Votes at 16

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Wayne David

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Slaughter]

We will find out. I will resist provoking the hon. Gentleman because we have already heard quite a lot from him so far in this debate. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David); both Members are experienced on this subject, as they are, respectively, the former Minister and former shadow Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform. I therefore feel that my knowledge of the matter is somewhat limited, particularly as I am carrying the flag on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who unfortunately cannot be present because he had a long-standing commitment to chairing a conference on electoral reform. He is particularly keen on that issue, but also on lowering the voting age, and I know that he has been travelling up and down the country meeting young people to discuss the issue. He, the shadow Secretary of State for Justice—my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan)—and the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), have led on this agenda and are together putting the issue at the heart of the Opposition’s constitutional reform programme.

We are facing a deficit in politics that goes beyond the issue of young people voting. It would be easy to retreat from the problem, especially in the midst of a significant economic crisis, but it is not enough to do nothing and hope that the tide changes. It is essential that we seek to explore new ways of achieving democratic renewal and political reform. General election turnout in the UK has been on a downward trend since the 1950s, when 84% of the population turned out to vote. At the last election, the proportion was just 65%. As we have heard, membership of political parties has fallen off a cliff, spectacularly so in the case of the Conservative party, which is now at one thirtieth of its peak membership, but all political parties have been affected.

We deplore the fact that a majority of young people do not vote at elections yet decide to do nothing about it. I thought that some Members who intervened earlier and oppose voting at 16 were using that fact as a reason to justify doing nothing, rather than as a reason to take the matter more seriously. Youth is not automatically linked to apathy, and the reasons behind low turnout are complicated. My experience is that young people today are often highly political but wary of formal party politics. Many do not feel that politicians listen to their concerns or discuss their aspirations.

Bite the Ballot is a very good organisation that promotes young people voting, and one of its representatives commented:

“I would say the majority of young people don’t trust politicians.”

It is probably true that a majority of all people do not trust politicians, but that feeling might be particularly significant among the young, who are perhaps not so world-weary, slightly more idealistic, and therefore more shocked by the way in which politicians sometimes behave. People will have heard the exculpatory comments of Chris Huhne during his media exercise yesterday; I think we must all say that sometimes we politicians do not do ourselves any favours at all.

Sitting back, doing nothing and hoping that our young people vote is not enough. Opening up our democratic system to younger people is important and is a way to solve this problem. Rather than turning our backs, we must seek to improve the current democratic malaise by empowering young people.

Only 44% of those aged 18 to 24 voted in the general election. A recent survey found that only a third of 16 to 24-year-olds say they have an interest in politics. Compare those figures with the 76% of those of pension age who voted. The gap has almost doubled since 1970, when there was an 18 percentage point gap between young people and those of pension age, to around 30 percentage points.

There was a good article in the Daily Mirror this morning—there are always lots of good articles in the Daily Mirror—about this issue, although I do not know whether the Minister read it. It stated:

“Almost 60% of young people say they will not vote in the 2015 General Election”

and that the percentage of those intending to vote in the European elections is only 30%, although perhaps the latter is not so surprising. Those are poor figures and they appear to be getting worse. The response to that should not be to write off young people’s voting, but to take the approach that my party has taken. At the Labour conference, the Leader of the Opposition set out how we will seek to change the situation.

It is right to say that introducing votes at 16 is a radical proposal that has the potential to energise a new generation of politically active and engaged citizens. However, votes at 16 need to go hand in hand with wider youth engagement and a renewed commitment to citizenship education. The education participation age is rising to 18. By offering the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds at school, at college and in workplaces, we can intertwine civic duty with our education system. Conferring a democratic responsibility and opportunity on people still in compulsory education offers practical benefits. For example, on polling days, schools and colleges could have polling stations for students, making it more likely that this group would take advantage of the opportunity. That would be intertwined with Labour’s policy to empower schools to work with electoral registration officers to ensure that students are registered to vote.

The next Labour Government will create schools that nourish real civic duty and democratic understanding, as well as ensuring, of course, that teachers are qualified and all schools are properly inspected, and taking up other unconventional ideas that the Government do not appear to support.

