Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

I hear the hon. Lady’s comments, although I am not sure to which clause we are here to debate she refers. More generally, we always talk to hon. Members across the House and listen to the views of the public at large to determine the best course of action, but the issue she raises is not before the Committee this afternoon. As to what will happen in the future, she tempts me to go further than I can.

New clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), would amend section 36 of the Representation of People Act 1983 to allow local areas to alter their systems for the election of councillors. His enthusiasm to push the boundaries of devolution, throughout our consideration of the Bill and more generally, has not gone unnoticed by Ministers or, I am sure, Opposition Members. When we last met in Committee, he flagged up the proposition that councils should be free to decide their own electoral arrangements in conjunction with their people. He suggested they should be able to have a debate and come to a decision.

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s interest in voter engagement, which, as I have said, we all share, and I note the devolutionary nature of his proposals, under which a council could decide its own electoral system. That said, he will be unsurprised to learn that I have some concerns about how such complex proposals would work in practice and whether there is an appetite for them. Local councillors are currently elected under the first-past-the-post system, which is a well-recognised and straightforward system, as we saw in the outcome of the referendum to change to the alternative vote system in 2011. I accept that that was in relation to UK parliamentary elections, but two thirds of voters chose first past the post over the alternative vote, suggesting there is no public consensus for change.

I have concerns about the potential confusion caused by the possibility of voting systems changing from one poll to the next. We can imagine the pressures that councils and councillors could come under in considering the systems they might wish to employ. There would be a natural desire to consider, or attempt to second-guess, whether there might be some political advantage in adopting a different set of arrangements or sticking with the existing tried and tested ones. Even if appropriate safeguards could be introduced, which themselves would add to the complexity of the arrangements, the practical processes of switching voting systems would still be complex and costly. For example, a change to the single transferrable vote could, in many cases, require a major re-warding of an entire local authority area.

These concerns might not be insurmountable, but the proposal represents a fundamental change to the building blocks of our democratic processes and would require significant consideration, development and consensus, and I am clear that the Bill, although both devolutionary and enabling, is not the right vehicle for such a change. On raising the proposal last time, the hon. Gentleman suspected that the idea might need to brew a little. He will sense from my comments that I believe it has brewed nowhere near enough. I therefore ask that he does not push it to a Division.

Finally, I turn to new clause 9, which would introduce a requirement through regulations for local government electors in an area to approve certain boundary and structural changes via a referendum. The boundary and structural changes involved relate to the establishment of new unitary local authorities, the merger of authorities or movement from one authority area to another. Clause 16 already gives the Secretary of State wide regulation-making powers regarding structures and boundaries. The regulations will allow modification of the existing processes, as provided for in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, for making changes such as merging councils or moving to more unitary structures. These regulations can be made only where all the affected councils agree. I doubt it would be right to include a requirement for a referendum, and nor do I believe referendums to be sound practically in this context.

Our democracy is founded on the traditions and principles of representative democracy, which have served us well and stood the test of time. In general, we believe that decisions on public matters are made most effectively by those democratically elected to represent the area affected. All past experience suggests that this is the case with changes to local authority boundaries and structures. The democratically elected local representatives are best placed to take local decisions on these issues. Of course, they will want to take account of the views of the electorate—of those who live and work there, of businesses, of those who contribute to the life of local communities. However, how they seek these views—the kind of consultation exercises they undertake—is a matter for them. It is not for the Government to tell elected representatives how to undertake their roles.

Hence, it would not be right to require referendums—to require a particular way of ascertaining the views of local people—or for the result of such an exercise to determine the decision on proposed boundary or structural change. The referendums envisaged by the new clause would not be sound in practice. First, it would only require a referendum in a part of the area—the part becoming unitary, for example—yet such a change would have implications for the surrounding areas, so I am not clear that this approach would be right in any event. Secondly, such boundary and structural changes are almost invariably part of some wider reform. To present the question as simply one about some council structure or boundary risks being misleading and oversimplifying complex arguments. With those explanations, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), after what I am sure will be an interesting discussion, will not press his new clause.

In conclusion, I have explained that the Government cannot support new clauses 3 and 9. We are content for clause 21 to stand part of the Bill, but we are opposed to clause 20.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I am glad to hear that the Government are in listening mode. I am pleased about clause 21, but I hope that the Government will now listen to the arguments in favour of clause 20 and reducing the voting age to 16 in local government elections.

More than 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK are denied any part in our democratic process. In recent years, pressure has developed to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16. The Electoral Reform Society has argued for it, and in 2006 the Power commission was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to find out what was happening to British democracy and why people were disengaged from politics.

The commission drew up a set of proposals and recommendations to increase political participation and it presented them in a final report, “Power to the People”. One recommendation was to lower the voting and candidacy age to 16, with the exception of candidacy for the House of Lords. The Power commission explained its recommendation thus:

“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. We recognise that few people take an interest in a sphere of life or an area from which they have been deliberately excluded.”

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady remind us why during 13 years in office up to 2010, Labour, which had big majorities, never wanted to do this?

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Sometimes pressure needs to build up before change is made. It is correct to say that the Labour party did not make this change in 13 years in office, but I am going to talk about the build-up of pressure and the involvement of various organisations. We saw in the Scottish referendum that there is a real feeling that our young people are affected by the democratic process. To take the right hon. Gentleman’s arguments to their conclusion, we would never make any changes whatever, simply because we did not do so in a previous term of office.

