Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his kind comments about me. May I return the compliment by saying that the families, particularly, and also the campaigners, including myself, were most grateful to the Government, the Home Secretary and the Minister for moving more swiftly than we had expected yesterday and bringing about that change, which will protect children—17 year-olds—in future far better than they are protected now. We are all very grateful to the Government for what they did yesterday.

I would like to raise some concerns in this debate, but first may I apologise for arriving so late to the debates on this Bill? I should manage my time better, and I apologise for entering the discussion at this late stage. Perhaps I may be slightly forgiven because it is a Welsh Bill, and perhaps I may have thought that, because I am not Welsh, I might not—I am digging a hole for myself, so I shall stop there.

There is much to be welcomed in the proposition made by those who have tabled these amendments, in relation to hearing the voice of young people. However, I am concerned that they betray a certain difficulty in the English-speaking world in terms of understanding child development. If one looks to those who treat people best, one might look to Italy, France or Spain for the way that they care for families and children. I should be interested to learn how far discussions there have gone in this direction.

Let me stress the good things about the proposal. It is so important to hear the voice of young people. Visiting schools, I heard young people talking about the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance. Many young people felt passionately about that, and the proposal would give them an opportunity to vote on the matter. One could talk about school uniforms and concern about their cost and other issues for young people that they could push harder if they had the vote. Giving young people more responsibility is a well recognised way to help them to develop in maturity. In the care system, for foster children and children in children’s homes, it has been recognised how powerful it has been as a tool to improve outcomes to allow young people’s voices to be heard, particularly by those who make the decisions about allocation of resources—putting those people in the same room.

The principle is much to be welcomed, but—I know that this has been raised before—I am particularly concerned about a misunderstanding of child development and of human development. For instance, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is shortly to have a debate about children, the internet and social networking. I hesitate to presume what she may say, but I think she will say that we have been unkind to children. We have not given them any guidance; we have released this technology on them and expected them to deal with it. We have treated them just as if they were little adults, and we need to do better and give them better guidance.

There are welcome improvements in the criminal justice system, particularly in what the coalition Government have done to remove so many young people from custody, but in general, we are still far harsher to children who misbehave but are also troubled than they would be in France, Germany and other continental countries. As in America, the English-speaking world has difficulties in this area. The age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10; on the continent, the average is probably between 12 and 14.

What is the issue about the rate of human development? There is probably a biologist who may help me here, but the distinguishing feature of humanity is that we allow our children so long to grow up. Most animals have to face a hostile world from a very early stage in their lives. They may have to leave the womb and be walking within minutes. It may be one reason why humanity is so sophisticated that we allow our newborns, our children, our young people, to grow up and mature over a considerable length of time. In Denmark, for instance, children do not start primary school until the age of seven. The Danes feel that it is right to allow young people to enjoy their infancy and young childhood for longer.

First, I am concerned about people arguing for us to be harsher on children and using the fact that the voting age moves to 16 as a means to say that we can punish young people and keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10. I know that young people can marry at the age of 16, so it can be argued the other way.

I am taking too long, but let me give your Lordships one more example: the Rochdale sexual abuse of children. The Times reported last week or the week before that the police were saying, “The girl knew what she was doing; she wanted to be in that relationship”, about a 13 year-old. That highlights confusion within the police, but perhaps more generally—a difficulty about judging when a child or young person can make the right decisions for their age. I am concerned about the general principle of reducing the age and allowing young people to vote at 16. I fear that that reflects a general misapprehension. We do our children wrong when we ask them to act as adults too soon.

At the end of the 1960s, the renowned child psychotherapist, Donald Winnicott, wrote a book the final chapter of which dealt with the revolution in the 1960s. He said that it is right that children and young people should revolt. Teenagers should be kicking against adults and against the system. That is absolutely right; if they do not do that, they will not mature properly and become proper individuals as adults. But it is adults’ duty to stand against that, to set boundaries for children and young people. As difficult as that is—in particular, not to be overly punitive, not, because children challenge them again and again, to start locking them up or physically beating them—we must find ways to contain them.

As I said, I worry that this move reflects a misunderstanding on our part of the need to allow young people to grow up gradually over time. I cannot support the amendments. Again, I apologise for coming to this debate so late.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, if I had had the vote at 16, I would have voted Labour, but I grew out of it. I grew up and I grew out of it. The experience of the Scottish referendum was remarkable. I guess that those on my Front Bench probably want me to make a short speech. If I was to make a short speech, I would say: “I told you so”.

When we agreed that the Scottish Parliament could decide the franchise for the referendum, we gave up the argument. It became impossible to resist the argument for referenda in other devolved areas. We did that, I believe, without giving the matter proper consideration. We have not at any stage had a debate on the franchise. I asked my noble friend Lord Tyler whether he would extend it to general elections and candidates, and he gave me a politician’s answer. He did not answer the point; he said that it is not relevant to the Bill; but it is, it seems to me. If we are to give 16 year-olds the vote, why should we not allow them to stand as candidates for the bodies for which they have the vote as councillors or Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly? Why should we limit that?

Other issues arise. Why do you have the right in Scotland to decide to break up the United Kingdom but not the right to buy a packet of cigarettes? We need to have a considered debate about what rights should apply to 16 year-olds. My noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Cormack emphasised earlier today that you cannot proceed with constitutional reform on a piecemeal basis; it must be looked at in the round.

I am becoming desperately alarmed at the way in which the political parties are now engaged in a competition to use constitutional reform to get votes. That is disastrous. I was brought up in a tradition where constitutional reform was something which you did not do unless you had consensus, unless you could show precedent and unless you had taken a considerable time to consider the implications and unintended consequences, which always follow from constitutional reform. I am very much in the camp of the Labour Party in wanting a constitutional convention, a royal commission, or something to look at all the issues in the round, recognise how far we have gone so far and do something about it.

We are engaged in highly dangerous stuff. If you do not believe that, look at the opinion polls in Scotland today. We have just won a referendum. We won the argument decisively. What has happened? The unionist parties have seen their support slump. According to the opinion polls, Labour is looking at having only four seats in Scotland. The Tories have our lowest ever recorded share of the vote—that is saying something—at 8% to 10%, and the nationalists are romping ahead. Why? Because of that last-minute promise made of extra powers, not defined, and the consequences that have followed from that. We are in grave danger of dismantling our British constitution like some fine clock, taking out the wheels and finding that we no longer know the time of day.