Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Kennedy referred to instilling the habit of voting. My fear is that the subject of this referendum will instil the habit of not voting. I certainly do not detect any overwhelming interest from the younger generation in the alternative vote or in any other technical form of voting in this country. If they do not vote on the first occasion when they are given the opportunity to do so, the danger is that they will form a habit of not voting. That is the real problem.

The genesis of this whole thing is the Faustian pact between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberals have this magnificent obsession with structures. It is not an obsession that a great number of people in this country share but they consider it the unfinished business of Lloyd George. They were prepared to do anything to change the voting system, while allowing the Conservative Party to have free rein in all its attacks on our welfare system.

I cannot imagine young people for a moment being interested in going to this vote. From over 30 years as a Member of Parliament in the other place, trying desperately to get people to vote in difficult parts of the constituency—we sometimes had, alas, a very sad turnout—I cannot imagine even a tiny proportion of those individuals bothering to vote and, if they do not, I certainly see no serious interest or enthusiasm among younger people. That is my starting point.

However, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter. She led me along a silken path with her felicitous words until I was almost persuaded; alas, not quite. I have form in this, because many years ago I promoted a Private Member’s Bill in the other place to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18. I was before my time, as it were, because it was before that view became a consensus. Sadly, the Bill was talked out, but there was a very logical case to move from 21 to 18 at that point because, about then, the legal age of majority had been changed—I believe that it was by a royal commission—and it was wholly consistent with that that the voting age should also be reduced from 21 to 18.

[Lord Rooker]

I should like to bring my noble friend Lord Anderson around to supporting my noble friend Lady Hayter because, while I am sceptical as well, this is not about votes at 16. It is about allowing the people who will be 18 at the end of a fixed-term Parliament to vote for the voting system that will be used then. If it were not for the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, which gives this some intellectual credence—and it is the same gang bringing in that Bill—we would not be asking the people who we know will be 18 at the end of this Parliament to choose the voting system. This is not about votes at 16, so my noble friend can support my other noble friend if this matter is pushed.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

I look on my noble friend’s intervention with considerable respect, as I do all the matters that he raises. Clearly, he raises an important point. The essence of what I was saying is that, whereas from 21 to 18 there was a logical stopping point, I see no such point in going from 18 to 16. Indeed, I ask rhetorically where it will stop. The real reformers—the people trying desperately to be radical—will ask, “Why stop at 16?”. It may not perhaps go down to babes and sucklings but next they will suggest, incrementally, “Well, having had 16, why not 15 because we want to encourage people to take part in politics?”. They will ask, “After all, this is a newly politicised generation; did we not see schoolchildren on the streets last week?”. Yes, but I am not sure whether those schoolchildren—we are now, I think, meant to call them school students—were or are likely to be worried about alternative votes, or a voting system of STV, or whatever it is.

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[Lord Rooker]

There is an easy solution to that. I think it is the case—I do not have children but I was at the DSS—that when you are 16 you are issued with your national insurance number. You are known about on the system. It would be easy for the DWP to know where all 16 year-olds are because it would be about to issue their national insurance numbers. That argument, with respect, is not a valid one.

Could the noble Lord also address the London issue? He skated over that when talking about the second election. The greatest density of voters in this country is in the 100-odd constituencies in London—the capital of the country, where there is no other election next May. The damage to possible turnout because there is not another election could be catastrophic. The 15 per cent who will not be voting are not evenly spread over the country. Has the noble Lord thought about that?

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I take the noble Member’s point. However, the concentration of the media—the London-centred media—makes it highly likely that London is the least likely part of the country to be unaware of what is happening, or not to have been stimulated by the press, including television and radio, into recognising the importance of the issue. I envisage that being the proper possibility in other parts of the country, where other elections are happening. It is conceivable in Scotland, for example, that the voting system for Westminster will not be regarded as the first priority; rather, the structure of the Scottish Parliament and which Government will take their place in Scotland will. So, I do not altogether go along with the noble Lord.

The suggestion that national insurance numbers could be used would be unlikely to lead to an outcome that carried much conviction.

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[Lord Rooker]

Forgive me but that was not my point. The noble Lord was saying that we could not get 16 year-olds on to the register in time. The fact is that they are on a register now. It would be very easy to transfer them to the electoral register. It is known in government, electronically, where they are because they are about to be issued with an NI number. I am not suggesting that the NI number is used for voting but it would be very easy to put them on to the electoral register.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I would be interested to hear the views of the Electoral Commission on that. I do not regard myself as an expert on these matters but I doubt it is quite as easy as that, given that the timing for the Bill becoming law is decreasingly clear.

My final point may not carry so much weight but I believe that our 16 year-olds are increasingly very interested in politics, which is why I want to see a change in the voting age. However, I do not believe that in a few months’ time they are likely to be able to discriminate between different electoral systems when they have not been thinking about voting. It is highly improbable that even their teachers would be in a position to give them guidance on the virtues and merits of different electoral systems. We have heard arguments being put forward on the Benches opposite and conflicts between the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others about the merits of the supplementary vote as opposed to the alternative vote, or various kinds of alternative vote. Without prior discussion or only the most minimal educational input on this issue, it is extremely improbable that 16 year-olds would add greatly to the authority of the decision to be taken next May, if that is the date decided upon. Therefore, for the three reasons that I have given, I would prefer to see the system of voting change and for subsequent referenda to follow the electoral register.