European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I am going to speak about something completely different. Some of the overwhelming reasons for remaining in the European Union have already been rehearsed—and for me they are compelling. They include 70 years without a major European or world war, economic arguments of preferential access to the single market, and the boost to our international influence by being part of a major power block capable of holding its own with the US, China and Russia in an uncertain and increasingly dangerous world.

There is, however, another reason as powerful as these—the environment. For the sake of our environment, on which human existence and prosperity depends, we must remain in the European Union. There are four reasons for that. First, the environment is no respecter of national boundaries—for example, half of our air pollution goes to Europe and it generously sends half of its pollution to us. The health of our seas, our migratory species of fish and birds and butterflies, and international patterns of waste management all depend on member states of the EU working together across national boundaries to negotiate, monitor and enforce common environmental standards.

Secondly, the vast majority of UK environmental standards are drawn from EU legislation: water and air quality, waste management, protection of wildlife sites and species of conservation importance, and the impact of chemicals on the environment and human health. Working together at an EU level, member states have been more ambitious than they would have been working separately and have worked harder on common implementation. Back in the 1980s, the UK was known as the “dirty man of Europe”, when we pumped raw sewage regularly into the seas and produced more sulphur dioxide and acid rain than any other European nation. We could have done something about this as the UK standing alone, but we did not. Since then, collectively working with our EU partners—egging each other on, as it were—we reached EU agreements that meant that sulphur dioxide pollution fell by almost 90% over 20 years. Now, 600 UK beaches are safe and pleasant to bathe on—apart from the dreadful weather—where fewer than 50 were previously. We no longer lose 15% of our most important sites for nature conservation every year in this country, which was the case before the habitats and birds directive was enacted.

Thirdly, the EU also brings environmental benefits beyond its borders. Collectively, the EU has muscle on the international environmental stage. It has been the leading voice in calling for international action on a range of conservation challenges and in negotiating with the biggest polluters and emitters globally. We would not have had the success that the Paris Climate Change Conference delivered globally without the leadership shown by the EU bloc.

Fourthly, higher environmental standards in Europe are not just about the environment. They drive innovation and technology and reshape markets. The UK has a green economy worth £112 billion and a £5 billion trade surplus in green goods and services. Shared EU standards in the single market can drive that further to the benefit of the UK economy.

What would happen to all this if we left the European Union? The document published today, Alternatives to Membership, outlines the difficult and lengthy processes that we would have to follow. Many of our UK environmental standards are not enshrined in UK law —they simply comply with European regulations. I am not confident that we would see equivalent UK environmental legislation put in place any time soon. Would a post-Brexit Government prioritise the protection and restoration of nature, for example? At best, we might negotiate an economic agreement with the single market that would require us to achieve some EU environmental standards, but we would be in the Norwegian position—if you will pardon the expression—of having to comply but having no influence on the shaping of these standards: the “pay, obey, but no say” position.

Those laws and regulations not covered by single-market rules would simply cease to apply. This would include important issues such as the habitats and birds directive that have driven action to bring threatened species back from the brink and have protected our most iconic and treasured habitats and sites.

We already have experience of what happens to environmental standards that depend entirely on UK law—they are highly vulnerable. Look at what the Chancellor did, at a unilateral stroke, in killing carbon capture and storage development, zero-carbon homes, onshore wind power and the Green Deal. Such fickleness undermines green markets and destroys investor confidence in green industries. EU environmental agreements may take a long time and a lot of effort to negotiate, but once they are there, they provide a degree of certainty for business and investors.

These are the environmental reasons why remaining in the EU is fundamental. If you care about clean water and air, safe beaches, thriving wildlife and an effective approach to climate change—if you care about human health as a result of a chemicals—you can only support remaining in the EU. This is why, a month ago, I co-founded Environmentalists for Europe with Stanley Johnson, Boris’s dad. This is important for two reasons. The first is to demonstrate that there are some sensible Johnsons, but it is also to ensure that people across the UK hear very clearly the case that only by remaining in the EU and working collaboratively with our EU partners can we protect a healthy environment for the people of the UK.

