Votes at 16

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim McMahon]

That is a fair point, and I will come on to how diverse the franchise is becoming across the UK.

How many of us, as parliamentarians, receive emails about local council issues, such as street lights not working, potholes and bins not being collected? That shows a basic lack of understanding on the part of people who are currently part of the franchise about where power and responsibility sit. In some cases, they do not know what the council or the Government are responsible for.

Many people also do not understand the role of the judiciary in our politics and democracy. That is why some newspapers can put pictures of three judges on their front pages, calling them “Enemies of the people”, and the general public swallow it. People do not necessarily understand the important role the judiciary plays in terms of checks and balances in our democracy.

A key component of my private Member’s Bill—it was not just about extending the franchise—was about providing democratic and civic education in schools so that every person who has gone through our school system on their route to becoming an adult is fully equipped to hold us all to account. If they do not know who is responsible for what, they do not know who to hold to account. It is easy for politicians, in whatever tier of government, to pass the buck and not take responsibility. That basic education was an important component of my Bill.

Throughout the campaign, we have heard many of the same arguments that prevented the vote from being given to women, the working classes and 18-year-olds in the past. “How on earth will they know what they are voting for?” “Surely if we extend the franchise to women, it will bring down democracy.” There is a common thread between the arguments that were used in times gone by and those used today to deny 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Is the problem not the inconsistency of that argument? In respect of the 2016 referendum, Brexiteers, who are, by and large, in favour of keeping the franchise as it is, often say, “Oh, people knew what they were voting for.”

[Jim McMahon]

There are lots of inconsistencies in the arguments that took place during the Brexit referendum and that continue to take place. In the political debates we have in schools and colleges with 16 and 17-year-olds, there is a richness—they explore ideas. We all hold street stalls and sessions where we engage with members of the public, and I would say that that education and willingness to reach out should not be restricted when it comes to 16 and 17-year-olds. If politics is to be renewed—we are in quite a depressing state when it comes to trust and faith in our democracy—that will require a different approach.

There are two very different approaches in this place. On the one hand, there is the sense that, if we restrict the franchise to the fewest possible people, it will be purer. We see that in individual voter registration, in the need to produce ID at polling stations and in several other cases. On the other hand, there is a contradiction, because a couple of weeks ago we considered the Overseas Electors Bill, which seeks to give indefinite voting rights to people who do not live in this country but who live abroad as British citizens. There is an inconsistency in how we apply these things.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) on securing this debate and on piloting his private Member’s Bill. It demonstrates how ridiculous the processes in this House are that although, in my view, there is clearly a majority for votes at 16, because of the arcane private Member’s Bill system the hon. Gentleman’s Bill will not pass.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who made a very thoughtful speech up to a point, and then, as is typical of the Scottish Tories, there was the bingo tick box where he bashed the Scottish National party. In many respects, I think that the road to Damascus has been walked by people such as the hon. Gentleman, and although it is tempting for someone whose party has supported lowering the voting age since the 1960s to take the high ground on these matters, it is important that we build a coalition around this issue. I genuinely welcome the tone that he adopted in making sure that there are Conservative voices in this place arguing for votes at 16.

The reality of the parliamentary arithmetic is that if someone put a proposition to the House on legislation for votes at 16, it would pass, so it is very much the case that votes at 16 are coming, which is a good thing.

The issue of votes at 16 is pretty much the first thing that I ever spoke about politically. When a young person speaks at a party conference, they always want to avoid looking like William Hague, but I remember back in 2006—I think it was in Aviemore—that I was a very young delegate to the SNP conference. I spoke about the importance of votes at 16 and I did not do so from an ideological point of view. I did so because I left school at 16 and, as some weird child who had been out campaigning in elections since I was 11 years old, I always found it very difficult on polling day, particularly after I had left school. The night before polling day—I was working at Glasgow Credit Union at the time—I was sitting on the subway, having just been given my pay slip, and I looked at the part about net pay and tax paid, and I thought, “I’m heading out tonight to deliver poll leaflets for an election and I will spend all of tomorrow out campaigning, but I have paid tax to a Government that I can’t actually vote for.”

That is the ridiculous situation we are in: we ask young people to pay tax to a Government who spend it on the health service or going to war, but they do not have the ability to influence that Government. That is where there is an inconsistency.

I will just take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Scottish Youth Parliament, which has done a sterling amount of work in Scotland to campaign for votes at 16. In particular, I commend the four new members of the Scottish Youth Parliament who were elected to my seat: Lewis O’Neill, Stacey McFadyen, Jason Black and Mashaim Bukhari. Those young people will all try to take forward their views and represent our community. However, in many respects those young people will be limited to doing so in the Scottish Youth Parliament and for some of them that will be as far as they are able to interact with democracy, at least in terms of the Westminster Parliament. That is because, as the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk outlined, we have an inconsistency in Scotland, whereby young people can vote at 16 in elections to community councils, the Crofting Commission, health boards, local government and the Scottish Parliament, but then it stops, because they cannot take part in a Westminster election.

Quite often, I am faced with a situation where I go to schools—I do a huge number of school visits—with local councillors or the local Member of the Scottish Parliament, and the kids who we speak to at a high school will be able to question me, Ivan McKee or Annette Christie, and they can vote for Ivan or Annette, but they will not be able to vote on whether or not I am their elected Member of Parliament. There is an inconsistency there and, as is natural with matters relating to devolved competences and reserved competences, my view is that if Westminster will not do something, it should devolve the matter and we will do it in Scotland.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk spoke about the need for consistency on this issue. I just think that allowing voting at 16 is the right thing to do. Of all the things that I have encountered in my time in politics, it is the one thing that I just cannot get my head around. Why in 2019 are we still debating this issue and having ridiculous interventions, like the one we had earlier on about 13-year-olds? This is a matter of principle and it is up to this Parliament to set things right.

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[Alex Chalk]

Of course, they can join the Army, but they are not entitled to serve on the frontline in a way that might put them at risk of losing their life. In some ways, I respectfully suggest that the hon. Lady’s point makes the argument for me. Part of the reason why 16-year-olds cannot serve on the frontline and be at risk of losing their life is that under the UN convention on the rights of the child, child soldiers may not serve on the frontline. That is in recognition of the fact that we take the view that children are children and adults are adults.

I am not suggesting for a second that this is not a legitimate argument to have, but people watching this debate might take the view that there is a broad consensus in Parliament to move towards votes for 16-year-olds. I do not sense that there is such a consensus and, critically, that view is not echoed in the court of public opinion. Polling tends to suggest that there is not a majority in favour of reducing the voting age.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Chalk]

Let me make one last point. Before I came into this place, I spent a lot of time as a barrister, and when I go into schools in my constituency such as Pate’s Grammar School, Balcarras or Bournside and ask, “If you were accused of a crime you had not committed, would you be happy to be put on trial with a jury made up of 16-year-olds?”, the schoolchildren often say, “Perhaps not.” Just imagine the inconsistency. The trials that I have prosecuted might involve post-mortem photos—really grisly and explicit photographs—and we take the view as a society that people aged 16 are not old enough to watch a film in the cinema such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” or “The Silence of the Lambs”, or to see those kinds of explicit photographs in a jury trial. If those people were considered old enough to vote, that would be a troubling inconsistency.