Wales Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendments in my name in this group—Amendments 3 and 19—I can be relatively brief, since I proposed similar improvements to the Bill in Committee, as those who participated then will recall. The principle of including 16 and 17 year-old fellow citizens in the franchise is now an accepted fact. All parties in this Parliament have endorsed this change. Contrary to the doom mongers’ forecasts, a very high proportion of this age group registered to vote in the Scottish independence referendum—nearly 110,000, which is a remarkable figure. Incidentally, I received the Answer to a Question today indicating that nearly 500,000 young voters in the age group 16 to 18 are currently registering under the new system, so this is a success story under IER.

On 18 September, a very large percentage of those—thousands of them—voted in the actual referendum. In the words of the Intergenerational Foundation newsletter,

“16 to 24 year-olds actually favoured staying in the union by a small margin (35% to 33%) ... the idea that the vision of an independent Scotland would appeal to an iconoclastic streak among the youngest members of the electorate appears to have been misplaced”.

That is putting it mildly. Curiously, it seems that middle-aged men, not women, were the most influenced by the fantastical claims of the separatists. Therefore, if we were to exclude the less mature, the less well informed and the less rational, we might wonder just which cohort we should be excluding from the franchise. It is not the most young; it is others.

There was another testimony from the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke:

“Does the Minister agree that the quality of debate among 16 and 17 year-olds during the referendum debate was astonishing? I admit I was wrong; I was one of the people who thought that it was wrong for the franchise to reduce the voting age to 16. I was comprehensively proved wrong. I heard some of the best debates I have ever heard in a lifetime in politics from 16 and 17 year-olds”.—[Official Report, 16/10/14; col. 295.]

My noble friend Lord Cormack, whom I am pleased to see in his place, made a similar confession on 29 October:

“My eldest grand-daughter voted at the age of 16. I do not necessarily agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, on that, but I know that my grand-daughter and all her classmates took this matter exceptionally seriously”.—[Official Report, 29/10/14; col. 1261.]

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Of course they did, and I will say something about that if I have an opportunity later. However, I did not, do not, and do not think I ever will, agree with extending the franchise to 16 year-olds universally.

[Lord Tyler]

My noble friend is the personification of constitutional rectitude, so I will not be surprised if he finds my argument absolutely conclusive, that having extended the franchise to this particular group in one part of our United Kingdom, we should look at the relevance of that to other parts. That brings us to the heart of the matter: it is surely unthinkable that this hugely successful precedent could or should be simply overturned. I ask my noble friend to think about this: if my brother, long-since resident in Wales, had a grand- daughter aged 16, and there was a similar referendum vote there, which Member of your Lordships’ House—including my noble friend—would deny her the franchise? Which noble Lords would dare to suggest that Welsh young people are less mature, less well informed or less rational than their Scottish counterparts?

Anyone who still doubts that we have moved on—that the dam has broken—should read the excellent Youth Select Committee report, published last week, entitled, Lowering the Voting Age to 16. With remorseless logic, the committee examined all the familiar arguments and then arrived at this clear conclusion:

“We recommend that the Government introduce legislation to set the age at which people become eligible to vote in all elections at 16”.

As the Select Committee makes abundantly clear, we are no longer discussing theories. Any of my Conservative friends who retain misgivings must now accept the facts: the time to resist on principle has passed. The precedent is unanswerable.

My two amendments deliberately distinguish between elections to the Welsh Assembly, on the one hand, and any future significant referendum in Wales on the other. The latter, of course, is even more relevant after the Scottish experience than the former.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

They are relevant to the Bill but the fact that the Bill deals with referendums does not make referendums any more desirable. On the question of gerunds and gerundives, I hope that there is perhaps a noble Lord in the House who can resolve this issue between the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and myself, and tell us whether they should be referred to as referenda or referendums.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am not rising to resolve that particular problem. Though I am by nature and inclination a referenda man, do not let us go too far down that line. I frequently agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who is a friend of long standing, but I cannot go along with him on much of what he said, although I agree with him emphatically that—I hope—the Welsh people will not wish to vote on independence. At the moment, the polls indicate that only 4% of them are inclined to move that way. Somebody interjects to say it is 3%; the proportion is going down by the minute.

