Voting Age

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

The hon. Lady, whom I am delighted is one of the motion’s co-sponsors, makes a very good point. I will come to international comparisons later.

Just over seven years ago, on 29 November 2005, I was the last Member of Parliament to provoke a Division on this issue, and we lost by just eight votes. I think that the mood of the House and the country has now changed and that it is worth while to make another attempt.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I support this debate, but am passionately against the motion and will make a speech later. The fact of the matter is that too many people on the hon. Gentleman’s side of the argument exaggerate the level of support. Has he seen the recent polls in Scotland, which show there is no support for votes at 16 or 17?

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

That is rubbish. There is support—56% support it.

[Mr Sheerman]

I can give the hon. Gentleman the opinion poll.

[Stephen Williams]

I will leave matters relating to Scotland to other contributors. If you permit it, Mr Speaker, we will hear from that corner of the United Kingdom later.

The case for lowering the voting age is usually made—the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has alluded to this—on the grounds of other rights and responsibilities that young people already have at 16 and 17. I will come to those later, but I would prefer to justify lowering the franchise age to 16 on the principal grounds that I believe that 16 and 17-year-olds have sufficient maturity and knowledge to cast a vote, if they want to do so. We do not have compulsory voting in this country, so we would simply be affording 16 and 17-year-olds the opportunity to vote if they wished to do so.

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[Stephen Williams]

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said, except the part about the cross in the box—I would prefer it to be a 1-2-3 arrangement.

The hon. Gentleman leads me on to the curriculum, which has changed markedly over the past decade. History and religious education are taught quite differently from when most of us studied them in school, which enables young people to understand their place in society and weigh up controversial issues. Personal, social, health and economic education has been introduced to the curriculum, as has citizenship. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) presided over an inquiry into the teaching of citizenship when I was a member of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, and it is now well embedded in schools, particularly in England and Wales, and has transformed young people’s knowledge of our democratic processes.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Stephen Williams]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is now going to disagree with me.

[Mr Sheerman]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman was on that Committee with me when we looked at citizenship, and at that time citizenship was up and coming and thriving. Since 2010, however, partly through the policies of the Government of whom his party is part, we have seen a steep decline in citizenship being taken seriously and delivered, and it has been totally marginalised. Is he proud of that?

[Stephen Williams]

Tempted as I may be to go into that, this debate is about the franchise. I am trying to be as collegiate as possible, and I hope colleagues will do the same.

The teaching of citizenship, to whatever extent, has transformed the ability of young people to understand and engage with the political system. Indeed, the Hansard Society’s latest audit of political engagement—which I am sure we have all studied in great detail—offers the teaching of citizenship as an explanation for why, over the nine years in which it has studied public engagement in Parliament and politics, the only growth in an understanding of Parliament among the population was in the youngest cohort. When the society started its audit, only 17% of young people aged 18 to 24 felt that they had some knowledge about the workings of Parliament, but that has now grown to 31%. Some improvement is still needed, but that cohort is now broadly in line with the rest of the population.

Extra-curricular activities have also changed enormously over the past decade. The UK Youth Parliament debated in this Chamber and in the other place, as has been mentioned, and I should also mention Parliament’s own education outreach service, of which I am sure we have all had good experience. It has transformed the ability of school visiting parties, and the outreach programme in our constituencies helps schools that are not able to come to Westminster to understand how we make law and run elections.

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[Fabian Hamilton]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is all the more important, now that we have an ageing population—as the hon. Member for Bristol West said, a much higher proportion of older people cast their votes—that we extend the franchise to 16-year-olds as well. As I said earlier, I believe them to be more than capable of making a judgment about who they want to represent them at the local authority level and at the parliamentary and governmental level.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—and he is real friend, not just in the formal sense—put forward a ruthless logic, but that logic leads to the question “Why not 14; why not 12?” Adopting his logic, where should we set the age for voting?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I would answer my hon. Friend—and he is a very good friend—by saying that we have to make a judgment, and that young people have to demonstrate whether or not they are able to make the sorts of judgments we expect in their choice of who they want to represent them. In my experience—and, I am sure, in my hon. Friend’s experience—a 14-year-old does not quite have the maturity or ability to make that judgment, whereas most 16-year-olds certainly do. The point was well made by the hon. Member for Bristol West—we will not have loads of 16-year-olds suddenly heading off towards the polling station when they become 16. In fact, the young people are more likely to be 17 or 18 when the election comes about—unless it is in local government, as many of our towns and cities have annual elections three out of four years.

