European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The noble Baroness is right in the sense that we do not assess mental capacity before deciding whether somebody might vote. That is correct. However, when we take the difficult decision on where to draw the line—on whether the voting age should be 18, 16 or 21—we are entitled to inform ourselves generally about individuals’ state of development to see generally what a typical adolescent might be like.

[Lord Tyler]

Will the noble Lord tell us whether he has seen the film “Suffragette”? The argument that he has just been advancing was the argument for not giving women the vote until after the First World War and then for not extending it to those under the age of 28. Those arguments were deployed by his contemporaries, as it were, of that period.

[Lord Faulks]

I am afraid that I have not had enough time to see the film, but any argument about where you draw a line could be simply dismissed as one that has been used hitherto in different circumstances. I am concerned about whether giving these particular young people the vote is appropriate.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Faulks

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

Of course, the noble Lord will recall that we had a referendum relatively recently, in 2011, about a change in the voting system—to introduce the alternative vote—which was on the Westminster model. The argument was very much, “Well, this is inevitable” or “This is a slippery slope”, to use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and that, by accepting the validity of the argument on the European referendum, it must follow, as night follows day, that we would then proceed to change the Westminster franchise. By accepting that argument, we would be reversing into an inevitable change in the Westminster franchise. There might or might not be an argument for doing that, but that is an argument that ought to take place in the fullness of time, with all available evidence, once all the matters that we have gone into and wanted to consider were available.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, this has been a very good debate. I do not intend to detain the House for long because, frankly, there will be a further opportunity to debate these issues. I just want to deal with one or two factual points. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said that the franchise is not being extended in this Bill. It is being extended, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said, and, indeed, there will be further debates about extending the franchise. I understand that it is Conservative policy to extend the franchise to UK citizens resident in the EU beyond the 15-year limit, so it will be very interesting to hear what is said about that.

The other issue, which is an important one, is about practicalities, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke. I talked to the Electoral Commission and it is clear that it wants to have the longest possible lead time, so the sooner the Government decide to accept this amendment the better from the point of view of the commission. I am sure that they will do it eventually. MPs keep telling me that they will, so it is just a question of not leaving it too long. It is also true that we have the hard evidence of what happened in Scotland. The extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds proceeded remarkably easily, so there is no technical difficulty there.

I am intrigued to hear constant references to the difficulties of piecemeal changes to our constitution. The Government are about to change the relationship between the two Houses, if they can get away with it. That is what they are doing today. If that is not a constitutional change, what is? Then, what about EVEL—English Votes for English Laws? That is piecemeal. I thought that the Conservatives were actually in favour of incremental changes to our constitution. My study of history was that that was what Disraeli was all about—and very clever he was at it. So it is not an appropriate argument in this case to say that we cannot do this because it is not the ripe time—the doctrine of ripe time. That is what our ancestors in this very House argued right through the 19th century. I shall come back to that in a moment.