people should be involved in a meaningful way in the political process as early as possible in order to create a basis for greater political engagement in later life. Though it should not be regarded as a universal panacea for our political culture and the state that it is in, votes at 16 could be just the impetus we need to reinvigorate that political culture. Once we have left education, few of us, young or old, are likely to be exposed to a discussion as to why it is so important to vote, and those leaving school at 16 may have to wait six or eight years before they can cast their vote. When the voting age was lowered to 18, to my frustration I had to wait for several years until I could exercise that right.

The lament of Lord Somers in that earlier quotation from Hansard is a familiar one and is often at the heart of arguments about the voting age. Yes, young people will challenge our habits, thinking and actions, as well as our judgment of what is right for the country and what is wrong. That is their job and I hope that, through agreeing to progress this Bill, we will let them get on with it.