So let us get on with it. Support the statutory instrument. Roll on 23 June. Let us endorse our continuing EU membership so that we can stop trying to pursue isolationism dressed as sovereignty when the environment is not amenable to national boundaries or actions and so that we can focus on the much more important task of achieving more for shared security, economic development and a common environment through collaboration.

European Union Referendum Bill

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may step into the lion’s den and say that I strenuously oppose these amendments and believe that we should stick with the current age of majority of 18.

Two arguments have been advanced by the proponents of 16. The first is that this decision may last for another 40 years and will affect a whole generation of young people. That is true. However, in that case, should we not push the age down so that people younger than 16 and 17 can vote, because it will also greatly affect 15 year-olds, 14 year-olds, 13 year-olds and 12 year-olds? There is an argument that it could go down to as low as 10. I am not suggesting that it should, but if one adopts the logic that this decision affects young people disproportionately and that young people should have a say, at 10 years old they have reached the age of criminal responsibility and, if we can assume that from that age onwards they have that reasoning ability, there may be no reason why they should not be able to vote. Logic dictates that there is nothing magical about lowering the age to 16 and sticking at 16.

The second argument is that young people are much more mature these days: they are more sophisticated; they understand politics and the world; and they would be enthusiastic voters. I do not deny their enthusiasm but that is not a good enough ground per se for extending the franchise. If we change the voting age based on maturity, I suspect all the behavioural experts would give the vote to girls at age 10 and to boys at age 25. Making a judgment on who is mature enough to vote is more subjective than picking an arbitrary age.

However, my main objection is that everything we have done in Parliament over recent years has involved raising the age at which young people can do things because we, in this House and in the other place, have concluded that under 18 year-olds cannot be trusted to do things on their own and do not have the maturity to make decisions. With the assistance of our wonderful Library, I have looked at the minimum ages we have set for young people to do certain things. This is in accordance with English law, I stress. Those who favourably quote Scotland should be aware that Scots law has traditionally permitted young people to do some things at an earlier age, such as marry without parental consent. That is perhaps one reason why lowering the voting age in Scotland was not such a big issue.

We know that young people under 18 can marry in England only with parental consent.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord one simple question: what arguments and rationale is he going to use when explaining to the young people of Scotland aged between 16 and 17 that they are not going to be able to vote in this referendum, when they have voted previously? I would like to hear the persuasive arguments he is going to use with these young people.

[Lord Blencathra]

They did not have the right to vote in a referendum previously. They may have the right to vote in Scottish elections but this is a United Kingdom referendum. I would be quite happy to explain to young Scots that while they may have the right to vote in Scotland, it does not automatically follow that they have the right to vote in a United Kingdom election.

No one under the age of 18 can gamble: we passed that law in 1934. No one under 18 can get a tattoo: we passed that law in 1969. No one under 18 can serve on a jury—a 1974 Act. No one under 18 can watch a violent or pornographic film—a 1984 Act. In 1985 we banned anyone under 18 from buying solvents. No one under 18 can buy alcohol. Interestingly, the Scottish NHS and Government have been trying to push the age up to 21. They tried that in 2008 and are keen to do so again.

Under a 1987 law, no one under the age of 18 can sign a property agreement. In 1996 my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne and I increased the age at which one can buy a knife from 16 to 18. In 2003 we banned anyone aged under 18 from buying paint stripper, and in 2005 we banned anyone aged under 18 from possessing fireworks in a public place. In 2007 we raised the age at which someone can buy tobacco to 18, while in 2010 we banned anyone under the age of 18 from using a sunbed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Someone is saying “democracy”. Democracy involves having a consistent and well-thought-through attitude towards the franchise. It does not consist of giving young people the vote and dressing it up as some kind of liberty for them, when actually the reason some want to give 16 year-olds the vote is because they are hoping they will vote for them. That is what is behind all this and it is no way in which to determine our franchise. Therefore, I have to say, I am not in favour of this amendment.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

