Wales Bill

Lord Elis-Thomas Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Anderson has correctly suggested that at the very least matters pertaining to the electoral arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales should be subject to agreement by the Assembly before implementation. That sentiment has been echoed once again by the Presiding Officer in Wales. He noted that,

“in the Scottish settlement, the power to make arrangements about Scottish Parliament elections is now divided between Scottish Ministers and the Secretary of State”.

Surely this is the very least we should ask for the Assembly. We echo that sentiment and therefore support the position of my noble friend Lord Anderson that the Assembly should agree to electoral changes and that these should not be imposed from Westminster.

[Lord Elis-Thomas (PC)]

Amendment 10, which is in the name of my noble friend Lord Wigley, my parliamentary leader, and myself, is drafted again with the support of the Electoral Reform Society Cymru, which has been widely trailed in this debate and which I am sure it appreciates. This is to find a way of ensuring that the electoral system of the National Assembly is determined by the Assembly itself. The Order in Council procedure would enable both Houses to debate this matter before the transfer of functions of responsibility happen.

As in our earlier amendment, this amendment would ensure that there would have to be a two-thirds majority of voting Assembly Members. I take advantage of this amendment to impress on the Government that there are more checks and balances in the regulation of democracy which can be established for a democratic body in terms of its autonomous function. The idea that legislation for elections can be regulated only by Westminster fails to recognise the importance of the two-thirds majority principle, which we have established significantly in the constitution of Wales over the past 15 years.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Wales Office (Baroness Randerson)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Wigley and Lord Elis-Thomas, for tabling these amendments. I begin by discussing Amendment 7, which provides that the electoral provisions in the Bill should not be implemented until the Assembly has agreed them. Let us look at the electoral provisions in the Bill. The majority of the electoral proposals are widely supported within the Assembly. As I said earlier, the initial move to a five-year fixed term for the Assembly, set out in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, came about as a result of a vote in the Assembly. In the Government’s subsequent consultation on a permanent move to five-year fixed terms, there was also unanimous support from the parties in the Assembly for such a move.

The consultation also showed widespread support in the Assembly for the move to ban MPs from also sitting as Assembly Members, although the Welsh Government did not believe that there was currently a need for legislation on this. The Government consulted on these changes. We listened to the views of those who responded and included these provisions in a draft Bill, which was subject to extensive scrutiny by the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee. Therefore, the Assembly has had the opportunity to express its views even though I freely accept that it falls short of the legal obligation that the noble Lords are seeking.

Amendments 8 and 10 would require the Secretary of State to publish draft orders within six months of the passing of the Bill, for the approval of both Houses of Parliament, to provide for the transfer of responsibility for elections to the National Assembly for Wales. It is worth noting that the Silk commission did not make recommendations in relation to Assembly elections in its part 2 report. I also note that wholesale transfer of responsibility for elections has not been devolved under any of the devolution settlements. Therefore, at this moment the Bill is probably not the appropriate vehicle for making such a transfer on a piecemeal basis for only one part of the UK, at a time when a wholesale look is being taken at the whole shape of devolution. If there were not work going on in the Cabinet committee at this time, it would be a more appealing argument. Having said that, I go back to the point I made right at the beginning of my responses: this is a response to the provisions of the Silk 1 report in large part and the Green Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

There is much support for the measure, and I trust that the Minister will agree when she replies.

[Lord Elis-Thomas]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. The noble Baroness has already set out how the Welsh Government have sought to increase democratic participation in existing public service structures, especially in the development of schools councils. I find that in my regular meetings with young citizens from schools and colleges who are interested in the development of democracy and who visit the National Assembly. We have a substantial programme, as I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, knows because she was there when all this was inaugurated, as was the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. Those programmes encourage people to participate by visiting but also by being electronically and digitally linked with the National Assembly and through school participation.

Before the Minister tells me that we should not do this in Wales because there is no precedent and that we should do it for the whole of the United Kingdom, I advise her that we are there already, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, said. We are already quite a few steps ahead in participation. I have received many representations from young farmers, youth groups, school students and college students who are 16 already and want to feel that they are the cohort now and that their successor cohorts can participate in the democratic process. I raise this as someone who once campaigned for votes at 18; I am very pleased to campaign for votes at 16; if I live long enough, I will campaign for a vote for my six year-old granddaughter.

The issue here is substantial. In the context of National Assembly elections, are we able, on the basis of the citizen programme and the democratic participation that we have encouraged, to take this further? I believe that we are.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the principle of the amendments as a long-time supporter of the principle that 16 and 17 year-olds should be entitled to vote. It is now 45 years since a Bill was passed that lowered the minimum age for voting across the United Kingdom to enable 18 year-olds to vote. Nearly half a century since then, there have been great changes in how society sees 16 and 17 year-olds. We are no longer a society in which you get the key to the door at 21, or even 18.

Young people, perhaps through the use of social media, are often politically very aware. The excellent Youth Parliament debates, some of which have taken place in our own parliamentary Chambers, show that many 16 and 17 year-olds are as aware of many of the issues facing us today—if not more so—as many people who are rather older. I do not want this debate to be too stereotypical of UKIP voters, but I was amused by one man who voted for UKIP in the Clacton by-election last week because he was disillusioned with his MP, whom he had not seen since the previous election.

In contrast to this, some three weeks ago we saw 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland considering very carefully what might be thought to be an even more important question than that at any General Election: whether Scotland should be an independent country. After significant deliberation, probably to the surprise of Mr Alex Salmond, this group of young people, according to the polling evidence, decided that it should not. Tonight we are considering whether young people in Wales could be as responsible, and I say: of course they are.

Thirty-eight years ago I watched a 16 year-old William Hague address his party conference. He told his audience that half of them would not be there in 40 years’ time. I am not sure that he realised then that neither would he. However, my point is that it seemed a shame that he could speak eloquently from his party conference platform but not be able to vote in an election. I am the same age as William Hague, and at 16 I was secretary of the Liverpool Wavertree constituency Liberal Association. I was able to organise elections, knock on doors and suggest how people should vote—but not mark a ballot paper myself, much to my annoyance.

These amendments do not, of course, suggest that 16 and 17 year-olds will be made to vote irrespective of their political knowledge and interests, just that they should have the opportunity to vote. There are those who do not wish to see 16 and 17 year-olds voting. Perhaps they fear how those votes may be cast. A few years ago, the much respected columnist Peter Riddell cited opinion poll evidence suggesting that the best hope for the Conservative Party in the future would be to raise the minimum voting age to about 56. The average age of our Members is 68, but we should be able to show appropriate understanding of people in their late teens, encouraging them to participate in our democracy and to engage in the process through which laws will be made in Wales and elsewhere.