I come at this from a slightly different angle: I believe that among the things that should be common to the United Kingdom as a whole is the franchise. That is why I was critical of the Prime Minister and others, who conceded to Mr Salmond votes at 16 for the referendum in Scotland. I have mentioned my highly articulate and intelligent 16 year-old granddaughter in this Chamber before. Of course, because 16 year-olds were going to have the vote, I engaged with her, and through her with others, on the subject, because it was of such significance. That was far more important than any single vote I have cast in over 50 years of having the franchise; when I was able to vote for the first time it was at the age of 21.

We did concede to Mr Salmond that 16 year-olds should have the vote—and I entered into the spirit of it within family and so on—but I regretted that we had done so. We must consider carefully the wisdom of giving the vote to 16 year-olds. After all, there are so many other areas of life we could talk about in terms of what people can do at 16; some will work and pay taxes and some will not.

Only yesterday in this House the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, introduced an amendment that the Government accepted. He made an exceptionally moving speech, and the Minister gave an extraordinarily generous reply. The substance of that amendment was that 17 year-olds apprehended by the police should be treated in a similar way to 16 year-olds. He advanced an extremely convincing argument, which the Minister accepted.

A 16 year-old cannot drive a car, and is not legally allowed to take a drink. There are, and I think there should be, rites of passage. I believe that there is a danger in giving votes to those who are in full-time school education—I distinguish clearly between school education, and university and further education. We ought to treat this matter extremely carefully. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell made a generous speech in which he said that he was not necessarily against the idea, but that it should not be dealt with as yet another piecemeal reform. We heard quite a lot about those in our earlier debate on this Bill today.

There I entirely agree with my noble friend. This issue has not been dealt with on a UK-wide basis; it has just grown, like Topsy. If we are to move in this direction, with all the implications for the age of majority and everything else involved with it, we should do so only as a result of comprehensive debate and discussion within both Houses of this Parliament. It should also be part of the remit of the constitutional convention or royal commission. A royal commission is the option that I personally would favour, and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who is not now in his place, also came down on that side. Any such move should be part of the remit of any such convention or commission. We would not be serving the people of Wales, or any other part of the United Kingdom, well if we continued with this piecemeal approach.

[Lord Wigley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way to me; he knows that I have very much respect for him. Does he not accept that, in its own way, this entire Bill is, in his terminology, piecemeal reform, in that it is reform for Wales and not across the United Kingdom? If we were to go down his road in all matters relating to devolution, we would not be able to do anything for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland unless it was also acceptable in the regions of England, or in England as a whole. Is that really what he is advocating?

[Lord Cormack]

The respect is mutual, may I say. My noble friend—I shall call him that—and I have known each other for a very long time. We have travelled together and talked together on a whole range of issues, and frequently found ourselves in agreement, not least about the fact that his wife is one of the most accomplished harpists in the whole of the United Kingdom.

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[Lord Tyler]

Does my noble friend not accept that, if there is to be a comprehensive exercise involving a royal commission, a convention or whatever, it will take quite a long time? I think that he and I will both wish to make representations to it, and on past form the whole process could take several years. Would my noble friend be kind enough to address the question that I put specifically to him and to others in the House: if there is to be any sort of referendum, in the terms of the Bill, within that period, is he prepared to deny to my notional great-niece in Wales what his granddaughter experienced, enjoyed and took such good advantage of in Scotland? During the period before the comprehensive exercise is complete, is a 16 year-old in Wales to be denied what has been permitted to 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland?

[Lord Cormack]

I do not favour votes at 16, so I would be hypocritical in the extreme if I said, “Yes, of course”, to the idea. I think that we made a mistake in Scotland, and the whole thing needs looking at very carefully. If, as a result of that careful deliberation, the consensus solution—as my noble friend Lord Crickhowell puts it—is votes at 16, so be it. But I do not wish to move further in that direction at the moment. I do not think that is a necessary part of this Bill; that is a further answer to my noble friend Lord Wigley. I therefore hope that the Government will resist these amendments, however persuasively they have been put by people for whom I have real regard and affection.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his kind comments about me. May I return the compliment by saying that the families, particularly, and also the campaigners, including myself, were most grateful to the Government, the Home Secretary and the Minister for moving more swiftly than we had expected yesterday and bringing about that change, which will protect children—17 year-olds—in future far better than they are protected now. We are all very grateful to the Government for what they did yesterday.

