Votes at 16

Debate between Cat Smith and Alex Chalk

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. We have heard a great many contributions from Members on both sides of the Chamber, and we have had quite a lot of consensus. It is notable that we have heard fantastic contributions from a number of Members from Scottish constituencies. There is a really strong argument that, where people have seen votes for 16 and 17-year-olds work successfully, they have warmed to it.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) for securing today’s debate. He campaigns tirelessly on this issue and is a great advocate for young people in his constituency. They have asked him to raise this issue in Parliament, and he has done so diligently. I enjoyed his comments about his constituency’s connections to Peterloo and about the Oldham suffragette Annie Kenney, reminding us that this is about not just extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds but extending democracy and increasing participation.

I shared my hon. Friend’s frustration two weeks ago when this House did not have the opportunity to debate his amendment to the Overseas Electors Bill—an amendment that had gathered cross-party support and would have been a significant step towards securing votes for 16 and 17-year-olds. We can safely say that private Members’ Bills have not been an effective vehicle on this issue. I therefore welcome the opportunity to debate this important topic, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Many arguments have been made about the age of maturity. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) argued strongly on that, and I disagreed with him on a number of issues. I enjoyed his comment that a 16 or 17-year-old is not eligible to serve on a jury. Of course, neither is anyone above the age of 75. Unless we are going to restrict the franchise at the upper end as well, his argument is somewhat inconsistent. Such arguments fail to capture the spirit of the debate. Above all, this debate is about strengthening our democracy, inclusion and how to involve all society in shaping a vision for our country. I believe our democracy would be made stronger by such an improvement to it.

A key reason why Labour is strongly in favour of votes at 16 is that it would help to increase voter turnout and develop lifelong voting habits. A recent study by Demos found that only 37% of young adults in the UK feel that British politics today reflects the issues that matter to them, which concerns me. No wonder we are seeing high levels of voter apathy and low turnout when voters are not directly engaged from a young age and feel unrepresented from their first point of contact with the political sphere.

[Alex Chalk]

If the hon. Lady thinks that young people have the right level of political maturity to vote at 16, does she think that they have the right level of maturity to buy fireworks? If she does, why did her party vote in favour of banning that?

General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Debate between Cat Smith and Alex Chalk

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Today’s timely debate focuses on the important issue of the abuse and intimidation of candidates and the public in UK elections, but I would like to begin with a note of thanks to Mr Deputy Speaker for his support in ensuring my personal safety and that on colleagues on both sides of the House as we go about our business. I know that many of my colleagues will share my thanks and put them on record.

Let me clear: abusive behaviour has no place in our democracy. I must stress that Opposition Members condemn any action that seeks to undermine our tradition of free and fair elections. We welcome the Government’s decision to conduct an independent inquiry, and we look forward to working with them to tackle this issue, which affects candidates from all political parties. In that spirit, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) is giving evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life this afternoon on behalf of the Labour party.

Sadly, many colleagues on both sides of the House have experienced some form of abuse and intimidation as candidates or MPs, and many can talk about the experiences their party campaigners and volunteers have also had. Unfortunately, candidates and public office holders are vulnerable to abuse. The tragic murder of our parliamentary colleague and friend Jo Cox last year and the stabbing of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in 2010 remind us of the serious threats we face and of the longevity of this issue.

We would be doing a disservice to the democracy we all believe in if we did not recognise that this is an issue for all political parties. If we are going to have the honest and constructive debate we need to have on this subject, we must recognise that individuals claiming to be supporters of every political party represented in this Chamber have, either online or offline, abused candidates from other political parties. That is wrong and it will always be wrong, no matter which party the abuser claims to support.

Unfortunately, abuse and intimidation have taken place during previous elections too. Those who claim that this is a recent development are perhaps inadvertently covering up the real issue. This topic is not new to scrutiny. In 2013, the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, of which I am a member, published the findings of its inquiry into electoral conduct. The inquiry had a particular focus on racism and discrimination in campaigning, and it marked the first time that such matters had been analysed in a systematic way by Members of the House. The APPG published its final update in July, which showed that electoral misconduct was a challenge for all parties during elections.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is making an important speech, but does she not acknowledge that the tempo and tone of what happened in the 2017 election was of a different order of magnitude from what had gone before? I am quite prepared to accept that what happened was cross-party and affected people on both sides of the House, but it was at a level that was particularly concerning.

[Cat Smith]

I will answer some of those points in my speech. I suspect that what happened was partly due to the increased use of social media sites, which have more users than at previous elections, but I will come to that.

