Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment for 16 and 17 year-olds to be entitled to vote at parliamentary elections. As has already been mentioned, they were given the vote in Scotland in 2014. In Wales, they will be able to vote in the Senedd general election in 2021 for the first time. This means that 16 and 17-year olds will, for the first time, have influence in choosing the Members who will represent them, giving them a voice in the decisions that will define their future.

These proposals were recommended by the independent Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform, following a public consultation. The consultation showed that 59% of people responding agreed that the voting age should be lowered to 16. Allowing young people the right to vote at 16 is a powerful statement from the Senedd that their views are important and are valued. This will be accompanied by appropriate political and citizenship education and public awareness raising to ensure that young people are encouraged and supported to exercise their right to vote.

The argument about what 16 and 17 year-olds can and cannot do under the law is not of great relevance to the debate on whether they should be allowed to vote. We know that, for example, they can get married or enter a civil partnership with their parents’ permission, but these days very few do. They can join the Army with parental permission; that is a mature decision to serve one’s country. They can leave full-time education at 16, but most take advantage of higher education and stay on to get qualifications. That is, again, a mature decision. Other noble Lords have mentioned today how mature 16 and 17 year-olds are.

What is the difficulty with giving young people the right to vote in a general election, if there are any? Scotland has proved that young people can vote and make mature decisions. In Wales, they will certainly have the opportunity next year, and I am sure there will be many young people voting. I suggest to the Minister that, if he has any doubts about whether 16 and 17 year-olds are mature enough, he should consult the devolved nations and learn how it is done. I hope that the time will come, and this is the time to give young people in England the same democratic rights as those in Wales and Scotland, with regard to local elections. Unfortunately, although they will have some votes in Wales and Scotland, they will still not have the right to vote in a general election. I support the amendment and see it as a first step towards bringing young people into the voting system, and giving them a right to decide on their future. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. No? I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the case for extending voting to 16 year-olds is getting stronger year by year. We already have the problem that our generation—the elderly Members of the House of Lords and others who can vote only in local elections—now have a rather disproportionate impact on the way Governments operate and choose financial priorities, because the old vote in larger numbers. There is a case, therefore, for increasing the weight of the young, and a very strong case for combating the disillusion and disengagement from British politics that younger generations now have by encouraging them while still at school to see themselves as citizens taking part in the electoral process.

The issue we have is how far we think it possible or even likely that, within the next eight to 10 years, this may be carried into law. There may well be a change of Government at the 2024 election. If we have already reconstructed the boundaries, we need at least to have a look at what such a change would do.

I add in passing that, if we still have a Conservative Government, and if the Conservatives hold to their previous commitment to expand the allowance for overseas voters to vote beyond a 15-year period after they have left the UK, that would also distort the figures considerably. Do the Government have any plans to extend voting for overseas voters, or have they conducted on that issue yet another of Boris Johnson’s U-turns, having discovered that Britons who live abroad are often rather internationally minded and therefore are not certain to vote for this rather narrowly nationalist-minded Government?

The Government want to draw the net very tightly about the balance between voters in different constituencies. Here are two matters—the extension of the vote to 16 year-olds and, potentially, the extension of the allowance for voting to overseas voters—which could blow that balance out of the water. It makes a great deal of sense to at least assess what the impact would be as a result of that change. I hope that the Minister will either answer my question on whether the Government have any plans to extend overseas voting rights or at least write to me on that matter.

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I hope that noble Lords have enjoyed hearing the debate on the franchise as much as I have, a debate which will no doubt continue in the coming years, but are content not to press the amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I have received no request to speak after the Minister. Therefore, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town [V]]

I thank all noble Lords who have supported the amendment. I will simply make two points. First, as my noble friend Lady Gale said, Scottish and Welsh 16 and 17 year-olds have, or will have, the vote, but do not appear in the numbers on which their constituency boundary is drawn. That does not make sense. We just want it examined. Secondly, I give a gentle warning to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and, indeed, her Government. After the summer we have just had, with the disruption to the education and futures of 16 and 17 year-olds, her staunch refusal to consider or even discuss the issue, indeed, not even to allow the Boundary Commission to look at any impact, will not go down well with the exact voters who will be 18 at the next election. They will have heard her words today, but I do not think they will be impressed.

I personally regret her response—it feels short-sighted and over dismissive of the ask. It would not undermine the independence of the Boundary Commission. It would enable it to report on an important issue of franchise. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 11. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Amendment 11

Moved by

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the Lords Minister in the coalition who had to carry through the change in patterns of electoral registration. I still carry some of the scars from the speeches made by the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Campbell-Savours, and others during those debates. That was when I became well aware of our antiquated system of electoral registration, which we inherited from the days when only heads of households voted. I was also conscious that changing to individual registration was like the 1999 House of Lords report: a halfway house that was not going to take us all the way.

