Referendum (Scotland)

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s welcome for the agreement and her contribution to the debate that has led to it. It is important that the agreement sets out a clear role for the Electoral Commission in relation to both the question and the funding of the campaigns. It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which the Scottish Government would want to ignore the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. As she said, no Government have ever done so, and there would be not just a procedural problem but a significant political price to pay for any party that sought to do so.

We should never underestimate the Scottish people. It is wrong to suggest that they could somehow be duped into supporting independence by any form of chicanery or trickery that might come from either side of the debate. They are much too sensible for that, and I have every confidence that when the referendum comes, whatever the form of the question and however the campaign has been funded, they will make the right decision.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

As an Anglo-Scot, like my right hon. Friend the Minister and the Prime Minister, I believe passionately in the Union and believe that the campaign to remove Scotland must fail.

The Electoral Commission’s involvement is much to be commended, and I commend my right hon. Friend for what he said about it. However, the proposal to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds, who cannot lawfully buy alcohol, drive a motor car or be called to fight on the front line, but who will now be invited to opine on one of the greatest constitutional issues of our time, is surely a nonsense that will create a dangerous precedent.

[David Mundell]

I can assure my hon. Friend that it will not create a precedent. The franchise for parliamentary and local government elections throughout the United Kingdom will be determined by opinions in this House. At the moment, the Government have no proposals to change the voting age, and I do not believe there is a majority in the House to do so.

I say to my hon. Friend and others who share his views that they must now take their arguments to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament, so that the Scottish Government can be held to account when they bring forward their proposals. This is a moment for the Scottish Parliament to demonstrate its own robust ability to scrutinise legislation. When it identifies complexities with enfranchising 16 and 17-year-olds, of which there are many, it can hold the Scottish Government to account and argue against the proposal.