The age may well come down to 14 as young people get more mature, but we are debating votes at 16. In that case, I think, as many hon. Members and most of my party colleagues think, that from 16 onwards young people are mature enough, bright enough and educated enough to make those judgments. [Interruption.] That is my view; I know my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has a different view.

Let me move on to the issue of school councils. I do not know whether many Members have attended elections for school councils or spoken to any school councils, but I have been invited, as I know have many Members, to meet them—including often to primary school councils, too. [Interruption.] I am staggered—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Shipley wants to keep on making comments from a sedentary position, I will allow him to make an intervention. Otherwise,I would be grateful if he stopped.

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[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. I was coming on to talk about school councils, because I have been impressed by the enthusiasm for voting, and by the interest, knowledge and understanding of what happens in a primary or a secondary school and of what a school council can achieve. It is on a very small scale, but it is a very good start. As the hon. Member for Bristol West said, if people get into the habit of voting at that young age, perhaps we will see a much higher turnout at elections.

I want to take Members back to what was a low point in this country’s electoral history: the police and crime commissioner elections. I am not going to rehearse the reasons why those elections had such a poor turnout—in west Yorkshire, it was 13.7%—but I venture to suggest that if 16-year-olds had had the right to vote on 15 November, turnout might have been over 15%. That is still an absolutely appalling figure, but it would have made some difference. There was a thirst for and an interest in voting among young people—even in those elections, which were so badly publicised. Indeed, when I visited Roundhay high school last Friday, I was asked about the turnout of those elections and the reasons why they had taken place in November in the first place.

When I was at school—a long, long time ago, in the ’60s and ’70s—we studied a subject called civics. I know that that has since evolved, but I found civics very useful, and its modern counterpart, of course, is far more useful. The point about that subject was to understand the institutions of government, both locally and nationally. How many Members have had e-mails and letters from constituents—many such constituents are pretty mature, certainly well over 16 or 18—saying, “Dear Member of Parliament, I want you to do something about the state of the streets in my area”, or saying that they want them to sort out their council house, their property, or the windows? They believe us to be councillors, too. I even got an e-mail the other day from somebody that began, “Dear Councillor Hamilton”. She wanted me to sort out what was purely a local authority issue, and I had to point out that I have not been a councillor for 15 years.

My point is that if 16-year-olds were able to vote, the education they were receiving at school about our governmental institutions, about how our constitution actually works, would be far more pertinent and relevant, because the next year or the next month—whenever they pass the age of 16—while they were still studying, they could cast their vote in a local authority election that has a direct relevance to them, and now, of course, in the five-yearly police and crime commissioner elections, too.

We have an age of consent of 16. At 16, people can drive a scooter. At 16, people can fight for their country—[Interruption.] Sorry; people can join the Army at 16. At 17, they can drive a car. At 16, they can get married with parental permission.

[Mr Sheerman]

With parental permission.

[Fabian Hamilton]

Yes, with parental permission.

We had a youth Parliament in the city of Leeds, as many cities do. The awards were given in the banqueting suite of our Leeds civic hall, and they were handed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The turnout was brilliant. The enthusiasm and support from parents and young people were absolutely magnificent. That told me that increasingly our young people are able to make a judgment about who they want in this House; who they want to run their Government, because that affects them; and who they want to run their local authority. I therefore urge this House to vote for votes for 16-year-olds.

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[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I would quite happily have given way to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I really am looking forward to hearing what he has to say—and I suspect that I will disagree with every word of it. It is a shame not to be able to engage more directly before he says what it is I imagine he will say.

I want to thank the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) for an incredibly thorough speech in which I think he mentioned every single aspect of why the voting age should be lowered to 16. I hope I do not simply repeat what he said. I fully endorse every part of his speech, during which he was very generous in giving way.

I want to focus on the constitutional issues that this subject raises. One reason we are having this debate is that two things have changed: the proposal to lower the voting age to 16 for the referendum in Scotland; and the new fixed-term Parliaments, which mean that voting takes place every five years and not before. The important point was made, but it is worth repeating, that that means that if an 18-year-old’s birthday happens to fall the day after the general election day, they will be 23 before they are able to vote. Nobody is proposing that we raise the voting age. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) referred to the things that people gain the right to do overnight, as it were, when they become 16, 17 or 18. The situation is totally different with the voting age, because people do not usually wake up on their 18th birthday to discover there is a general election; usually, the election will occur at some point during the subsequent five-year period. I doubt whether the Members who oppose this motion are making the case for raising the voting age, so we need to look at lowering the voting age to make sure that more young people can participate.