During our discussions within the Cabinet Office I also became interested, for the first time, in digital transformation in government. It was clear that if we were to make much fuller electoral registration our aim, we would have to employ data sharing and data transfer. I remember my shock when we approached the Ministry of Transport on whether we could share at least the outlines of addresses and names in the driving licence scheme. The DVLA and Ministry of Transport’s first response was to say no. I understand that we now compare the names and addresses of people with national insurance numbers on the DWP database with electoral registrations. That is a step forward. We all know that moving toward data sharing within government is a complicated and sensitive area where we must take great care.

I remark to the noble Lord, Lord True, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that responsibility for this matter has just moved back from DCMS to the Cabinet Office. They will therefore answer to us when the Government, if they hold to their promises, publish the digital strategy White Paper which they have promised before the end of this year.

I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto refers to voting as an expression of someone’s “full citizenship rights”. If it is a mark of one’s full citizenship rights, we should do our utmost to ensure that all citizens are on the register. We have this problem in Britain that many people do not want the state to know who and where they are. Thus, the concept of citizenship is itself in some ways contested. We need to move towards automaticity, if I may use that term. We will move slowly towards it, rather than relying on underfunded and overworked electoral registration officers at the local level to fill this 6 million to 9 million gap.

The noble Lord, Lord True, was unhappy that I hinted at Second Reading that some Conservatives are as concerned to exclude some people from the register as to include everyone in voting. If that is the case, let us do whatever we can to include everybody. That means moving towards use of comparative databases to ensure that everyone is on the register. Rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, raised the question that some people do not want everyone to know where they live. That raises large issues of transparency versus privacy, which we will again want to debate.

We also understand the questions of publicly-owned digital identity. That is another sensitive area, on which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, takes a strongly held view. I take a middle view, and there are others who believe that privacy overrides the right of the state to know who and where we are, or the right of the citizen to have access to all the public data the state holds on them. This is an area that we should look to move further forward on. That means we have to move towards automatic voter registration, including for retainers. I therefore support the amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn his name from the speakers’ list, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to contribute to the end of this debate because it has been of considerable importance. Although I am a co-signatory of the cross-party Amendment 11, I will refer particularly to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland. He had a great deal of expertise in his Select Committee, some of which has been on display during the Grand Committee.

The point I want to make is that we do not set up Select Committees lightly. Notoriously, some of their results and recommendations have been ignored in the past. In this case, there was a particular legislative reason for the committee to take advice, to take evidence and to recommend to your Lordships’ House. It would be extraordinary if the Government did not respond very positively to its recommendations, presumably by one minute to midnight tonight. I confess that I will not stay up; my expectation is that it will look just as good in the morning.

The issue that has been the subject of this debate and the Select Committee’s report is of huge significance. I pray in aid in particular the point from the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, who said that we have to see this in the context of public disenchantment and disengagement. I hope I quoted that correctly. If the public do not see the register as something that they as citizens need to be involved in, it is not just a matter of personal choice; it is that our citizenship has not been fully engaged in its responsibilities and rights as citizens.

I part company in a small way from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. He is perfectly right that we in the UK have always had a tradition that voting is entirely voluntary, but we have also said for many years now that the register should be the pool from which juries are appointed. So if you are not on the electoral register, you are not in fact fulfilling your responsibility as a citizen. Hence there is an obligation, and it can be backed up by a civil fine if you do not register. That has been true right through the recent changes for IER, which have maintained the case.

While I entirely accept that there will be some circumstances, which people have referred to, where people are in some sort of difficulty from domestic violence and therefore try to protect their current address, that is dealt with by the right of people not to be on the publicly available register. That has been the case for a number of years and is very proper protection for people in those sorts of circumstances, but the actual responsibility to be registered is extremely important.

There is a tendency for people to think that this is a relatively small problem, but as has been made clear, not least by members of the Select Committee and their report, if there are between 6 million and 9 million people who are eligible to be on that register who are not, that is a far bigger problem than, for example, the Government’s alleged concerns about people impersonating others in polling stations, which is a tiny problem in comparison. As many noble Lords have said, it can mean that there is a fundamental weakness in the very basis for the Bill; it means it is, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, a castle built on sand.

There are ways in which there could be some immediate improvements without a great deal of bureaucratic change. For example, as my noble friend Lord Rennard pointed out, it has been recommended that when a 16 year-old gets a national insurance number and is therefore an attainer in terms of getting on the register, that would be an automatic entry on the system. That is asking at this stage not for any elaborate automatic registration everywhere, but, in the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for some selective, targeted automatic registration.

I understand that there will be difficulties in moving smartly to the sort of automatic registration that we would prefer, as set out in Amendment 11, but the Select Committee’s recommendations need a full and firm commitment to action from the Government. It is not enough now to just say, “Let’s have some more consultation.” The whole point of having a Select Committee, to return to the comment I made at the outset, is that Members of your Lordships’ House across the parties, with a lot of expert advice and evidence, take a hard, sober and non-partisan look at problems. This is something the committee was asked to do by the House itself. It would, frankly, be ridiculous—outrageous, some would think—if Ministers simply brushed that advice aside. I therefore look forward very confidently, even optimistically, to the Minister responding on behalf of the Government to say that they will now not just listen to what the Select Committee said, but act on it.