It is important to note that only about half of young people aged 18 to 24 are registered to vote. If people vote once, they are more likely to vote again. The Social Market Foundation published research that found that the closer to an election an individual’s 18th birthday is, the more likely they are to vote. That demonstrated that people who turn 18 in the year leading up to a general election are significantly more likely to vote than those who turn 18 in the year after the previous general election and have to wait five years. Those who vote when young continue to vote. Over time, voting could become a rite of passage in our education system, like taking exams, but this will require a strengthening of citizenship education.

Almost 50% of the population of my constituency was born outside the UK. This is anecdotal rather than statistical evidence, but in communities in my constituency, there is often much greater political awareness and willingness to vote, and that is passed down from parents to children, whether because they value the vote more or because they are taking more of an interest in a country that they have come to relatively recently. If the same interest was shown more widely, that would help; it is achievable. Often, marginal decisions affect whether people vote. For example, we all know that making it easier to vote by post or by other means massively increases turnout.

The Labour Government made great strides with their introduction of citizenship as a subject in secondary school. Citizenship education should sit at the core of our curriculum, giving young people an understanding and deeper knowledge of, and interest in, civic issues. Votes at 16 would place renewed emphasis on this area for our schools.

[Wayne David]

The Government are introducing individual electoral registration. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the main emphases of the Government’s programme encouraging young people to vote should be schools’ participation in encouraging young people to register, so that they can vote at 18? It would be a small step forward to encourage registration for votes at 16.

[Mr Slaughter]

I worry about individual electoral registration, as a number of wards in my constituency have below 50% initial tie-up. In many ways, that will be a barrier to voting. That makes it all the more important that we ensure that the educational aspect and the simple ability to explain to people how the new system works go hand in hand. These problems are not limited to young people.

Votes at 16 can inspire young people to get involved in our democracy. Many young people are already involved in roles of democratic responsibility. Some 85% of secondary schools have school councils, around 20,000 young people are active in youth councils and there are 600 elected Members of Youth Parliament, each serving for 12 months and voted in by their peers. Most hon. Members will have witnessed Youth Parliament debates and met their local representatives, who are supported by groups like Bite the Ballot, the British Youth Council and the Patchwork Foundation, which do great work getting young people involved in politics.

I agree with Government Members that this is not a partisan political issue, although I worry about why so many Conservative Members are against the idea. So much damage has been done to young people under the current Government. They have abolished the education maintenance allowance and university fees are soaring—we must give a hat-tip to the Liberal Democrats for that, although perhaps we will find out that Constance Briscoe was responsible for that as well, in the long term. The Government scrapped the future jobs fund, too. It is hardly a surprise that the coalition parties are nervous about the idea, but over time that will not be an issue.

Finally, let me deal with the main subject of the speech made by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean. With all due respect to him, he was trying to infantilise young people. It is not as simple as saying, “Yes, there is a single age at which young people are able to do everything.” That is not what my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham was saying. The fact is that we do move age limits up and down, and they differ from those in other countries. For example, we decreased the age of criminal responsibility by four years, just as we equalised the age of consent at 16 for all young people. The point is that one has to make a judgment on the merits of the case. Yes, it has been right in some cases to protect young people by imposing an age limit—for purchasing tobacco products, say, because they are addictive, and because if people start smoking young, they tend to continue. However, we do not need to protect people from voting. If anything, we should encourage that engagement, and the later stages of school is exactly the time to do that.

At 16, people can go out to work, become a director of a company, join a trade union and participate fully in society. Many young people are adults at 16, and it is wrong to restrict them in respect of voting. That is why the next Labour Government will give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote. However, that is not enough; they must be given a reason to vote, and the support to engage in the democratic process. Voting is a gateway to participation in society, not an end in itself. If we do not give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, we are excluding them from some of the rights and responsibilities that we otherwise increasingly load on them. Giving them the vote is the fair and right thing to do.

The Daily Mirror article that I mentioned ends with a rather depressing quote from a young person:

“Young people’s voices don’t get heard, so why should they vote? I don’t think politicians take enough time to listen to us, and it’s a shame because we are the future.”

That downward spiral should be reversed. If we give young people the vote and encourage them to use it, they will feel that we are taking their interests more seriously, and then I hope we will see a rise in participation and in the percentage turning out to vote.