Engagement is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East spoke eloquently about school councils and citizenship classes, which the hon. Member for Bristol West also mentioned. We must be honest—the experience of citizenship classes is patchy. In some places, citizenship is taught excellently by dedicated citizenship teachers; in others, it is not so good. However, if we lowered the voting age to 16, citizenship, the importance of democracy and the role of political parties would be taught better at schools. It would encourage MPs, local councillors and other elected representatives to visit schools and make the case for why politics is important.

The counter-argument, which I hear quite a lot, is that politics should not be taken into schools. I totally disagree. Politics is important to 16-year-olds, just as it is to older young people. Politics decides what kind of schools we go to. Politics has ensured that there is access to free education for all. It is politics that meant that the school sports partnerships were abandoned. It is politics that decides what people learn at school—which classes are compulsory and which are not. In Derbyshire, the youth services have been seriously undermined; it was children and young people who were campaigning to keep their youth services open and active. This is straightforward politics, and it is good for young people to engage in it.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) mentioned the youth mayor in Newham. Let me give an example from my own constituency of young people taking responsibility. A budget was given to the school council at one of my primary schools, and after much discussion with the teachers, the school council decided to spend the entire £50 on rabbits. The teachers recommended that it not do so, pointing out that they would take a lot of looking after, but it decided to go ahead. Sure enough, they did take a lot of looking after, but those children learnt that if they make such a decision, contrary to advice, there are consequences, and that they had a duty of responsibility to those rabbits. I hope those rabbits are still alive—I have not visited them recently. Even though that is a small story, it demonstrates that if we give young people responsibility, they have to learn how to deal with it properly.

I also think that it is a matter of respect. We as parliamentarians should be saying to young people, “We respect you enough to allow you to make your own decisions about matters that affect you.” This is an important issue that concerns the widening of the franchise and human rights.

The United Kingdom is a signatory to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is shaking his head, but the convention states that when decisions are made that affect young people, they should have a say in those decisions. As has been pointed out today, we make decisions in the House about the age at which people are allowed to join the armed forces—as opposed to the age at which they are allowed to go to the front and lose their lives—and the age at which they are allowed to go to work and pay tax and national insurance. They can do those things from the age of 16 onwards. We make decisions that affect young people, but they have no way of voicing their opinions about what we do.

[Mr Sheerman]

As my hon. Friend knows, I interrupt her speech with deep reluctance, because we are on very good terms. She knows, however, that the UN convention is about the preservation of childhood. It contains nothing about the voting age; it is about preserving childhood as a precious space, a principle that has been entirely absent from the debate so far.

[Natascha Engel]

My hon. Friend and I have had long discussions about this issue. I do not disagree with him about the preservation of childhood—in fact, I entirely agree with him about it—but I also think that lowering the voting age to 16 will not encroach on people’s childhoods. What it will do is give them responsibility, which is very different from taking their childhood away. My counter-argument is that, although we make decisions here that affect the day-to-day lives of people aged 16, 17 and 18—and, in my view, those aged up to 23, because many people are knocking on 23 before they are able to vote—we have taken away their right to have a say in issues that affect them. That is what I find so deeply offensive and wrong.

The hon. Member for Bristol West made a strong point about the widening of the franchise. I think that this really is a matter of human rights. It is slightly different from the issue of giving the vote to women, but I agree with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) that the sky will not fall in if we give 16-year-olds the vote. The sight of a 16-year-old in a polling station putting a cross on a ballot paper—not one, two, three—should not panic people. This will not mean that the entire polling station is full of 16-year-olds; it will merely mean that younger people too will participate in the decisions that we make in the House. It is a shame that people are so fearful, and worry so much about 16-year-olds taking part in a general election.

The Scottish referendum will give us an opportunity to see how giving 16-year-olds the vote could work. Why should we not view it as a pilot? After 16, 17 and 18-year-olds have had their say in the referendum, we can look at how it went. I agree that the genie is out of the bottle once 16-year-olds are able to vote in a referendum, because after that it will be very difficult to say to them that they are to be denied a vote in the general election that will take place in the following year.

I have some sympathy with the view of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who has described this as an important constitutional matter. Issues were raised earlier about the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each of them has voted overwhelmingly to lower the voting age to 16, but none of them can do so until we in this Parliament have made the decision for them.

I think it important for us to have this debate, and important for all views to be aired. However, I hope that when we go through the Lobbies, all of us—not just Labour and the Liberal Democrat Members—will vote in favour of seeing what happens in Scotland, and then lowering the voting age throughout the United Kingdom.