Will the noble Lord let me try again on this? I recognise that he finds it very embarrassing to have to explain his stance to the 16 year-olds of Scotland, but will he give it a go and tell us how he will do so? I am not sure that they will be taken with the arguments that he has given us at length over the last 10 minutes, because they have voted willingly and in numbers. I think that they will take a pretty dim view of those arguments. Will the noble Lord tell us the argument he will use with the 16 year-olds—not the ones we have heard because I do not think they will cut a lot of ice with them?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Do you know what? I have often had difficulty getting people in Scotland to accept some of my arguments, and that is not just limited to 16 year-olds.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

I can tell the Minister what the difference is between then and now. The difference is that, now, we have a well-fed, well-educated set of 16 and 17 year-olds who are vastly more mature than I was at that age, and that was 40 years ago. Let us get on with the present.

[Lord Faulks]

Let me turn to something that may excite the party opposite slightly less, which is the question of what may happen in practical terms if there is a change of franchise. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that with a fair wind these matters could easily be accommodated—I hope that she will forgive me if I summarise what she said. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was, I think, suggesting that I had in some way misquoted the Electoral Commission, but I do not think that that is a fair accusation. Let me make entirely clear what the Electoral Commission said in its publication yesterday. The commission states that it is not the case that there must be a 12-month period between a change to the franchise and the referendum, or indeed any fixed period. Reports in the media that refer to the 12-month period are incorrect.

I ask the House’s indulgence while I quote accurately one paragraph from that publication:

“It is important that Parliament is aware that if the annual canvass does not fall before the electoral event that a franchise change applies to, a key opportunity is missed to get the new group of voters registered. This does not mean, however, that other options are not available to help get as many voters as possible on the register in the available timeframe. Although the scale of the challenge presented by some of these options should not be underestimated—and it must be borne in mind that every voter is now required to register themselves individually—this does not mean that steps cannot be taken to reduce the risks presented by them with proper planning and funding”.

European Union Referendum Bill

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

I did not make that speech. I was in no position to make it. I cannot recall what my views were. I was not a Member of Parliament then and I certainly was not in this place. My point of view now is based on what the law currently is for the age of majority and why Governments and both Houses of Parliament have accepted 18 and granted all these rights to people only when they reach the age of 18.

Let me briefly conclude on this point. Until you are aged 18 you cannot open a bank account in your own name. You cannot even get a tattoo, buy fireworks or make a will. You cannot even carry an organ donor card or use a sunbed for tanning. You cannot stand as a Member of Parliament until you are aged 18. If we lower the voting age to 16 are we then going to allow people to stand as a Member of Parliament when they are 16? There are a range of other examples but I will not bore the House with them.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I was born in Scotland and I was brought up in a Scottish Conservative household. When I was 16 I thought that the election result, when a Labour Government was returned after 13 years of what is now known as Tory misrule, was the end of the world. I had been taught to believe that. Two years later I was canvassing for Labour in the election.

What changed me was that at the age of 16 I could get pregnant. At that time I could not get birth control in this country at that age. During that period, when I was aged 16 or 17, the first Brook Advisory Centre opened in Edinburgh. I could then go on the pill. Quite frankly, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The knowledge that I could not get proper support for being sexually active—I had had a good Scottish diet and was very precocious for my age—was what politicised me. I have no qualms about announcing that here tonight. It is a real insult to people aged 16 and 17 to believe that, when they are in a position where they make crucial decisions about their own future, they cannot make a crucial decision about the future of this country in Europe.

[Lord Blencathra]

There is a lot of detail there and it is a route that I dare not step down. Whatever language or terminology I try carefully to choose, I will inevitably offend someone somewhere. That is not a risk I wish to take. I simply say that the fact that one can get the pill at the age of 16—rightly so—is no justification for saying one should therefore have the right to vote.

I concluded with a list of all the things that Parliament has decided that people can do only when they are aged 18. Some sound so trivial, but if that is what Parliament decides, it is perfectly legitimate to say that the age of majority is fixed at 18 and that we should not lower it for the purposes of this referendum.