I would like to raise some concerns in this debate, but first may I apologise for arriving so late to the debates on this Bill? I should manage my time better, and I apologise for entering the discussion at this late stage. Perhaps I may be slightly forgiven because it is a Welsh Bill, and perhaps I may have thought that, because I am not Welsh, I might not—I am digging a hole for myself, so I shall stop there.

There is much to be welcomed in the proposition made by those who have tabled these amendments, in relation to hearing the voice of young people. However, I am concerned that they betray a certain difficulty in the English-speaking world in terms of understanding child development. If one looks to those who treat people best, one might look to Italy, France or Spain for the way that they care for families and children. I should be interested to learn how far discussions there have gone in this direction.

Let me stress the good things about the proposal. It is so important to hear the voice of young people. Visiting schools, I heard young people talking about the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance. Many young people felt passionately about that, and the proposal would give them an opportunity to vote on the matter. One could talk about school uniforms and concern about their cost and other issues for young people that they could push harder if they had the vote. Giving young people more responsibility is a well recognised way to help them to develop in maturity. In the care system, for foster children and children in children’s homes, it has been recognised how powerful it has been as a tool to improve outcomes to allow young people’s voices to be heard, particularly by those who make the decisions about allocation of resources—putting those people in the same room.

The principle is much to be welcomed, but—I know that this has been raised before—I am particularly concerned about a misunderstanding of child development and of human development. For instance, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is shortly to have a debate about children, the internet and social networking. I hesitate to presume what she may say, but I think she will say that we have been unkind to children. We have not given them any guidance; we have released this technology on them and expected them to deal with it. We have treated them just as if they were little adults, and we need to do better and give them better guidance.

There are welcome improvements in the criminal justice system, particularly in what the coalition Government have done to remove so many young people from custody, but in general, we are still far harsher to children who misbehave but are also troubled than they would be in France, Germany and other continental countries. As in America, the English-speaking world has difficulties in this area. The age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10; on the continent, the average is probably between 12 and 14.

What is the issue about the rate of human development? There is probably a biologist who may help me here, but the distinguishing feature of humanity is that we allow our children so long to grow up. Most animals have to face a hostile world from a very early stage in their lives. They may have to leave the womb and be walking within minutes. It may be one reason why humanity is so sophisticated that we allow our newborns, our children, our young people, to grow up and mature over a considerable length of time. In Denmark, for instance, children do not start primary school until the age of seven. The Danes feel that it is right to allow young people to enjoy their infancy and young childhood for longer.

First, I am concerned about people arguing for us to be harsher on children and using the fact that the voting age moves to 16 as a means to say that we can punish young people and keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10. I know that young people can marry at the age of 16, so it can be argued the other way.

I am taking too long, but let me give your Lordships one more example: the Rochdale sexual abuse of children. The Times reported last week or the week before that the police were saying, “The girl knew what she was doing; she wanted to be in that relationship”, about a 13 year-old. That highlights confusion within the police, but perhaps more generally—a difficulty about judging when a child or young person can make the right decisions for their age. I am concerned about the general principle of reducing the age and allowing young people to vote at 16. I fear that that reflects a general misapprehension. We do our children wrong when we ask them to act as adults too soon.

At the end of the 1960s, the renowned child psychotherapist, Donald Winnicott, wrote a book the final chapter of which dealt with the revolution in the 1960s. He said that it is right that children and young people should revolt. Teenagers should be kicking against adults and against the system. That is absolutely right; if they do not do that, they will not mature properly and become proper individuals as adults. But it is adults’ duty to stand against that, to set boundaries for children and young people. As difficult as that is—in particular, not to be overly punitive, not, because children challenge them again and again, to start locking them up or physically beating them—we must find ways to contain them.