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[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always difficult, knowing that one is going to be pretty much a lone voice on the Opposition Benches opposing the motion. I have to tell my colleagues that I have done it before and it is good for the soul, and I will probably do it again. May I make a confession? I used to be in favour of lowering the voting age. Then I became Chairman of the Education Committee, then Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee. It was my experience as Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee that changed my mind.

From the evidence that we heard across a range of inquiries, it became clear to me that we live in a world where childhood is being truncated and squeezed all the time. We live much longer. We are all going to live to 90 and goodness knows what age—I think it is predicted that children born now will live to 100. As a percentage of the lifespan, childhood is a very brief period. I want to celebrate childhood. I want children to be able to indulge in it and have a wonderful time. Childhood is about so many things—education, experience, learning, fun and being irresponsible in so many ways. I passionately believe that we should not squeeze childhood.

In my lifetime, childhood has been squeezed inexorably. Just look at the commercial pressures on young people today. Take advertising. Look at the pressures on children to conform—to buy the right trainers, to have the right computer and the right mobile phone. The pressure on childhood from the commercial world is tremendous. We as politicians have done pretty little about defending childhood from commercial pressures. Indeed, the one time I deeply fell out with my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) was when, as Minister, he allowed product placement on television. What do we drink? Coca Cola, because there it is on the screen. The commercial pressures on childhood have been extreme over recent years. [Interruption.] It may be hilarious that there is commercial pressure. I do not think it is hilarious. I think it is deeply worrying.

I have increasingly spent time looking at the very vulnerable children in our society. We should all reflect on how many young people were involved in the Jimmy Savile case and other cases, and on the gangs in our towns throughout the country. There is a famous case going through the courts at present and there have been many more over the winter where vulnerable girls—particularly girls, but sometimes boys as well—have been targeted. There are protections in our laws that take childhood through to 18. I know that we cannot apply that to everything, but 18 gives us a standard by which to judge how far childhood goes. Eighteen is the maximum age. Others have argued that people can get married at 16, but that is only with their parents’ consent.

I am in favour of keeping childhood. I am also in favour of keeping the protections of childhood. As we allow these to slip to a younger and younger age—

[Stephen Williams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Sheerman]

No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman, who is a great friend of mine, made quite a long speech. I want to carry on making my case.

I believe that pushing childhood back makes many young children vulnerable at a crucial age. Those of us who have spent time with children—I have four children and oodles of grandchildren—know that they are very vulnerable between the ages of 14 and 18. We can wish that away or pretend it is not the case, but my experience as Chairman of the Education Committee and then of the Children, Schools and Families Committee has taught me that that is a very sensitive age for young people.

I understand where the motion is coming from. It is a fashionable cause at present. When the president of the Liberal party back in those days, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), made that speech and moved that motion, I remember that people said, “Oh, it’s only those trendy Liberal Democrats looking for young votes,” and I said, “No, no, he is a man of honour and he believes this for very good reasons.” My own party has been won over. The deputy leader of my party and others have become passionate about it. I opposed lowering the voting age being in our manifesto and believed it was wrong—again, because I believed it made the protection of children a lesser issue than it might otherwise be.

[Fabian Hamilton]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Sheerman]

May I put that point in context? I believe that part of the demand and the fashion of votes at 16 comes from the fact that our parliamentary democracy is in deep trouble. We know that only 65% voted at the last election and that 6 million people did not bother to register. We all know that the three main parties represented in this place have hardly any members in their constituencies—tiny numbers of people active in politics. I know that the Liberal Democrats have believed in proportional representation to do something about that, but we are all floundering around because there is something deeply wrong with the engagement in democracy in our country today.

The demand for votes at 16 is clutching at straws. I understand it and I do not deny that there are arguments for it, but I worry that it is a pretext for not looking at the deeply worrying decay of parliamentary democracy in our country. I hope this does not come to a vote. Everyone on the Labour Benches knows that I am a reasonable man. At the very least, I would like the Government to set up a commission on an all-party basis to look into the matter. If my concerns and worries about the protection of children are ill-founded, an independent commission looking at that might give me cause not to worry any longer, but I believe that the voice that has been silent in the House today has been one arguing for childhood, the protection of childhood and the value of childhood.

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[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

We have had an excellent debate on whether 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds should have the vote. We have had a total of 15 speakers, and Members have made good contributions and put the case well. Of those 15, by my reckoning only three spoke against the change, and 12 made logical cases for the extension of the franchise.