I was quoting the Power commission on young people feeling excluded and therefore not being interested in politics. The commission proposed that reducing the voting age to 16 would be an obvious way of reducing the extent of such exclusion for many thousands of young people. It would increase the likelihood of their taking an interest and participating in political and democratic debates if they actually felt that they could influence such debates.

[John Stevenson]

Logically, if 16-year-olds have the vote, they should clearly be entitled to stand as candidates as well. Is the hon. Lady comfortable with the idea of a 16-year-old being able to get elected to a position that has executive authority?

[Liz McInnes]

The Power commission did not recommend that 16-year-olds should become candidates, but rather that they should have the vote to raise their awareness of the democratic process so that when they reach an age when they are eligible to become a candidate, they will have played some part in the democratic process.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

During my election campaign, I spoke to hundreds of young people who were not only enthused by the political process, but actively wanted to engage in it. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute myth that young people are somehow not interested in politics, not capable of holding public office and not capable of voting? Does she further agree that the right thing to do is to give them that right to vote, so that we can bring about more engagement by young people, which is more actively needed than ever before at this time in politics?

[Liz McInnes]

I think my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The 16-year-olds I know and speak to are very keen on the idea of greater political involvement. We keep going back to the Scottish referendum, but it was amazing to see so many young people participating in that very important debate. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them on an issue that was going to affect them. I feel that we have some 16-year-olds who are engaged in the political process, yet we deliberately exclude them from it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

Not without mum and dad.

[Liz McInnes]

I accept that young people cannot do all those things at 16 without the consent of their parents, but the fact is that they can still do them.

Contrary to popular myth, young people are interested in political issues—from climate change to racism, and from education to crime. I meet young people in my constituency, as I am sure do many of my hon. Friends, who are studying politics at A-level and are completely engaged with the political process, yet this country still denies them a vote.

In a democracy, voting is the fundamental way for our young people to express their opinions. As the Power commission report put it,

“it is worth remembering that we enlist 16-year olds into the armed forces and expect them to pay taxes if they are earning so they should be able to participate in the selection of those who govern them. We believe that any reform to encourage young people to engage politically will be very severely limited in its effectiveness while the current constitutional, party and electoral arrangements remain in force.”

Given that Government decisions will naturally affect the future, it is arguable that the young are more likely to be affected than older people by some political decisions.

Preventing 16 and 17-year-olds from voting sends a signal to them and to society that their views are not valid or important. The next generation of voters are the first to have received citizenship education in schools, yet they are being denied their full rights as citizens. This seems particularly unfair and unjust. At a time when some people feel that politics is not relevant to them, young people need to be encouraged to take part in democracy, not kept out of it. The Scottish independence referendum showed once and for all that 16 and 17-year-olds are more than capable of taking important political decisions. If young people are registered early and get into the habit of voting, we will see lasting improvements in turnout.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) secured a Westminster Hall debate on this very subject last year. She argued that the time was right

“to open the democratic system even further and to include 16 and 17-year olds among the people who are able to vote.”

She continued:

“We cannot expect 16 and 17-year-olds to contribute to our society through various means—economically, physically, intellectually or socially—in a capacity where we recognise them as an adult, but then give them the democratic rights of a child… We trust our young people to contribute to society in many ways, so we should start to give them their democratic rights.”—[Official Report, 6 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 7WH.]

I fully support that. I urge all Members to support the retention of clause 20, and to welcome our 16 and 17-year-olds to the democratic process.

Let me now say a few words about clause 21. I am very pleased that, on this issue at least, the Government are listening. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who is present, and who has done a great deal of work in connection with the issue of the Bristol mayor. As I am sure everyone knows, Bristol was the only city to vote “yes” in the mayoral referendum of May 2012. I think it fair to say that the current mayor has proved to be a somewhat controversial figure, but my hon. Friend has rightly said:

“This isn’t about whether you support the current mayor or would prefer a different person in that office, it’s about whether citizens of Bristol should be allowed a voice about the post itself.

It’s about democracy, and the right of Bristol people to decide how they are governed seems to be a fundamental aspect of democracy.”

She has also said that

“citizens of Bristol deserve the right to reverse that decision at any point”,

and that the Lords amendments

“offering Bristolians that opportunity are to be welcomed”.—[Official Report, 14 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 372.]

I bow to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge of the issue of the Bristol mayor, but I am very pleased that all Members seem to support clause 21, and I look forward to our giving Bristolians the same democratic rights as those enjoyed by the rest of the country.

[Norman Lamb]

I strongly support the amendment that was passed in the House of Lords, and I am very disappointed that the Government are proposing to remove it from the Bill. The Minister’s argument seemed to be “It is all horribly complicated, and this is not the right place to discuss it”, but I could not identify any particularly strong argument for why it is the wrong thing to do, and why 16 and 17-year-olds should not be given the right to exercise the vote like the rest of us.

I was interested by the intervention from the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). Indeed, I was encouraged by it, because the right hon. Gentleman appeared to recognise that there was some argument for 16-year-olds to have a say on some issues. However, he drew a distinction between referendums and voting in elections on a continuing basis. I think that he should go with his logic. If there is a case for young people to have a say in the future of their country, or on other big issues that are put before the country in referendums, surely there is a case for them to have the right to a say on who is elected as their local councillor. How on earth can the right hon. Gentleman sustain the logic of allowing a vote on a big national issue of enormous import while denying a vote on representation in a local community?