European Union Referendum: Young Voters

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

My Lords, 14,000 in Liverpool, 17,000 in Birmingham, and 6,000 in Lewisham —these are all voters lost to the register in areas where the eligible voting population has increased. Never has so much money been spent on registering so few voters. Perhaps the Minister can remind us of how much money this whole exercise has cost.

It was a good idea to do this at the time and, after all, it did not really matter. I remember the jokes in the bars and restaurants on the Estate about the types of voters that would be lost to the register and their voting preferences. I also remember the debate in this House, when we confused the matter and made out that there was criminalisation in the voter registration system when there has not been a prosecution since the Second World War. No one would take it seriously, and perhaps they would not take seriously the parallels with that situation and the exclusion of some groups of voters in the southern states of America, and say that it does not really matter. But it does matter, for the following reason.

The voters lost to the register are not a random selection. I will give noble Lords one fact. If you look like us and are an older person living in your own home in the shires, you are more than 90% likely to be registered. If you are young, from an ethnic minority, male and living in an urban area in private rented accommodation, you are less than 10% likely to be registered. This is storing up a huge amount of alienation for the future. It divides our society rather than unites it, and it is a stain on the conscience of all democracies to have this many missing millions.

Now it matters not only to us and to this country but to the Government, for this reason: the missing voters are also those who are more likely to vote “in” in the European referendum. That is why the Prime Minister has taken to Tinder and Facebook to encourage young voters to register.

However, I am not here just to criticise. I also want to make some practical suggestions about what we can do. Last year, I introduced a Bill on automatic registration, and I ask for the Minister’s support in bringing forward such legislation. It would be cheaper and would register over 95% of voters. I also ask for the Minister’s support for the Greater Manchester initiative to bring through automatic registration. However, neither of those suggestions will sort out this problem for 7 June, which is the deadline for voters to register. I therefore ask him to do all he can in his power to reach out to universities with halls of residence, schools with sixth-forms and further education colleges to get young people registered. The referendum is the most important decision that our country will take in a generation. It must be wrong if those who will be most affected by it do not have a say in it.