I will not seek to mention all Members who have spoken—I hope they will forgive me—but I will single out one or two contributions. The debate began with an excellent and comprehensive exposition of the case for the extension of the franchise by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) made a passionate case, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) gave us the benefit of her many years’ experience of working in the youth service. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) talked about his experience of visiting schools, which I am sure many Members can replicate, and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) talked about the centrality of the debate and the fact that the concept of empowering young people is in the UN convention on the rights of the child.

My own view is that a strong case has been made for extending the vote to 16-year-olds. I was influenced by hearing about the Votes at 16 campaign back in January 2003. Since then, my support for the principle has grown stronger and stronger.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend did not mention my speech, of course, and I do not blame him for that. Does he believe, and is it the official policy of our party, that adulthood begins and childhood ends at 16? Is that what he is saying?

[Wayne David]

That is not what I am saying. This is a Back-Bench debate, of course, and Members are more than able to express their own views. We are not making any broad-brush statements about when adulthood begins, but I am convinced, and I believe the Labour Front-Bench team are convinced, that there is now an overwhelming case for extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds.

It is fair to say that the Power report of February 2006 was seminal in our developing that view. It indicated the shift of opinion that has gradually taken place. It considered why so few people, and fewer all the time, were willing to be involved in the democratic process. Among its recommendations was reducing the age of voting and candidacy to 16. It stated:

“Our own experience and evidence suggests that just as with the wider population, when young people are faced with a genuine opportunity to involve themselves in a meaningful process that offers them a real chance of influence, they do so with enthusiasm and with responsibility.”

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend has just said again that there is an overwhelming case for the change. I think he is a bit of a betting man on the quiet, so let us have a bet. We will have a poll in Caerphilly and see how overwhelming the majority is for votes and the beginning of adulthood at 16.

[Wayne David]

I have simply expressed my view and, I believe, that of the majority of colleagues on the Opposition Benches. There is indeed an overwhelming case, and experience has shown that when more people engage with the issue, more become convinced that it is the way forward.

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[Miss Smith]

I hear the hon. Gentleman. As I say, we need a clear case for change and I will use the time available to me today to look at the facts surrounding the issue because I do not think the case is yet made.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Minister address the point that I tried to make in my speech—I was a bit of a lone voice—and my concern about the rights of children and their vulnerability if we take protections away when the beginning of adulthood, as sure as can be, is moved from 18 to 16?

[Miss Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for pressing that point, and I will come on to deal with the fact that we do not have a single age of majority in this country. Hon. Members on all sides have debated whether we ought to have a single age and what it should be, and the debate has covered both axes of the argument. I was taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan)—we should not be protecting young people from democracy.

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[Miss Smith]

The right hon. Member for Tooting suggests from a sedentary position that we ought to protect 16-year-olds from taking part in democracy—I suspect that argument has been made in the debate. As I said in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), I see the merits of engaging younger people in politics. However, it is my job to answer for the Government, and it will not have escaped the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) that we do not have a consensus on this policy within the Government. I make no bones about that—unless Mrs Bone is available.

Hon. Members on both sides of the argument have tried to exhaust the list of what 16 and 17-year-olds can and cannot do. The contents of the list change from time to time, but that is not the key to the debate, because the UK has no standard age of majority at which people move from being a child, with all the protections that entails, to being an adult. Instead, those rights and responsibilities build over time. People gain the right to do some things when they turn 16 and the right to do other things at other ages. They gain the right to vote the day they turn 18, although I note the argument of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who said that they cannot simply walk out of the door and vote at that point unless they are very lucky with their date of birth.

Hon. Members’ arguments have fallen today on the issue of competence, which is a difficult matter of principle. I will not go into the ins and outs of it because hon. Members have done so, and it is important that the voices of Back Benchers come through in a Backbench Business Committee debate.

As I have said, the Government welcome the involvement in politics of young people who are legally old enough to vote and those who are not. We are seeking to increase the level of political engagement among the youth of this country and to increase registration rates among them to ensure that they exercise the right to vote when they are able to do so.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Government have changed the emphasis on citizenship in schools—it has been pushed to the margins of activity in schools rather than being allowed to flourish.

[Miss Smith]

I will answer the hon. Gentleman but take no further interventions on that because I have little time. He is confusing the concept of activities in schools with the national curriculum, which are two different things.

We need to give young people a say in the issues and decisions that affect them. The Government have made that a key principle in our “Positive for Youth” policy and are engaging young people in the political process in a number of ways. The British Youth Council has received funding from the Department for Education to promote the voice of young people at national and local level. That includes establishing a new national scrutiny group of representative and elected young people to advise Ministers across the UK Government directly. I look forward to my first meeting with the group. The Cabinet Office is working with Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote to pilot different approaches to engaging directly with young people and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK, including in their schools, colleges and communities, to increase their understanding of both the process and relevance of registering to vote.