Just because young Scottish people aged 16 and 17 were enthusiastic, it is irrelevant to deciding on this matter. Politically, we know why the SNP Government lowered the age. It is because their private polling suggested that 16 and 17 year-olds would be twice as likely to vote for independence as for staying in the union. You can bet your bottom dollar—or your pound Scots—that if their private polling had been the other way around, the Scottish Government would not have lowered the voting age to 16. They would have kept it.

If these amendments are passed, accepted by the other place and become law, we will have 16 and 17 year-old Commonwealth and Irish citizens also being granted the right to vote, because they are included on the register. If some noble Lords’ amendments to include European citizens were passed as well, we would have 16 and 17 year-old children from European countries also being allowed to vote. If we get a close result with that scenario, I think a lot of British people would be outraged that a majority of 200,000 to 300,000, either way, had swung the vote, because of the inclusion of 16 and 17 year-old European, Commonwealth and Irish citizens. That is a rather dangerous route to go down. However, we may be able to talk about that later.

I oppose these amendments because the age of majority is 18. It should stick at that but if we want to change it we should do it in a general Bill relating to the franchise. We should then take a close look at all the other things that these 16 and 17 year-old children cannot do, because, if we lower the age of majority to 16, we should change the law on a whole range of things from buying knives to buying a pint.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I echo the views of my noble friend Lord Higgins. I argue against these amendments on the grounds that this is not the proper place or time to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year- olds. Just because, in my view, a mistake was made in Scotland, that does not justify making a second mistake. Two wrongs do not make a right.

You could also argue that, if you think that 16 and 17 year-olds do not have the political maturity to make decisions for the next five years, how much less should we trust them to have a voice in decisions that are going to have an effect for a very much longer period than that? I do not think you should make a distinction on the grounds that someone is going to live much longer and this is going to affect them for much longer. If you have political maturity sufficient to elect your Member of Parliament, you probably have the same political maturity to vote in a referendum.

Another point that has not yet been made is this. I wonder what the result would be if you asked a cross-section of 18 to 25 year-olds whether they thought that 16 and 17 year-olds should be given the vote.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

I wonder whether the noble Viscount is aware of or takes part in the admirable Peers in Schools scheme that the Lord Speaker has instituted, where Peers go out and talk to young people about the nature of your Lordships’ House. Those of us who are active in that scheme meet a wide cross-section of young people—and please let us call them young people, not children; it is very demeaning to call 16 and 17 year-olds children, even though legally they may be so. When you go into classrooms of 16 and 17 year-olds, the degree of maturity, thoughtfulness and balance evinced by those young people is fascinating. They frighten the living daylights out of me with their level of maturity. If the noble Viscount has not had that experience of meeting those very mature young people, I wonder whether he might sign up to the Lord Speaker’s scheme instantly.

[Viscount Trenchard]

I accept the noble Baroness’s point of view. I understand, and agree with her, that young people today show a much greater level of maturity than they did a decade or two ago. This is a gradual process, which I welcome, and it is right that from time to time we should consider what the age of majority should be. But we should consider it in the round, as it affects the age at which young people should be regarded as full citizens. I also agree with the noble Baroness that it is demeaning to refer to 16 and 17 year-olds as children, so I am with her on very much, but this is not the right time to make a piecemeal change.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

I will add one point to my noble friend’s argument which is absolutely telling. One can be registered with a GP and never see them for 20 years. You might be a very fit 40 year-old, but you could suddenly get a devastating diagnosis of cancer and wish to talk to your GP. Although you are registered with them, that GP does not know anything about you at all.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Non-Afl)]

