Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedules 4 and 5 and Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Lang of Monkton and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend for setting out the arguments which the Government advance on behalf of this order. I am not entirely persuaded by the force of those arguments and I shall come to that in the course of my speech. However, the main thrust of what I will address is the constitutional aspect of bringing forward this measure in an order of this kind. My noble and learned friend referred to the fact that several Section 30 orders have been used. That does not, in itself, make it right. What matters is the content of the orders and the circumstances in which they are presented.

I am concerned partly with the substance of what is proposed but mainly with the procedures from which the order has emerged. Your Lordship’s Constitution Committee is conducting an inquiry and will in due course publish a report on the draft clauses published to enact the recommendations of the Smith commission. As my noble and learned friend said, the policy enshrined in this order has been brought forward in advance of that so we have issued a short report on it which we published at the start of this week in the hope of assisting the debate. I say in passing that haste is the hallmark of bad law in matters constitutional. This whole process has been redolent of haste.

Our first concern has been the failure of the Government directly to address the constitutional implications of this proposal—or, indeed, the draft clauses to implement the whole of the Smith commission’s recommendations—either in a Command Paper or in the draft Explanatory Memorandum for the order. The changes to the voting age in Scotland have no direct effect on the franchise of other UK elections, as my noble and learned friend said, but there are clear indications that they set a trend. The Wales Act 2014 provides for the reduction of the voting age to 16 in any referendum on tax-raising powers for the Welsh Assembly. In evidence to our committee, the Secretary of State for Scotland said he thought it “unthinkable” that the franchise for the UK general election of 2020 would not include 16 and 17 year-olds. What a contrast that slide towards a new policy across the United Kingdom is to the procedure followed in the late 1960s, when the age was reduced from the age of 21 to 18 only after two separate commissions had reported, one into electoral law and the other into the age of majority. Consider the contrast also with the Republic of Ireland, where a constitutional convention discussed the issue in 2013. A referendum on whether there should be a reduction to the age of 16 is to be held.

This change in the voting age is highly unusual, looked at across the globe. Internationally, 171 countries have a voting age of 18. Three have an age of 17: Indonesia, Sudan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Four have 16: Brazil, Austria, Nicaragua and Cuba. One, Iran, has 15. A larger handful, including Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan and Tonga, have ages around the 20 to 21 mark. We in the United Kingdom propose to enable Scotland to do this without adequate recent consultations, with no White Paper or debate in Parliament, just an unamendable piece of secondary legislation which prevents effective scrutiny. I do not think that that is an appropriate way to proceed with constitutional legislation of this kind—legislation, be it noted, that goes beyond the Smith commission recommendations, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, by including local government elections as well as Scottish Parliament elections. Again, there has been no consultation on that or proper parliamentary consideration.

One of the proposals that I do welcome in the draft clauses, to which my noble friend Lord Forsyth again referred and which are not before us today, is draft Clause 4, which will provide that future change to electoral law in Scotland will need a two-thirds majority in the Scottish Parliament. That is an important point of principle which I welcome, but if that is to be introduced shortly, why not now, for this significant change to the voting age being proposed? It really is not good enough simply to say, “Because it was in the Smith commission proposals”. Those proposals were not the basis of parliamentary consideration either. We will now be presented with draft clauses, which have not yet had any scrutiny whatever.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

Notwithstanding whether noble Lords are wedded to a supermajority or opposed to the 16 age-limit threshold for voting, can the noble Lord do a better job of explaining the Government’s transition during the last few months than the Minister did? The only reason I heard for not having a supermajority was the unanimity in the Scottish Parliament. That seems to completely undermine the argument against having it. If there is such unanimity, a supermajority would not in any way preclude the possibility of that passing. Can the noble Lord explain why the Government’s position appeared to change from January to February, and back again from February to March?

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My responsibility is not to explain the Government’s position; my responsibility is to hold the Government to account. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution, which does a great deal in that direction, and I am sure that my noble and learned friend will wish to return to this matter in his reply to the debate.

Another issue on which your Lordships are expected to be swept along is the important one of data protection, to which my noble and learned friend referred, and the implications of including details of minors in a public document such as the electoral register. I heard what my noble and learned friend said, and I accept that attempts are being made to take this matter seriously and reduce the risk that might arise. But again, that is a matter that should have parliamentary scrutiny.

Individual electoral registration means that more personal data will be collected and held by registration officers than happened under the old household registration system. Most young people about to turn 16 will probably apply for registration as attainers, at which time they probably will not yet have received their national insurance number, which is the primary means of verification. The examination, acceptance and storage of alternative proofs of identity will need the most careful thought and reassurance. None of this has had the kind of parliamentary scrutiny that the Committee stage of a Bill would provide—although I do welcome what my noble and learned friend said about the attention being given to the matter.

There have been many false dawns with earlier consultations on a reduction in the voting age. None has led to a firm conclusion in support of it. In 1998 the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee decided not to recommend a change. In 1999 the Howarth working party on electoral procedures reached the same conclusion. In December that year, in proceedings on what was to become the Representation of the People Act 2000, an amendment to reduce the age from 18 to 16 was rejected by an overwhelming majority.

As for the merits of the case for younger voting, of course we want young people to take an interest in our democratic process and in the issues of the day, and to start to develop their political beliefs. But if giving them the vote at 16 would achieve that, why does the 18 to 21 age group have the lowest turnout rate of all at general elections? It is not getting the vote earlier that matters, but attaining sufficient intellectual maturity and involvement in the issues that will affect their lives which will begin to engage them. Then, when they do get the vote, they will value it and be more likely to use it.

I mentioned the number of reports that came out in the early years of this century. People addressed the issue, and some of them left the door open. But broadly they all agreed, as successive Governments have done, that the present position should remain in place. In 2003 the Electoral Commission reached that conclusion as well.