Hon. Members have argued that 16 and 17-year-olds ought to be able to vote in order to help engage young people at an early age in our democratic and political processes, but they do not yet convince me. I have not seen compelling evidence. The Youth Citizenship Commission, which the previous Government set up in 2008—no doubt it was part of their onward journey—considered ways in which to develop young people’s understanding of citizenship and increase their participation in politics. It also considered whether the voting age ought to be set at 16. In its summer 2009 report, it felt unable to make a recommendation on whether the voting age should be lowered. It suggested that there was a lack of evidence regarding the merits of votes at 16, and noted that there were vigorous views on either side of the debate, which we have heard in the debate. It said that it is

“of the view that the issue is not the principal factor in encouraging young people’s interest and involvement in politics and citizenship.”

That speaks for itself and sums up several strands of the debate.

Those findings were in line with those made five years earlier by the Electoral Commission in its 2004 report on the age of majority. The commission recommended in its report that the minimum age stays at 18 years. It also recommended reducing the minimum candidacy age from 21 to 18 so that voting and candidacy are the same—a number of hon. Members have made that point—and the change was duly introduced.

The evidence is therefore not clear cut. We should certainly continue to consider the question, and I welcome the role of the Backbench Business Committee in that. Perhaps the more pressing question is what we can do to increase registration and turnout in groups who can vote. Registration among young people is lower than among other population groups. Recent Electoral Commission research shows that 55% of 17 and 18-year-olds and 56% of 19 to 24-year-olds were on the register, compared with 94% of over-65s. Those figures are telling.

I also note that the turnout figures for 18 to 24-year-olds have been falling. At successive elections from 1974 to 1992, approximately a quarter of that group did not vote. That is important to know and something we all ought to take seriously and work on. There is clearly an issue about engagement, particularly with younger electors, which goes beyond franchise, and the Government are trying to address it.

We are introducing the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which I know we shall enjoy debating in the House next week. It will go some way towards changing the electoral registration process for the better by introducing individual registration. It will create a legislative framework to allow alternative channels for registration, such as online registration. The move from paper to digital will make registration more convenient and increase accessibility—a significant transition. We want to ensure that during this period we enable as many people as possible of all ages to register to vote. We know we need to go further than those changes alone. I mentioned that the Government are working with a range of organisations to seek to engage individuals and communities from all sections of society into the political process, and specifically to drive up registration rates in under-registered groups.

The Government are fully committed to doing all they can to increase voter registration levels, but, to return to the main theme of today’s debate, there is no silver bullet solution. Increasing democratic engagement is not solely the responsibility of Government. Politicians, political parties, electoral administrators, teachers, young people themselves and others in society all have a role to play in encouraging young people to register to vote, and then to actually use their vote in elections and referendums. We must provide people with compelling reasons to vote.

I pay tribute again to hon. Members and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this compelling debate, one in which evidence and principle have their place, and I hope we have done it justice today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

On the first point, my office and the Serious Fraud Office have received requests for this information, and we are currently considering whether any further information can be released. I would like to see as much of the information released as possible.

On the second point, it is right to make it clear that the person responsible for making these payments is no longer working in the civil service.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Attorney-General realise that this is merely a symptom of something seriously wrong with the Serious Fraud Office in terms of its leadership, culture and record over recent years?

[The Attorney-General]

May I recommend that the hon. Gentleman look at the report by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate on the Serious Fraud Office, as he will see that it has many laudatory things to say about the way in which the SFO has operated and sees it as capable of achieving significant outcomes in challenging cases? That is not to say that I do not think that there is room for improvement—I certainly do. A new director, David Green, has been appointed, and I have every confidence that he will be able to make the necessary changes. For example, he will be implementing the changes that the inspectorate recommended, and it will of course make a follow-up report to track that progress.

European Council

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am not sure that I will be able satisfy my hon. Friend or, indeed, the other members of his household, but I will try my best. As I have tried to explain this afternoon, the change process in Europe requires some tactical and strategic patience in the UK to see how that change will pan out so that we can get our response to it right. That will be the time at which we will have the maximum amount of influence: when Europe is making big changes itself.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

In answer to a previous question, the Prime Minister said that he is in favour of the expansion of the European Union. How big does he want the European Union to get and what are the implications for the movement of populations across Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

I would argue in favour of, as some would put it, a Europe that extends from the Atlantic to the Urals and includes all those countries that are currently applying, such as the countries of the western Balkans—I would very much like to see Macedonia and others become members of the European Union. One of the European Union’s greatest successes has been that countries wanting to join have entrenched their democracy and their belief in open and free markets. It has been a very successful policy in that regard. Britain has always argued for enlargement and we should continue to do that. We should always put in place transitional controls, which I am afraid the last Government failed to do.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I am always uncomfortable when listening to Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I will give way once more.