I will add to that last point, for which I am grateful. I have been a supporter of the principles of the Bill for almost the whole of my adult life, and I have had the same GP for 26 years. Every year I insist that he looks at my living will form, and we then have a very robust argument, because he is against the principle of assisted dying, and I insist that he takes account of my wishes in that living will form on an annual basis. I know that were I to be in a situation where I would require and wish to take advantage of the Bill, were it to become an Act, I would not be in a position where I could expect him to give me that support. We have been very clear with each other over the past 25 years. I do not know what the position of his colleagues in the practice is, but I am abundantly clear that when that point is reached, I will want to have a GP or a specialist consultant who is able to take a good medical history and read my notes, to understand what medical practitioners over the last 25 years have said about me, and to reach a valid professional judgment about whether my wish—I make that point; it is not the GP’s wish or the family’s wish—to take advantage of this provision is based on a good medical prognosis. It is not beyond the wit of the medical profession to do that even if they do not intimately know me. I hope that we will see that in the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman]

I am grateful for both interruptions because they allow me to say what I omitted to say—that the other change as regards the doctor and the practicality occurs when you are registered with a doctor who has a conscientious objection. The other problem is with,

“at least one of whom has diagnosed the terminal illness and treated the person in relation to that terminal illness”.

The person who diagnoses and the person who is giving ongoing treatment are not necessarily the same person. Therefore this clause is dangerously worded at present.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this has been a pretty amazing fortnight of public testament that the time is now right for the Bill to be given serious consideration and, I hope, passed.

For some whose poignant stories we have all heard, it is already too late. This legislation is overdue to ensure that dying adults facing unrelievable and unnecessary suffering at the end of their lives can, if they wish, choose not to go through the last few dreadful days or weeks, but choose the time and manner of their dying. It is a tightly and narrowly defined Bill, with several layers of safeguards. It puts the dying person back in the driving seat, as they should be, to be able to decide how they want to die. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, for whose determination I have huge respect, regretted that the Bill is about pity. The Bill is not about pity; it is about power—the power of being in control of one’s own death.

The Bill is also about terminally ill people being able to have proper, advance discussion with their family and, above all, with their healthcare professionals. Evidence given to the Commission on Assisted Dying, on which I had the privilege to sit, showed that under the current law doctors and nurses feel at risk if they discuss the full range of options with their patients. This is not acceptable. As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, said, we do not talk enough about dying.

I will tackle the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, that decisions about the settled, sustained and competent views of dying patients on having an assisted suicide should be decided by a judge. We considered that during the Commission on Assisted Dying, but felt that we were seeking that death and decisions about death should be taken normally and appropriately with families and medical advisers, without the hurdle of an artificial, judicial-level process which would take away the very autonomy of the individual that we are trying to achieve.

Some of those concerned about the Bill worry that dying people may opt for an assisted death because they feel, or are made to feel, that they are a burden. I believe that the ability for the certifying doctors to seek additional evidence, should pressure be suspected, is an important safeguard and should be clarified in the code of practice that the Bill enables. If the law is passed, the ability for patients to have a full and transparent upfront discussion with the certifying doctors about all the options, and the recording of those discussions, would add a further safeguard.

At the moment, under the current legislation, we simply do not know whether pressure is being exerted or not. An estimated 300 people are helped to die each year by friends and family, an estimated 1,000 people are assisted to die by medical practitioners and a number of people travel to Dignitas. We do not, at the moment, under the current legislation, know at all whether they have been put under pressure.

We all consider the impact of any decision we make on those who are close to us. We take it into account in decisions such as choosing which movie we go to with the family or what job we are going to take or deciding whether we are going to move house to a different part of the country. It is appropriate that we take the emotions of the people around us into account when we are making an important decision about our death—that is part of human life. The evidence from Washington is that concerns about loss of autonomy and loss of dignity, and the prospect of a struggling, joyless end, figure far higher in people’s decisions to seek assistance to die than feeling that they are a burden.

If the Bill passes, people will not have to choose assisted dying. I have had to have quite distressing correspondence and e-mails with people who seem to think that, if the Bill goes through, they will have to choose to die. They will not have to choose to die; they will have the right to choose the death that they think best. I commend the bravery and energy of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and his team in promoting the Bill and call on the House to allow it to proceed to a full and proper analysis in Committee. That is where our House excels, with its wealth of expertise in tackling these very difficult issues.