The same inquiry and the Law Commission argue that the current legal system is not fit for purpose. They urged the Government to redraft electoral offences in a more simple and modern way, so that they can be readily understood and enforced by campaigners, the public and the police, and the Opposition would support that.

We must see some action on this issue. The Government’s domestic policy agenda cannot stop because of the Brexit negotiations. In response to a written parliamentary question last week, the Minister stated that the Government will respond to the Law Commission’s 2016 interim report in due course. Can he be a little more specific on the timeframe? The Institute for Jewish Policy Research findings published this week showed that one quarter of British people hold an anti-Semitic belief. Those findings make for sobering reading.

Given the high prevalence of this, it would be foolish and wrong for any party in this House to assume that it did not have members or activists who hold such beliefs. Labour Members recognise that political parties have a responsibility to stamp out any form of abusive behaviour. To ensure that Labour Members comply with the high standards expected by our party, our internal procedures for dealing with abuse and intimidation were reviewed and improved following the Chakrabarti report on anti-Semitism. We have a detailed and publicly available social media policy, and we have employed more staff in our governance and legal unit to make sure that our members’ conduct is up to scratch.

However, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook must take their share of the responsibility for this issue and act faster to prevent and remove abusive behaviour online. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) pointed out in the Westminster Hall debate on this topic before the summer recess, Facebook was very quick to remove pictures of a woman breastfeeding, but when my hon. Friend reported a fake account that was set up in her name sending out intimidating messages, it took Facebook two weeks to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I associate myself with the remarks of my party leader, who has been very clear—indeed, he sent out such advice to Labour party candidates during the last election—that we should fight elections on the basis of policies, politics and the record of the Government, not play it personal. With that approach, we can have a debate in public that may influence the debate taking place on social media, and we may see a downturn in the levels of abuse highlighted by Members on both sides of the House.

This abuse does not take place in a vacuum. We must look at the campaign spearheaded by Lynton Crosby in the London mayoral election, which was even described by Baroness Warsi as “appalling”. That was because of the attacks on Sadiq Khan, which are widely understood to have been racist in nature.

[Alex Chalk]

I do not want to inflame this discussion, because the hon. Lady is making some fair points, but does she not agree that there is a duty on all of us to moderate our language in the public sphere? For example, it does not help to use language like the word “murderers” in the context of the Grenfell Tower atrocity, because it revs people up. Is there not a duty on all of us to be careful about what we say in the public domain?

[Cat Smith]

I agree that there is a duty on all Members of this House to be very considered in the language they use in all matters and to talk about policies and politics rather than personalities. Politics has been drifting towards a focus on personalities, and I think that is damaging.

The politics of hope will always win out over the politics of fear, and it played a role in the general election. It was positive that 2.5 million people voted who did not cast a vote in the previous general election, and that gives us a great sense of hope. If we want politics to be more representative, and if we want to encourage a diverse selection of candidates from all political parties to stand, we need to conduct our politics in the spirit of hope.

Safety of Riders and Horses on Rural Roads

Debate between Cat Smith and Alex Chalk

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to make my first contribution as a shadow Transport Minister under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for securing this debate today, which has focused on the significant issue of safety for vulnerable road users, whether they have two legs or four legs, or are on a bicycle or perhaps even a unicycle. It is important that all road users feel safe and are not put at undue risk.

The subject of today’s debate is horses and their riders, and it is vital that that matter receive attention in this place, because there have been more than 2,500 incidents involving horses over the past seven years, of which 222 resulted in the death of the horse and 38 resulted in the death of the rider. In the past year alone, almost 40% of riders were subject to road rage or abuse, with 81% of incidents occurring because the driver did not allow enough room between their vehicle and the horse. One out of every five such incidents resulted in the vehicle colliding with the horse. Clearly the Government need to address that pressing issue.

The British Horse Society reports that since its “Dead? Or Dead Slow?” campaign launched in 2016, reports of road incidents have creased by 29%. That proves that safety campaigns on their own are not enough. The Government must do more to protect riders and their horses. In a Westminster Hall debate in the last Parliament on road traffic accident prevention, the Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), stated that he did “recognise the problem” for horse riders, yet no concrete policy has materialised. While I do not doubt the Government’s sincerity on road safety, their record has been a disappointment in recent years. They failed on their 2015 manifesto commitment to reduce casualties year on year, and their manifesto in the recent general election only mentioned road safety in passing.

[Alex Chalk]

Does the hon. Lady share my disappointment that more Opposition Members have not come here to take an interest in this important issue?