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend is making some very good points. I have been in the House for long enough to have voted for many of the progressive measures introduced by a Labour Government, but one of the things that worry the reformers on the Opposition Benches who want change in the upper House is the quality of the people who would end up there—and there is nothing in the Bill to assure us that the party machines will not control all the people who end up there.

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend highlights one of the problems of a list system. That is one of the reasons why we are surprised that the Joint Committee, which sat for nine months, did not consider the type of system that is being imposed in the Bill.

“I am a supporter of a fully elected House of Lords”.—[Official Report, 5 April 2011; Vol. 526, c. 879.]

Those are not my words—although I agree with them—but the words of the Deputy Prime Minister. However, his Bill proposes the establishment of an 80% elected Chamber. We are disappointed that it has not gone for a fully elected second Chamber. Even the Joint Committee was split, recognising that there was a case for that.

Our position is that we want a fully elected second Chamber, and that was also the position taken in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto. By allowing some Members still to be appointed, the Deputy Prime Minister is weakening his own arguments for having elected Members in the second Chamber. The Deputy Prime Minister’s pet phrase—although he did not use it today—is “Do not let the best be the enemy of the good”, but in proposing a hybrid Chamber he may be storing up problems for the future.

Debate on the Address

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Certainly, the cost of a stand-alone referendum would be significant and it is worth taking that into account.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Prime Minister take it from me, after a lot of canvassing last week, that many people in this country are astounded that in the Queen’s Speech there is nothing about youth unemployment or providing jobs, no higher education Bill and nothing to address the large number of unemployed graduates we now have in this country?

[The Prime Minister]

The youth contract, which is going to do enormous amounts on youth unemployment, started last month. We achieved 450,000 apprenticeships last year. The Work programme is well under way now, helping half a million people, and it is the biggest back-to-work programme in this country since the 1930s.

Let me explain that there are a number of important measures in this Queen’s Speech to promote growth and jobs. As well as the Work programme and the youth contract, we have the national loan guarantee scheme, with £20 billion to get cheaper loans flowing to small businesses. The most important work of the Government is implementing all those schemes and programmes, but we must do more to rebalance our economy. It is clear what went wrong. The public sector grew too large, our economy became unbalanced between north and south and we ended up too dependent on financial services. So we know what we need to do as a country. We must revive the private sector, spread growth and jobs across the country and make sure that financial services truly serve the economy—not the other way around.

To expand the private sector we need to cut the burdens on business and make it easier for employers to take people on. That is in our enterprise Bill. To make the most of growth in the energy sector, including gas, nuclear and renewables, we need to reform the energy market, and that is what the energy Bill will do. To make the most of green investment, we need to legislate properly for the green investment bank, with £3 billion of money in its coffers. That will be done through the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech as well.

Another key issue is the need to clean up the financial system, and I have to say to the shadow Chancellor, who sat and did nothing while the financial sector melted down, that he ought to focus on this part of the Queen’s Speech. As the Governor of the Bank of England said last week, there are three vital steps to take, and we will be taking all of them: proper regulation at last by the Bank of England, the banks being made to hold enough capital to keep them safe, and a regime that means that if they do fail they can fail without the taxpayer picking up the bill. Those are all things that the shadow Chancellor never did when he was the City Minister.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said. Let me just remind him. He said:

“I think…it’s right that the Leveson Inquiry takes its course.”

That is what he said—just a week ago. The trouble is that he was bounced by the deputy leader of the Labour party, who thought that this issue would get a good headline, 23 minutes after the evidence had come out, and because he has no judgment he backed it.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can I push the Prime Minister on something that really concerns me: the role of the special adviser? Any of us who knows about the role of the special adviser knows that they are not one of many officials, but people who work intimately and closely with their Minister. I do not believe for one moment that the Prime Minister does not know that that special adviser must have known everything that was going on, and have told his Minister on an hour-by-hour and a day-by-day basis.

