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

Lord Wallace of Tankerness Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 20 January be approved.

Relevant documents: 20th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 9th Report from the Constitution Committee

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)]

My Lords, as the House well knows, on 18 September last year the people of Scotland, including tens of thousands of 16 and 17 year-olds, voted in the Scottish independence referendum and made the historic decision that Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom. The participation of our young people in that vote was truly historic. They showed that they were more than capable of being part of Scottish democracy when they helped their country to take the biggest decision we have faced for centuries. It demonstrated a desire to be involved in an event which would shape the future of their country.

In the run-up to the referendum, pledges were made to the people of Scotland. The three pro-union parties—the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats—all made a vow to devolve further powers to the Scottish Parliament, should Scotland remain within the United Kingdom, thereby ensuring that Scotland retains the best of both worlds. In keeping with that vow, the day after the referendum the Prime Minister made the announcement that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, had agreed to lead a commission to agree what those new powers should be. The commission would work with the five parties represented in the Scottish Parliament to make that determination.

The commission invited submissions from political parties, a wide range of business and civic organisations and the wider public to help guide its consideration of what further powers should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Following due consideration of all submissions and views garnered by the commission, on 27 November 2014 the report detailing the heads of agreement was published. That report was welcomed by this Government, and, as this House is aware, on the 22nd of last month we published the draft clauses which will make up the substance of the next Scotland Bill to implement the recommendations in that report.

However, one of the recommendations made by the commission is being taken forward separately from that Bill: the recommendation that the United Kingdom Parliament devolves the relevant powers in sufficient time to allow the Scottish Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds for the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections, should the Scottish Parliament wish to do so. That is exactly what this draft order seeks to achieve. Not to have taken this forward now, by means of this order, would have risked the Scottish Parliament having insufficient time to bring forward any subsequent legislation, should it choose to do so, to implement it and to have any necessary measures in place well in time for the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend for giving way. The document to which he referred, Scotland in the United Kingdom: An Enduring Settlement, published in January, suggested that the alterations to the franchise should require a supermajority of two-thirds in the Scottish Parliament. The order being presented today bypasses that. If it was thought appropriate to have a supermajority to change the franchise in January, why is it not thought appropriate in February?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, that point was made by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, and I will deal with it when I come to deal with the points made by the committee in its report, published earlier this week.

The draft order is made under Sections 30 and 63 of the Scotland Act 1998, the Act that set out the original devolution settlement for Scotland and that continues to demonstrate that devolution is remarkably resilient and flexible. Several Section 30 and Section 63 orders have been made under that Act and, even with the new upcoming Bill, we do not expect that to change. Where a need for change is identified and agreed, those changes will be made by the most appropriate means.

By virtue of Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998—which I shall refer to as the 1998 Act—this draft order will give the Scottish Parliament the power to legislate to reduce the minimum voting age to 16 at elections to the Scottish Parliament and to Scottish local government elections. The Scottish Parliament will also be given the power to legislate to make provision about the registration of electors in order to give effect to any such reduction in the minimum voting age. However, I wish to be clear that the draft order itself does not actually reduce the minimum voting age to 16 at both of these elections. Rather, it paves the way, by conferring the necessary legislative competence on the Scottish Parliament, to make the necessary legislation to achieve this, should it choose to do so.

Section 63 of the 1998 Act allows for an Order in Council to provide for any functions, so far as they are exercisable by a Minister of the Crown in or as regards Scotland, to be exercisable by the Scottish Ministers concurrently with the Minister of the Crown. This draft order will give the Scottish Ministers the ability to exercise certain functions relating to the individual electoral registration digital service—which I shall refer to as the digital service—in or as regards Scotland, when giving effect to provision reducing the minimum voting age to 16 in Scottish Parliament or Scottish local government elections or both. Provision relating to the use of the digital service for applications for registration, or for verifying information contained in applications for registration, is otherwise reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament.

