Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Baroness Randerson

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, during the passage of the Wales Bill through this House, many noble Lords pointed to the numbers of young people who registered to vote in the recent referendum in Scotland as a great example of how young people want to get involved in the political process. Noble Lords also expressed the opinion that it would therefore be unfair for young people in Wales to be treated differently from their counterparts in Scotland in the referendum on income tax powers for which this Bill provides. I therefore committed on Report to bring forward amendments at Third Reading to allow the Assembly to decide whether 16 and 17 year-olds should be able to vote in an income tax referendum.

These government amendments provide that when a resolution to hold a referendum on income tax powers is moved in the Assembly, the Assembly must state, as part of that resolution, whether the voting age is to be 16 or 18 for that referendum. Let me be clear: we are not devolving the competence over the franchise in Wales to the Assembly. The franchise will remain solely within the power of Parliament. What we are doing is allowing the Assembly to make a decision in relation to an income tax referendum provided for under this Bill.

The amendments set out that if the Assembly resolves that the voting age in the referendum is to be 16, the resulting order to be laid by the Secretary of State must also provide for the creation and maintenance of a register of young voters. Many 17 year-olds will already be on the register of local government electors as attainers; that is, those who would reach the age of 18 before the creation of the next register, each 1 December. They would not be moved onto this new register of young voters but would still be able to vote in the referendum. This is because eligibility is based on being on either the register of young voters or the register of local government electors. In short, if, come the day of the referendum, the only thing that would stop you from voting in an Assembly election on that day is that you are 16 or 17, you would be eligible to vote in the referendum.

Of course, the voting age at an income tax referendum would be a matter for the Assembly to decide on when it triggers the referendum. At the moment, the Welsh Government have yet even to commit to holding such a referendum. I again urge Welsh Ministers to do so at the earliest opportunity. I have made no secret of the fact that I personally believe that lowering the voting age might help to reinvigorate our democracy. Many of those who spoke in the Assembly debate on this issue on 24 September also support reducing the voting age and would hope that, if and when the time finally comes to hold a trigger vote, Assembly Members will look at how much the debate on the Scottish referendum was invigorated by the number of 16 and 17 year-olds who became involved and would vote therefore accordingly. I therefore ask noble Lords to support these amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in support of Amendments 1 and 2, which I and my colleagues have signed. I want to pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and her officials for the patience, persistence and professional care with which they have managed to perfect these proposals after so much discussion and improvement in meetings since I first raised the issue at an early stage of our consideration of the Bill. I am confident that we are now well on our way towards this timely reform. I cannot believe that anyone in the other place, or indeed anywhere else, will stand in its way. It would surely be a brave reactionary—even a foolhardy one—who would now claim that Welsh young people are less mature, well informed and well intentioned than their Scottish counterparts.

I have heard mutters that this is the thin end of the wedge. That is not so. The wedge was firmly implanted by the record number of 16 and 17 year-olds who not only registered to vote in their thousands, but then on 18 September ignored the blandishments of the separatists and voted to stay in the United Kingdom. We should recall that all UK parties endorsed the Edinburgh agreement which introduced this simple reform. I observed during the Report stage of this Bill:

“It would surely be constitutionally improper, in what has now been reinforced as a United Kingdom, to differentiate between the basic civic rights and duties of citizens here, simply on their area of residence. If, as I believe, the franchise is the foundation stone of our representative democracy, discrimination on that basis must surely be totally unacceptable”.—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. 158.]

As my noble friend said, it will now be for the Welsh Assembly to complete the process. I am sure that this will prove uncontroversial since a substantial majority of Assembly Members have already declared their support. In the debate of 24 September, to which my noble friend referred, the Conservative spokesperson, Andrew Davies AM, said that:

“My group has a free vote on this particular issue, because there is no party line on whether there should be votes for 16 and 17-year-olds”.

Julie Morgan AM from the Labour Party said that it was encouraging and quite inspiring to see 16 and 17 year-olds involved in the Scottish referendum. The debate was led by my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Assembly, who committed themselves there and subsequently, but perhaps even more significant was that the Minister, Jane Hutt AM, said that,

“we support the lowering of the voting age to 16”.