[The Prime Minister]

All that information is going to be provided to the Leveson inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary has been very clear about the role he played and the role his special adviser played. The special adviser has been very clear about the role he played and the fact that he went way beyond anything that he was authorised to do, but the difference between the process we are about to go through and a normal Cabinet Secretary or independent adviser process, is that people are going to be answering questions under oath—questioned by a barrister, in a court. That is pretty powerful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Needless to say, once the commission, which is entirely independent of any party and of the Government, produces its report, we will be keen to enter into cross-party discussions. But at the moment we do not know what the commission is recommending, and it is very difficult to have a proper cross-party discussion without knowing what the recommendations will be.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

If the English regions can give evidence to the commission, what will be the appropriate body to do so from Yorkshire and Humber, which has a larger population than Scotland, as we no longer have a regional development agency and we have nothing that represents or gives focus to any strategic thinking for our region?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

For a start, it would be a good thing if Members of Parliament from Yorkshire and Humber—I am a Yorkshire MP—were to give evidence where we have strong views on how the procedures of this House should be changed to reflect devolution. The commission has been established and its membership has been selected precisely to reflect the expertise we need on how this House works and how its procedures might need to be reformed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree that the decisions taken at last week’s summit were, at the end of the day, all about the fiscal and budgetary rules that accompany a country’s membership of a currency union, but that does not, and will not, exclude our country from having the ability to continue not only to participate in, but to play a leading role in shaping policy and debates on the wider economic reform of the European Union as a whole. That is what we intend to show in the weeks and months ahead.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

What will the Deputy Prime Minister say over the Christmas period—I hope that he has a very good Christmas—about the many people in our country who are unemployed? A million young people, and many thousands of young graduates, are unemployed. What new thing can he whisper into the Prime Minister’s ear so that we get this sorted?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First, I hope that people will be increasingly informed about the details of the youth contract, which will start in April next year—a new billion-pound programme that will provide 250,000 work experience places to any 18 to 24-year-olds who want to take part in a work placement scheme. It will also provide a new subsidy, worth about half the basic wage, to thousands of young people who are seeking employment. The key thing is that from April next year, under the youth contract, every single 18 to 24-year-old who cannot find work will have the opportunity to earn or learn.

Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank the hon. Lady. The whole thrust of the report was to make sure that there is value for money for the taxpayer and that transparency is enhanced and improved. However, our primary aim, which we reaffirm in recommendation 1, is that we want the independent determination of the payments system for MPs’ costs and independent regulation to continue, and to continue to be robust. Let me dispel myth No. 1. Nothing in the recommendations seeks to undermine the independence of IPSA and the power of the regulatory function performed by that outside body. That was paramount in what we were doing. The Act was right in that intention, and it should remain, which is why we reaffirmed it in recommendation 1.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of us very much admire the hon. Gentleman’s work in this field. We all feel very exposed. We all have an individual relationship with IPSA. Being able to share in a debate such as this is very useful, but I constantly feel that we need a parliamentary association that can act for Members of Parliament across the Benches when these very important issues about how we best fulfil our functions come up.

[Adam Afriyie]

That is an interesting point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Afriyie]

That is another point well made. I will tackle the point made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) first and then move on to deal with that made by my hon. Friend.

If we think about the rest of society and the work we do as MPs—this is not a sob story, but I am sure that it will be reported as such—we will realise that every other body has a pressure group, a trade association, a trade union or a communications or public relations company working for them. We want our great British democracy to be an icon of honesty, transparency and straightforwardness around the world, so it is curious that Parliament appears to be the only organisation that does not have a similar function. IPSA, which is a small organisation, has two or three people dealing with its communications, but in Parliament there is no one to give the other side of the story. That is not a recommendation of the report, but simply my own observation to back up what the hon. Gentleman said.

[Mr Sheerman]

The trouble is that the three main parties in the House tend to be represented by the Whips, whose view of what goes on here is very different to that of most Back Benchers, so the call that I would like the hon. Gentleman to make for a parliamentary association might be what we need.

[Adam Afriyie]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. It is not in the report, but I accept it.

To return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie)—[Interruption.] Have I just promoted him?

EU Council

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I quite understand why particularly the Germans want this fiscal union and want tougher rules because they do not want to see irresponsible behaviour repeat itself. One can debate whether that actually requires change in the treaty or not, but we have to spend more time on the other parts of solving the crisis, which are to do with short-term changes and longer-term competitiveness.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister is aware that this situation represents one of the most fundamental changes in our national politics and in European politics. Will he assure the House that in all his future negotiations he will be mindful to look after not just financial services but the manufacturing sector and other service industries that do not have a part to play in the City of London?

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not see financial services on their own, because they obviously have a role in supporting the rest of the economy. The key in terms of Europe for the rest of the economy is the single market, and that is what we are determined to safeguard.