The draft order will also have the effect that, if the Scottish Ministers exercise the functions given to them in relation to the digital service, in certain cases the requirement to consult the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, and to publish reports prepared by the Electoral Commission, will apply to the Scottish Ministers. I would like to make it clear that the Scottish Ministers will be able to exercise these functions given to them by virtue of this draft order concurrently with UK Ministers and subject to the agreement of a Minister of the Crown.

I appreciate that concerns about the draft order have been raised by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, and I turn to these now. A question was raised about the propriety of using Section 30 of the 1998 Act to make this change. As I have already stated, several orders have been made under Section 30 since 1999, and it is right that they should have been. Section 30 is a tailor-made power for altering, by an Order in Council, the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament without the need for primary legislation. Section 30 orders, as they are known, are part of the agreed process set out in the 1998 Act. That Act, including that particular process, was fully scrutinised, and the Section 30 process approved, by this Parliament. Therefore, the use of a Section 30 order is an entirely appropriate way to take forward this matter.

Again, I remind your Lordships that it would not have been possible, in the time available, to deliver this important aspect of the Smith commission agreement if the provisions had been contained in a Bill to be brought forward after the next general election. Any consequent legislation brought forward by the Scottish Parliament to reduce the voting age to 16 for Scottish Parliament and Scottish local government elections will be scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament in the normal way.

On the point raised by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, the committee queried whether or not it was appropriate that this order does not include the supermajority procedure requirement. The order delivers the recommendation in the Smith commission which was agreed by all five political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament. Paragraph 25 of the agreement states that the Scottish Parliament should be given the power to legislate to enable 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in time for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections should it choose to do so. The five parties represented in the Scottish Parliament which agreed this issue during the Smith process will therefore be responsible for bringing forward this change in that Parliament, should they choose to do so. This is a question not even of consensus but of unanimity. I am advised that earlier this morning the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee of the Scottish Parliament unanimously recommended that the Scottish Parliament approve this order. No other change to the operation and structure of the Scottish Parliament has that political consensus at the present time.

These are matters for future Scottish Parliaments to debate and any such change will, as my noble friend pointed out, be subject to a supermajority provision. However, we are talking about a recommendation that came forward from the Smith commission which commands unanimous support within the Scottish Parliament. We therefore believe it is not necessary to include a supermajority provision in the current order.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble and learned friend is saying to the House that the reason that no supermajority provision is required is because it was a recommendation from the Smith commission. However, this document, An Enduring Settlement, which was the Government’s response to the Smith commission, said that there should be a supermajority for changes to the franchise or important constitutional changes. He has not explained why he has changed the Government’s position in a matter of weeks.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the Government’s position has not changed. My noble friend will have heard that I said in my first paragraph in moving this order that it was laid before the House on 20 January 2015. That was before these clauses were published. It was always clear that there was not going to be a supermajority requirement for the order, which is on a proposal that commands unanimous support in the Scottish Parliament. There are further technical issues. The clause that deals with the supermajority is somewhat complex and would have led to unnecessary complexity in an order for which there is unanimous agreement that it should go forward.

I do not believe that it was ever the intention that this order would require the supermajority provision. To have done so might have led to accusations that we were going back on something that had been agreed. It was announced early on, before the clauses were published, that we would proceed by way of a Section 30 order to meet not only the spirit but the specific recommendation of the Smith commission that this part of the agreement should be taken forward ahead of the Bill to implement other aspects of it.

It is noted in the Constitution Committee’s report that the change made by this order does not directly affect the franchise for UK general elections, European parliamentary elections or local government elections beyond Scotland. Therefore the order has no direct constitutional implications for the rest of the United Kingdom. I emphasise that the power to set the franchise for voting in United Kingdom parliamentary elections will remain with this Parliament. It is not the Government’s policy to do that—indeed, it would be impossible—for the next general election in the four or five weeks that are left.