The outcome of that debate, held just two months ago and just after the Scottish vote, was 41 to 11 in favour of this reform. It is now surely unthinkable that any future referendum with equally long-term implications for the country and its citizens could be permitted to lapse back into the pre-2014 limited franchise. Whether that is on UK membership of the EU or any similar major decision, these young people have now earned the right to have their say.

This is a triumph for those who have worked so hard for so long to achieve this reform. The recent Youth Select Committee deserves special mention for its authoritative report, published just a few days ago, which carefully weighs the arguments. But the final and conclusive credit must go to the 110,000 young people in Scotland who showed by their actions that they were ready to take on this responsibility as fully adult citizens of the United Kingdom. I am delighted to support my noble friend.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, Amendments 3 and 19, in the name of my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Thomas of Gresford, and Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Morgan, would reduce the age for voting in an election to the National Assembly for Wales and any referendum held under Clause 12 from the age of 18 to 16. Amendment 2, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, would devolve to the Assembly the power to lower the voting age to 16 for elections to the Assembly and local authorities, as well as referenda.

The debate around whether the voting age should be lowered has of course been given fresh focus by the independence referendum in Scotland. As many noble Lords have made clear in their remarks here today, that was the first major poll in the UK in which 16 and 17 year-olds were able to participate. Whether your Lordships regard that as a mistake or not, it was a very successful mistake. Taken as an exercise in civic engagement, it was extraordinarily successful. As a long-time supporter of lowering the voting age, I very much welcome the fact that so many young people took advantage of the opportunity offered to them to have their say on that vital question on the future of Scotland. I share the joy of my noble friend Lord Tyler that so many of them appear to have voted to preserve the union.

However, I recognise that lowering the voting age is in itself no magic bullet. For example, in the Isle of Man the voting age is 16 and it still suffers from very low turnout rates. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that children do not grow up overnight and that there is a period of transition when young people are trying out their wings, if I may put it that way, in which they need support and proper civic education. Yet it can work well, as the Scottish situation has proved.

The Government have recognised the strength of feeling in the House, expressed in Committee and by a number of noble Lords this afternoon, that 16 and 17 year-olds in Wales should have the same opportunity to participate in the income tax referendum that their counterparts enjoyed in Scotland. The ability of 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in that referendum represented the will of the Scottish Parliament, answerable to the Scottish people. It was not a decision made in Westminster, as Amendments 2, 3 and 19 would be. That is why I can today commit that, at Third Reading, the Government will bring forward amendments to enable the Assembly to decide whether 16 and 17 year-olds should vote in the income tax referendum, whenever it is held.

My noble friend Lord Tyler referred to the vote of 103 to 12 in the Scottish Parliament; noble Lords can do no better than to read the debate on this issue in the Assembly record of 24 September to gain an impression of how the Assembly would vote on this issue. There is overwhelming support in the Assembly for votes at 16.

[Lord Tyler]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend and to her officials for all the discussions that have taken place since Committee. I want to ask her one particular question. She referred to the Scottish Parliament decision which I read. The Scottish Parliament does not have the same internal regulations about the nature of the vote. It was a simple majority. Am I right in thinking that in the Welsh Assembly there is a precedent for decisions of this sort to require a two-thirds majority? That is an important difference. In giving a lead to the Assembly at Third Reading, as she is proposing, we may want to consider that matter.

[Baroness Randerson]

I may stand to be corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, whose experience of Assembly Standing Orders is much more recent than mine, but I believe that the two-thirds majority would still stand on issues such as this. I can see that he is nodding so there would be a requirement for a two-thirds majority, which is an Assembly Standing Order requirement.

I think we would all agree that this is a significant step in terms of Welsh devolution.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

As my noble friend will know, I have been following the DVLA issue through the IER process for a number of years and I welcome what she has just said. But even more valuable than all these pilot studies would be to look very carefully indeed at the very recent experience in Scotland. The levels of registration, particularly among young people, exceeded anything we have seen anywhere else in the United Kingdom. One of the differences between Scotland and Northern Ireland on the one hand and England and Wales on the other is that there is greater direction in Scotland to the local electoral registration process to make sure that there is an equal quality of service at the lower level.

