European Union Referendum: Young Voters

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in warmly congratulating my noble friend Lord Roberts on introducing this very important debate. He reminded us of the fight for women’s suffrage and for the vote in post-apartheid South Africa. Against that background, it is all the sadder that so many people are missing from the electoral roll and that we have such poor turnouts. As my noble friend said, only 43% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted in the general election last year, and according to Eurobarometer, apparently the UK is ranked 20th out of 20 European countries for voter turnout among those aged up to 30. That is absolutely shameful.

I, and I believe my party, believe that votes at 16 would help to solve the problem by hooking kids in while they are still at school and being wooed by politicians from the age of 14. I say gently to the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, that unfortunately we did not secure votes at 16 for the referendum due, I am afraid, to Labour votes missing at both ends of this building. Also, as my noble friend Lord Rennard just pointed out, unfortunately my noble friend Lord Tyler’s Motion against the premature implementation of individual electoral registration was lost by only 11 votes.

We know that universities have done good work and the Bite the Ballot #TurnUp voter registration week is an excellent initiative. However, I have just been checking the pages about registering to vote on GOV.UK, and the Government need to audit those pages to ensure that they are as modern, clear and helpful as possible and that the guidance set out is aligned with the Electoral Commission and other websites. That is certainly not the case at present as regards the need for a national insurance number. A letter from the Minister, Nick Boles, to further education and sixth-form colleges in April stated that students,

“will need to provide their National Insurance number”,

whereas the GOV.UK website states that people “may” need their national insurance number, while the advice circulated by Bite the Ballot is that people do not need their national insurance number.

I found on the website of the organisation Crisis a helpful explanation that if you do not know your national insurance number, you may have to contact your electoral registration office, although even then the “may” is still there. Can the Government rapidly check and correct the GOV.UK website within the next two weeks to ensure that everything is crystal clear? My noble friend Lord Rennard referred to Bite the Ballot’s report called Getting the ‘Missing Millions’ on to the Electoral Register, with numerous proposals on the national insurance issue and other voter registration reforms. We really need to come into the 21st century.

The guidance on students being able to register at two addresses is also slightly obscure. It is on a webpage on GOV.UK entitled “The electoral register and the ‘open register’”. I do not think anyone would think to click on that link to find out when you can register in more than one place. Why would you look on a webpage that was about the open register and the closed register to find that guidance? Somebody needs to be the mystery shopper to check this out very quickly indeed.

The organisation Crisis has also produced guidance on the ability to register even if someone does not have a fixed address, is in temporary accommodation or does not have a permanent address. On a quick look I did not find that guidance on either the Electoral Commission or the GOV.UK websites.

In addition, would it not be helpful if citizens could request a postal vote simultaneously with their registration to vote? They would not have to wait to go through that further process. There are a lot of things we could do to streamline and make more accessible this voter registration crisis, particularly for young people who are not in the pen and quill age—I partly straddle both, if I may say that to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. They expect to do everything online and we have to facilitate the ease of that process.

Reference has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and picked up by my noble friend Lord Rennard, about how we need to extend the proactive work, which does not seem to be on the agenda of the Electoral Commission in England and Wales, on the initiatives in schools in particular. I am not the expert that my noble friend Lord Rennard, is, but the Electoral Commission in England and Wales is mainly devolved to local authorities. If we are to get that done it has to be through local authorities in England and Wales. Even if it is not in time for 7 June, although I think there is still some time, there needs to be a complete audit and check of the ease of voter registration. Suggestions include prompts when paying council tax or applying for driving licences, and a national website so that people can check their registration status and retrieve their national insurance number online. None of this is rocket science. I ask the Minister to do a rapid check on whether some of this could be implemented very quickly.