While the committee raises concerns that any reduction in the voting age in Scottish Parliament and Scottish local government elections may lead to pressure to extend the franchise for other elections, this is not exactly a new debate. Indeed, some parties represented in your Lordships’ House and one of the parties in the coalition—my own—believe that there should be a change in the franchise: it is not a new debate. During the debate on the order in the House of Commons, this was seen to be a positive development. While there may not be a consensus in this Parliament at the present time for changing the franchise for general elections, I am sure the debate will continue.

Rather than devolve only the powers necessary to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to participate in the 2016 and subsequent Scottish Parliament elections, as the committee pointed out the draft order devolves the power to enable the Scottish Parliament to legislate to lower the voting age to 16 in time for the 2017 local government elections in Scotland if it so desires. I can hear a Member saying that this was not in the Smith report. I was just going to explain why it is being done, albeit that it was not in that report. It is another very sensible, practical thing and the Government should be given credit when they do such things. The draft order does, indeed, go further than is specified in the Smith report but in terms of timing only. Unlike with Scottish Parliament elections, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, did not specify the timescales within which the Scottish Parliament should be given the power to enable 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in local government elections. However, the commission did recommend that:

“The Scottish Parliament will have all powers in relation to elections to the Scottish Parliament and local government elections in Scotland”.

The order clearly does not go beyond that overall recommendation.

Including the power to enable 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in Scottish local government elections in this order was felt to be beneficial and practical for two reasons. First, there is an issue of timing. If the Scottish Parliament wished to take forward such legislation, then the timing of the forthcoming Scotland Bill would make it very challenging to devolve the necessary powers in sufficient time for the Scottish Parliament, in turn, to legislate in time for the Scottish local elections in May 2017 without breaching normal electoral guidelines. Secondly, the franchise for the Scottish Parliament election is currently the same as that for the local government franchise and the former is set by reference to the latter.

Devolving only the legislative competence to reduce the minimum voting age for Scottish parliamentary elections would have meant that the Scottish Parliament would have needed to separate the Scottish Parliament franchise from the local government franchise. That would have introduced unnecessary complications into the registration system. In the absence of a strong policy reason to make the two franchises different, there seems no reason to separate them when all it would bring is unnecessary cost and complication for electoral administrators and potential confusion for electors.

Finally, the committee raised the issue of data protection and individual electoral registration, particularly in connection with individuals under the age of majority. Enacting provisions to protect the data of the prospective young voters is part of the implementation of the order. The Scottish Parliament is well aware of its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 and, generally, to adequately safeguard the information provided for, and used in, the process of registering electors. Further, as already mentioned, this draft order will give the Scottish Ministers the ability to exercise certain functions relating to the digital service. I can assure noble Lords that all information used by this system is treated appropriately and is adequately protected. The service is the name given to the series of interlocking digital systems which allow applications to register as an elector to be made online and for the personal information given by applicants to be verified against government data. It comprises the online application service, the secure environment which receives and directs data, secure connections to electoral registration officers and to the Department for Work and Pensions, the DWP processing environment and the interface with electoral registration officers’ election management software.

The other place approved this draft order on 2 February. If the approval of this House and the Scottish Parliament are also secured, then the order will go forward for consideration by Her Majesty in Council. When the order comes into force, the Scottish Parliament will have the legislative competence to bring forward the legislation necessary to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in all Scottish Parliament, Scottish local government elections or both. The United Kingdom Government have fast-tracked devolving the power for this as an exception to the rest of the Smith package so it can be in place in time for 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections and the 2017 Scottish local government elections. It is my understanding that the Scottish Government intend to introduce this legislation, to lower the voting age, in the Scottish Parliament as soon as possible once this order has been made by the Privy Council. I commend the order to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My noble friend is seriously misinformed on this matter. If he looks at the Smith commission’s report, he will see the principles that guided the commission, which included “no detriment” to other parts of the United Kingdom. That was one of the principles which all parties to the Smith commission agreed to and which informed the proposals with which it came forward. He is absolutely wrong to say that there was no regard to other parts of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

In which case, why on earth are we still retaining the Barnett formula and allowing Scotland to raise its own tax, if the principle was that there was “no detriment” to the rest of the United Kingdom? There was no representation from anyone from the rest of the United Kingdom; it was the political parties in Scotland looking at the position in Scotland.

