European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I feel passionately about this issue. I have been wondering why that is the case, especially as so many people that I respect hold exactly the opposite position to myself. Principally, it is because I have often seen, over many years, young people in care being allowed to make decisions that are not age-appropriate. A local authority will, quite commonly, offer a 16 year-old in care a flat of their own and a sum of money or the choice to stay with their foster carer. Many choose to take the flat and the pot of money. We are told that in many cases, drug dealers befriend and move in with them, or they cannot manage to meet the rent and they lose the flat. I spoke to a foster carer who said that her foster daughter was doing so well in school before a local authority offered her a flat of her own; now she is doing very badly in school and the carer does not know how she is doing in her flat. One of the reasons I feel so strongly about this amendment is that I am concerned about whether this is an age-appropriate decision—although clearly children are not going to harm themselves, in the way that children in care apparently can often be harmed by being giving decisions too early, in this particular case.

I listened with great interest to my noble friend. I have sympathy for his concern that this is a very long-term decision that we are coming to as a nation, which will affect the young people in question particularly. But I am afraid I disagree with him; I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, differently. I respect the great depth of knowledge and the effort that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has put into this issue; I have heard him speak about it on many occasions. My sense, is that for him, at least, this is part of a project—not just an issue for this particular referendum Bill but more generally—to lower the franchise. I feel really concerned about that, although there are many people I respect who think it is the right thing to do. Some child development experts would agree with them, while others would be concerned.

There is concern about the impressibility of 16 and 17 year-olds. Some of your Lordships may remember the film “All Quiet on the Western Front”. It begins in a schoolroom, with a teacher talking to young people and enthusing them with notions of the greatness of their country and the importance of fighting for it. It then follows their careers in the Army. Your Lordships may remember that in the Chinese Great Leap Forward young people were targeted and used as the force for taking that forward. Your Lordships may also remember how effective, in the 1930s, some nations were at manipulating their youth to do things none of us would agree with.

There has been concern about growing nationalism across Europe and there are increasing pressures. Thankfully—and tribute should be paid to the Government and the coalition Government before them—we have avoided the serious unemployment which is a large contributory factor to this. But at some future date we may not be so fortunate. It concerns me that we are painting a target on the back of our young people by giving them the vote at the ages of 16 and 17. There are people who are very good at using the internet to manipulate people, and 16 and 17 year-olds, as we know, have been vulnerable to this in various ways.

I am also concerned about the wider ramifications for children around the country. Noble Lords have spoken from experience, which I cannot yet do, about their own children. Of course, many children will not have had the support that I hope your Lordships will have had—I hope I am not speaking out of turn. I am thinking particularly about the work the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, took forward recently during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. The noble Lord listened to the concerns of parents of 17 year-olds who had been held in custody in police cells. They were sometimes held over the weekend for two nights and, regrettably, a number of those young people had taken their own lives after that experience. The noble Lord listened to those concerns and acted promptly to change the law. I was pleased to learn, recently, that it had changed and that 17 year-olds in custody will be treated as children.

The last time that we debated this matter, Barnardo’s produced a briefing in which it sought to change the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. In that Act, the age of majority is 16 and Barnardo’s wanted to see it raised to 17. In aid of his approach, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, put forward the argument that if you are old enough to marry and join the Army at 16, you should be able to vote. Others may say that if you are old enough to vote at the age of 16, you do not need to be treated as a child and can be put in a police cell at the age of 17. If you are old enough to vote at 16, maybe it is not so outrageous to have an age of criminal responsibility of 10—the lowest in Europe: I think the average age is 14. I am concerned from that angle.

I conclude with my concern about child development issues. These children are in the middle of adolescence, which is a very interesting period. I do not want to be too technical and maybe this will be quite obvious to most of your Lordships. Young children are very attached to their parents and to their siblings. In adolescence, they make a move from that attachment to an attachment to their peers and eventually to a romantic partner of their own. That is a huge change, which will play out in many different ways. Partly, they will react against their parents. Quite often they will take polar opposite views and values to their parents—for some time, at least. I can think of that in my own family history. My father grew up in a landowning family; he was an aristocrat. When he went to private school, he became the school’s only socialist, reacting very strongly against the ideals of his parents. He moderated over time.

We are not talking about young people voting Labour or not, but I worry that if we set this precedent it will be used on other occasions. Young people may be more likely to vote for Labour or the Liberal Democrats—parents tend to be more conservative, so their children may be reacting.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

Forgive me, my Lords, I did not understand the last point that the noble Earl made about Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour. The noble Earl makes a very powerful speech, with which I disagree. Will he accept that there are many older vulnerable people who are just as open to persuasion from external forces as young people? The noble Earl will, like many of us, go into schools—with whatever scheme—and find young people who are absolutely able to withstand pressure and who are not vulnerable in that way. I would be grateful if he would explain the point about Conservatives and Labour because this has absolutely nothing to do with party politics. This is about empowering young people however they wish to vote. It is not about being in or out but giving them the ability to vote and determine their future.