European Union Referendum Bill

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am going to make some more progress, because I have been extremely generous in giving way.

On the franchise, the Government are right to use the same basic approach as 40 years ago in the last European referendum and as 33 days ago in the general election—in other words, the parliamentary voting register. I do not begrudge extending the franchise to a particular group of 790 people, but I say to the Foreign Secretary that if we are going to extend the franchise to 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90-year-olds in the House of Lords, I think we should also extend it to 16 and 17-year-olds. On this side of the House we are in favour of giving these young adults the right to vote in all elections. This is an issue of principle—it is about giving them as citizens the right to participate in our democracy.

I suspect that during the course of this debate and the Bill’s Committee stage we will hear arguments against doing that, but I simply say that they will have a ring of familiarity about them, because on every single occasion in the past 200 years that someone has had the temerity to suggest that the franchise should be extended, the forces of conservatism—with a small c—have said, “Don’t be ridiculous”; “It’ll undermine the fabric of society”; or, “They are incapable of exercising the necessary judgment.”

After all, during debates on the Reform Act 1832, landowners said that the only people who could vote were those who had an interest in the land—the people who owned it. In 1912, Lord Curzon said about votes for women:

“Women do not have the experience to be able to vote.”

If we substitute the words “16 and 17-year-olds” for the word “Women”, we will see that exactly the same argument is being made today. Indeed, the same argument was made when a Labour Government lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. It is the same old excuse of an argument against giving people a say, and it is completely at odds with the other rights we already give to 16 and 17-year-olds, including the right to work, pay tax and join the armed forces. [Interruption.] I am well aware of what the Foreign Secretary is saying, but they can also be company directors and consent to medical treatment—it is a long, long list.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is odd that the Government’s position on the Wales Act 2014 is to devolve to the Welsh Government the power to decide whether 16 and 17-year-olds can be given the vote? The Government are giving that power to Wales and it has been exercised in Scotland, yet they are blocking it in this instance.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point as to why the franchise should be extended.

Britain in the World

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) and two excellent speeches from the hon. Members for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), particularly given the maritime connections between our three great cities and the mutual links we have with Malawi and Yemen.

The next five years present this House and this country not only with crucial choices about our public finances and public services but with fundamental decisions about Britain’s role and capacity within the world. I would argue that the decisions we take on international issues over the next five years will have a far greater impact on the prospects for millions of Britons over the remainder of the century than the majority of the individual Bills that we will consider in this Parliament.

I fear much that the Tory Government have proposed in this Queen’s Speech. I fear the impact of swingeing cuts to our social security safety net on the most vulnerable and I fear the continuation of systematic and partisan attacks on our civil society, trade unions and our fundamental rights and protections. What I fear most of all, however, is the risk that this House and this country will descend further into insular nationalism, whether it is Welsh, English, Scottish or British, which could leave us a broken, isolated and increasingly irrelevant rump on the fringes of western Europe, unable to stand up for the values of our citizens in an increasingly disordered, fragmented and challenging world.

This House, this Government and the citizens of the United Kingdom face a choice: do we stand together as a country in Europe and the world robust, equipped and engaged to deal with the challenges of poverty, climate change, conflict, human rights abuses, barbarous ideologies and changing technologies, or do we allow ourselves to be overcome with fear or the misty eyed vision of empire past and break apart or break away from the co-operation and solidarity that allows us to face those challenges with optimism, hope and determined purpose, both as the UK and within the EU? I will say without hesitation that I believe that our future and the future prospects of people in my constituency and across Wales and the UK are best served by a positive vote to stay in the European Union.

The EU needs reform. Of that, there is no doubt. Whether it is the absurdity of the two-seat Parliament, the overbearing nature of the often poorly accountable European Commission, or the obsession of some European leaders with the project rather than delivering benefits for European citizens, many changes are needed. Let us not forget that, in the year in which we celebrate 70 years since the end of the most brutal world war, in which millions died—the second war to devastate our continent in the last century—the fundamental principles of the European Union are worth standing up for: peace and security; freedom and tolerance; economic co-operation and trade; a Europe of social justice that recognises that the whole continent prospers when we support the poorest and most fragile members; and a Europe with a voice of progressive values in the world, alongside the United States in a world faced by the threat of an increasingly belligerent Russian Administration and the uncertainties and opportunities inherent in the rise of the east and the south. Just over two decades ago, China and the EU traded almost nothing, but today we form the second largest source of economic co-operation in the world, trading more than €1 billion every day. We are the most open market for developing countries and in the face of one of the greatest global challenges, climate change, we have stood together for carbon efficiency and international co-operation to find a deal that delivers.

It is not just that global vision but hard economic facts that matter for my constituents. Some 500 firms from other EU member states are based in Wales, employing more than 54,000 people, and 150,000 jobs in Wales depend on access to the European single market. Companies such as Airbus, which employs more than 6,500 people in Wales, including some just over the border from my constituency in Newport, have cautioned that they might reconsider their investment in the UK in the event of Britain leaving the EU.

To leave the European Union would be the greatest act of economic, political and classic folly in the past 100 years. It would be a fearful and foolish response to a world of opportunity and challenge.