My noble and learned friend, who is a very clever lawyer, is making a quite separate point. You can look at what is in the interests of Scotland in such a way that it creates no detriment to the rest of the United Kingdom, but that is not the same thing as looking at the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole and considering the knock-on implications. That is a matter for this House and, more particularly, the other place but they are being given no opportunity to debate and consider it. In the case of the changes to local government there has been no opportunity for anyone in Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament or anywhere else to consider that.

I return to my point. We had the Smith commission looking at Scotland. Then we had this ludicrous vow made in the last few days of the campaign—after I and many other people had voted, because many people voted by post. It was done without consultation with the party leaders in Scotland, hence the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland resigned and described her party as being treated like a branch office. Our leader Ruth Davidson, who did such an excellent job in the referendum campaign, was not consulted. This was three privy counsellors on the phone, cooking up a scheme. We have not had that style of government, where privy counsellors could consult each other and create legislative change of this kind, since the days of Wolf Hall. We should be very concerned indeed by the way in which this matter has been done and brought forward.

Then we had the childish timetable where the Government were required to respond from September by St Andrew’s Night, and then from St Andrew’s Night we had to have draft clauses by Burns Night. This is pantomime politics. Not only did we have these draft clauses by Burns Night but, a week later, we had the architect—the hero—of saving the union, Gordon Brown, telling us all that what he had produced and agreed by Burns Night was no longer satisfactory and that we needed to do something else. This is riding for trouble. We should consider constitutional matters carefully and they should carry consensus. We should consider the implications for the United Kingdom as a whole. It should never be driven by political expediency or short-term political consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McAvoy]

This is not about what Gordon Brown says now. I cannot deal with a matter that Gordon Brown has no influence on other than within the referendum campaign. What was said in the Smith commission is agreed. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will send me these alleged quotes from Gordon Brown and let us move on. I remind the House that it was the disparaging remarks about Gordon Brown from the Benches opposite that inspired my defence of him. I will always come to his defence.

My noble friend Lord Reid is right: there may have been panic in London—I am not party to the higher echelons of power in London—but in the political parties in Scotland there was no panic. There were the strident calls of the SNP and its negative reaction to the referendum result, but that was it.

It is quite clear that the changes proposed in this order are welcome in Scotland. I am Scottish and involved in Scotland and I know that the order is welcome, and it is right that the Secretary of State has brought it forward. As I have said, the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, has done the House a service by raising these issues and allowing the Minister to respond to them. I make it absolutely clear—even if it invites further interventions—that we are fully behind this order. It reflects the Smith commission recommendations and the requests in Scotland that we should do this, and it is right that the Scottish Parliament should have the power to do so. It is also right and logical that the Scottish Parliament should be given the power to alter the franchise for local government elections.

I hope that we can move forward with consensus and use the consensus that exists in Scotland. Everyone knows that relations between the Labour Party and the Liberals have not always been consensual; the Conservative Party has certainly never been too consensual —especially when the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was Scottish Secretary, but I will not dwell on his guilty past—but the consensus is there. Without any doubt we fully support the order and wish to place that on record.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this robust and good natured debate. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may have got a lot of things out of his system about the vow and so on, but I suspect that, when we come back after the election, at the Second Reading of the Scotland Bill which will bring forward the clauses, we will have a reprise of his speech and there will be even more things for him to get his teeth into.

The debate has ranged widely, from Wolf Hall, to the Stone of Destiny, to the roll of honour of those who took part in supporting the no campaign during the referendum. A number of important points have been made—for example, the one put succinctly by the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan, in his intervention on my noble friend Lord Stephen. There are inconsistencies in the things you can do at 15, 16, 17 and 18. You can get married and join the Armed Forces at 16, but the ages for driving and buying cigarettes are different. The order is not about ironing out these inconsistencies. An overview of the differences is for another time and another place; it is not what this order is about.