As I mentioned quickly in my previous remarks, I encourage the Minister and her colleagues to look very carefully indeed at the recent experience in Scotland. It is practical experience—it is not a pilot in a particular area. As the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said earlier, it gives added impetus to the suggestion that now is the right time to take a forward step in this area.

[Baroness Randerson]

My noble friend makes a good point. Of course, the Electoral Commission will be doing a report on the referendum in Scotland that will cover those issues.

I recognise that there is considerable sympathy in this Chamber and beyond for the aims of Amendment 20. I assure noble Lords that I share them. However, the Government are already taking steps to increase the engagement and registration levels of traditionally underregistered groups. Five national organisations and every registration officer in Wales, as in England and Scotland, have shared £4.2 million of funding aimed at maximising the rate of voter registration as part of the transition to IER. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the fact that every electoral registration officer in Wales has received that funding—not just one. Cardiff received almost £25,000 in order to engage more with underregistered groups and Ceredigion received £4,290 in order to take that work on. The amounts given were based on a formula that related to the level of underregistration in every local authority throughout Great Britain and the number of 16 to 18 year-olds within that area specifically so that EROs could go into schools and do the engagement work that is encompassed in my noble friend’s amendment.

Perhaps I may also respond to his comment that it needs only a tick in a box—would that that were so. Unfortunately, there is a complex legal basis for voting. The form has to be set out in a particular way and it has to be of some considerable length. The tick-box would work in terms of expressing an interest in voting, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, pointed out, it means that you have to follow up on the person. It is to be hoped that if they have ticked a box, they would respond to a letter, but people often tick boxes and then do not respond to a letter, so they could well require door-to-door canvassing. Ticking a box sounds good and it works up to a point, but in itself it does not actually get anyone on to the register. Northern Ireland is indeed a case of best practice in our country. That effort was based on going into schools and getting young people to fill in paper forms. The crucial difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is that Northern Ireland has a paper-based system and we now have online electoral registration.

Perhaps I may return to the amendment. I know that the Electoral Commission sent a briefing to noble Lords setting out its view that while it strongly supports the principle of EROs working with local education establishments to encourage registration, there is no need for additional legislation to provide for this. I should point out that there is no obligation in Northern Ireland on the electoral officer to engage with schools and colleges. That work was done without any legal obligation or basis. However, in the light of concerns expressed by noble Lords and indeed in the letter referred to from the four party leaders in the Assembly, I will be happy to look at this issue again. However, I should say that registration officers already can and do visit schools, colleges and other locations in Wales in order to target under-registered groups and fantastic work is being done up and down the country by civil society organisations to find new ways of reaching a range of underregistered groups and encouraging them to register to vote. The Government are proud to fund this type of activity and I congratulate the wide range of organisations engaged in this work.

I want to make a final point about Northern Ireland in response to the comments made about the low levels of registration among young people there. Yes, the figures were woefully low in part because they had not been doing the annual canvass. That has proved to be the crucial thing. The annual canvass must be maintained alongside all the additional work. However, given that registration had fallen to very low levels in Northern Ireland, considerable remedial work needed to be done.

The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, referred to the National Assembly. The National Assembly has an excellent record in terms of its outreach work with young people. I think that at one point the Assembly was the major tourist attraction in Wales. A large number of young people come into the Assembly to learn about politics and to hear excellent debates. That is the kind of thing I was referring to in the first sentence of my response. It is about more than registration—you have to engage young people and explain why it is relevant to them.

I have already referred briefly to online registration. It brings voter registration into the 21st century and it is particularly attractive to young people because it is easier, simpler and faster. More than 410,000 applications have been made online by people aged between 16 and 24 since 1 July this year. More than 90% of the users of the system have been either satisfied or very satisfied, so it is obviously an easy system to use. The Electoral Commission has further noted that a statutory change specifically relating to electoral registration officers in Wales would be complex to manage at a time when they are dealing with things throughout the UK on IER. However, in the light of the concerns and the consensus here today, I certainly undertake that, before Report, I will discuss with the Minister for the Constitution all the issues that have been raised. I will also discuss with the Electoral Commission the issues that it put forward in its circular to all of us saying that these amendments are not necessary.