As I said, I worry that this move reflects a misunderstanding on our part of the need to allow young people to grow up gradually over time. I cannot support the amendments. Again, I apologise for coming to this debate so late.

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[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate and it has been good to hear noble Lords from different parts of the United Kingdom taking part on the Bill today. That does not happen often; when we have had Welsh matters in the past, there have been just a few of our Welsh Peers here, so it is great to have everyone taking part here today.

I shall speak to Amendment 11, which deals with votes for 16 and 17 year-olds in Welsh elections. The Labour Party is committed to lowering the voting age, so that 16 and 17 year-olds will in future be able to vote at all elections throughout the United Kingdom. We will have a manifesto commitment at the next general election to this end.

There is plenty of evidence now to show that 16 and 17 year-olds would like to have the vote. The British Youth Council’s Youth Select Committee for 2014 recently published a report Lowering the Voting Age to 16, so here we have young people making out an excellent case for lowering the voting age and for them to have the right to vote. The Power commission, established by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, reported in 2006 on how participation in British elections and politics could be increased. In its report, Power to the People, its recommendations included that the voting age should be lowered to 16. The Welsh Government established the Sunderland commission in 2002 on electoral arrangements. Having looked at local government electoral arrangements, it recommended a reduction in the voting age to 16. Those are just three examples of where the case has been made for votes at 16.

[Lord Cormack]

Is it also the view of the Labour Party that young people of 16 should be allowed to drink and to drive?

[Baroness Gale]

We certainly have not agreed to that at all. I am absolutely positive that we have not, but I take the noble Lord’s point.

The Welsh Labour Government believe that lowering the voting age would demonstrate a strong commitment to effective democracy in our nation. Engaging and encouraging young people in this way would help to improve voter turnout, as the recent experience in Scotland has shown. Lowering the voting age would also clearly demonstrate to young people in Wales that they are being taken seriously and their views are listened to. The Welsh Government support and value strong, effective democracy and recognise that the involvement of young people in the democratic process is essential to achieving this. However, the Welsh Government do not currently have the power to legislate on the voting age for elections held in Wales, as the UK Government retain responsibility for the conduct of elections and for the franchise. So while the Welsh Government do not have the power to lower the voting age in Wales, in decision-making they encourage young people’s participation. That has enabled them to have an important voice in our society in Wales.

I believe that there is a strong case for 16 and 17 year-olds to have the right to vote in all elections in the whole of the United Kingdom, but today we are dealing with matters relating to Wales and the Welsh Assembly, which has no legislative powers in this field. Your Lordships’ House could give full voting rights in Wales and, if this amendment is accepted, it would mean that at the next Welsh Assembly elections in 2016, 16 and 17 year-olds would have the right to vote.

I ask the Minister: if this coalition Government are unwilling to lower the voting age, then why do they not give those powers to the Welsh Government, who are committed to doing so? If the Welsh Assembly had such powers, I have no doubt that it would use them. There is now such strong evidence that this would be a popular move and that young people would welcome it. I trust that the Minister can now accept the evidence and, although there are different views, the force of the debate. I really look forward to what she has to say.

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[Baroness Randerson]

There is no feeling in the Government that the Bill is an appropriate vehicle for establishing a different franchise for Wales from that for the rest of the United Kingdom. There is, as the noble Lord has argued several times today, a need for consistency across the United Kingdom on certain franchise issues and it is important that we do not take a decision in relation to one part of the country without considering the other nations and regions.

[Lord Cormack]

My understanding is that the noble Baroness’s party is strongly in favour of a constitutional commission or convention. Surely the amendment that she is going to table at Third Reading will pre-empt any decision or recommendation that such a body might make.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord does not seem to be entirely taking into account the considerable length of time that a convention would take. If it were going to do its job well, it would take a number of years to reach its conclusions and for those conclusions to be implemented. If there were to be an income tax referendum in Wales—I emphasise the word “if” because it is not a foregone conclusion—I hope it would take place before the outcome of any convention were decided.