There was a degree of consensus around your Lordships’ House on the merits of a constitutional convention or convocation, which included the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Maxton, and my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who pointed out that my own party supported it. It is not going to happen this side of the general election—it cannot practically be set up in the next three or four weeks—but, post-election, it is almost inevitable in some form. It will involve not only the political parties but civic communities, which is important, but that is for the other side of the election. It has happened before. In the debate we had in October after the referendum, views from different parts of the United Kingdom and from different parties were expressed about the importance of a constitutional convention.

One of the other themes was the thin end of the wedge, as it may be called. If voting at 16 happens in Scotland at the Scottish Parliament and Scottish local government elections, it may well happen elsewhere. My noble friend Lord Tyler made clear why he hopes that will be the case. With due respect to noble Lords who do not wish to see votes at 16, I could take technical shelter behind the fact that the order does not legislate for votes at 16 in Scotland for the Scottish Parliament; rather it confers the powers for the Scottish Parliament to do so. However, given that the Scottish Parliament has made it clear that it will do so I shall not hide behind the order, but it is important to remember technically what it does.

.

My noble friend Lord Stephen made the point that we have debated important issues, including the vow. It is quite clear that my noble friend Lord Forsyth does not like how we got here. I voted no, in spite of the vow, not because of it. I voted no because I wanted Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom and I am delighted that we got the very convincing outcome to the referendum that we did. At the time, it was said that a vote for no was not a vote for no change. The noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, reflected that when he referred to the speech made by Mrs Margaret Curran in the other place. I will come on to the process in a moment.

[Lord Maxton]

I wondered whether the Minister voted by post before the vow, like the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and I did.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Yes, I did. I voted out of sheer conviction that the right thing to do was maintain Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom.

My noble friend Lord Stephen asked us to do a reality check on what we are about here. This is taking forward recommendations from the Smith commission. The Smith agreement is important, not least because it was endorsed by five political parties in the Scottish Parliament. Looking back, the Scottish Constitutional Convention engaged many parts of civic society in Scotland but, in terms of political parties, it included only the Labour Party, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party. It did not include two large parties: the Conservative Party and the Scottish National Party. The Calman commission, the recommendations of which led to the Scotland Act 2012, engaged the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, as well as others, but it did not engage the Scottish National Party. Here we have an agreement that has been fed into by representatives of five parties, including the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. How on earth can he say it included the Scottish National Party, which repudiated it as soon as it was published?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It is important to remember that the commission involved the Scottish National Party, which signed up to it. We are seeking, with this order, to implement one of the parts of that agreement. I have not heard anyone in this debate query whether we should be following this course. No one has acknowledged or faced up to the fact that, if this was done by primary legislation in a Bill after the general election, it would be almost impossible to do all the work required to get 16 and 17 year-olds onto the roll between Royal Assent—at the end of this year or even at the beginning of the next—and the election in May 2016. It was, therefore, necessary to do it by a Section 30 order. That order is what gave the Scottish Parliament the power to legislate for the referendum itself. No one has gainsaid that this is an appropriate way to honour the Smith agreement.

My noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Lang talked about some of the important data protection issues. My noble friend acknowledged that we are seeking to put in place some ways to take care of these. The order will allow the Scottish Government to set up their own system of identity checking for 14 and 15 year-old attainers and it will be for them to decide how this will be put into effect. I repeat what I said in my opening remarks: the Scottish Government are familiar with the Data Protection Act and must abide by data protection legislation. I recall that this important issue was raised when the legislation for the referendum was being drawn up. I have not since heard any complaints that proper procedures were not put in place to address these important issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Reid, and my noble friend Lord Forsyth spoke of an apparent inconsistency on the question of supermajority. As my noble friend Lord Stephen pointed out, it does not matter so long as you get to the end result and it is the right one. My noble friend Lord Forsyth quoted from page 17 of the command paper. That quote—which is in a box—is from the Smith commission agreement. The agreement itself does not suggest that there should be a supermajority for this one measure of extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds and I do not recall anyone doing so. I know the logic that my noble friend Lord Lang and his committee pointed to, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced very early on that we would deal separately with the power to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds and no one has suggested that the supermajority should apply to that. The Government’s position has not changed on that at any time.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. I may be mistaken, but I thought that the Government published draft clauses that provided for a supermajority in these circumstances, in line with the Smith commission proposals. I thought I had asked him, at the Dispatch Box, why on earth we were introducing the alien concept of supermajorities and that the Government had defended it.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

There is provision in the draft clauses for supermajorities covering a range of matters. The Smith commission recommended this but, so far as I can see, no one has ever suggested that it did so with regard to the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds. The recommendation regarding extending the franchise for Scottish Parliament elections to 16 and 17 year-olds was a very separate one and we have proceeded on that basis. There has not been any switch in position, as has been suggested. As I indicated earlier, to include such a provision in the current order would involve detailed consideration on how to amend very key sections of the Scotland Act. For example, thought would have to be given to how the role of the Presiding Officer would be affected by this in deciding whether the provision is applicable and the relationship that the provision would have to the limits of the Parliament to make law. Given that there was never any dubiety about it, the better course was for the order to be in the simple form in which it is presented to your Lordships’ House today.

I fully acknowledge that it was not part of the recommendation that local government should be taken forward now. However, it makes good sense for practical purposes. The franchise for local government elections in Scotland is the same as that for Scottish parliamentary elections. I rather suspect that, if the Government had not done this, someone on the Constitution Committee might have said, “This is what you get if you legislate in haste. Does the Minister not appreciate that the franchise for local government is linked to the franchise for Scottish parliamentary elections? It will lead to considerable additional cost if they are separated”. It is a very practical thing to do and the timing is important. If this were to wait until primary legislation went through both Houses of Parliament and got Royal Assent, there would still need to be legislation done by the Scottish Parliament if it chose to. It would be very challenging to get that done, without breaking some of the timing rules, before the Scottish local elections in 2017.

I listened carefully to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Lang. My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned the referendum experience in a number of respects. Neither of my noble friends referred to the fact that 16 and 17 year-olds voted in the referendum on 18 September. I am not going to join those who thought that the whole referendum campaign was a great festival of democracy. Some of it was not very nice at all. Some noble Lords will recall messages that were not nice being tweeted and read out in our debates. However, people of all parties thought that the engagement of 16 and 17 year-olds worked. Schools held hustings and there was an opportunity for 16 and 17 year-olds to ask proper questions of MPs and MSPs from different sides. There was a turnout of 75%. If we have that turnout among those aged over 18—or 90, or whatever—in the forthcoming general election, it will be a significant improvement on 2010. Young people were not only involved and engaged: they turned out and may have set a lesson to the rest of us about how people might engage.

Therefore, the Smith commission agreement on this particular recommendation did not just come out of the air. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, it is not as though, had Alex Salmond said, “Give us 15”, it would have been 15. I do not think it would have been; it was for 16 and 17 year-olds. The Smith commission was informed by that experience and by how those people had engaged.

It would be very odd if a number of people who could have voted, and possibly did vote, in the referendum were not allowed to vote in the 2016 election—as they would not be if this change does not take place. This agreement came forward and the Government, with the support of the Opposition, said that they would wish to see it happen. If we were suddenly to renege on that promise, the damage would be incalculable. It would be said that this is just the first of many other things that we would renege on. We are therefore asking the House to approve an order that transfers legislative competence and to do something that all parties in Scotland have asked for. As the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, said, it is welcome in Scotland. We should not stand in the way of that. I therefore commend the order to the House.

Motion agreed.