European Union Referendum: Young Voters

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, on securing this short debate and on his persistence in raising the issue of electoral registration. It is of great importance. When we consider how many people are still not registered to vote, particularly young people, it is an issue we must return to again and again until the Government take effective action.

As we have heard, on 23 June we have a once-in-a-lifetime decision to make about our membership of the European Union and I am firmly of the opinion that remaining in is in the best interests of everyone in the United Kingdom. Young people, in particular, have an important stake in deciding our future and making sure their voice is heard loud and clear.

I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lady McDonagh about the problems that certain groups have to get registered. That should be of concern to us all. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, is right when she raises the point of removing people from the register one year early, which has caused specific problems and made the situation much worse today. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, also made a compelling point about the number of people missing from the Electoral Register and the regrettable actions taken by the Government last year.

I also congratulate Bite the Ballot on its work to raise young people’s awareness. The Government should do more to support this organisation, which has done more than any other to address registration among young people, in my opinion. The #TurnUp campaign is one initiative where Governments can provide real support. So will the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, set out in detail what the Government will do to support this campaign? The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, is spot on when he talks about adding messages on every government website and looking at communication tools. What discussions have the Government had with Facebook, Twitter, Google and others to do more on their platforms? What else is being done? How are we using interaction between the public sector and the citizen to engage with people on the importance of registering to vote?

I hope when the Minister responds that we will not just get a list of figures saying, “We have given £X million here and £X million there”. I hope we will hear the real practical steps being taken to engage with people, the Government’s plan right up to 7 June and the continuation of a registration campaign, and the acceptance that the Government are just not doing enough and that they will do more. Having millions of our citizens eligible but not registered to vote is outrageous and the Government have to step in and sort this out. We can all imagine the government spokesman expressing concern from the Dispatch Box if a similar situation was happening in another country: they would urge that Government to sort the situation out. Well, it is here in the United Kingdom. It is for this Government to sort it out and they need to do so.

We have talked about using different tools and initiatives. For example, this weekend we have the play-off finals at Wembley. There are sell-out crowds each day on Saturday, Sunday and Monday—80,000 each day. I will be there on Sunday supporting my team, Millwall. I hope they get back into the Championship. What is the engagement plan for those events and other events around the country in the next few days?

I very much hope that this country votes to stay in the European Union. We need everyone who is eligible to vote to be registered and we need the Government to provide the leadership necessary, both in the short time left to 7 June and going forward, to get people registered to vote. Elections matter and enabling people to have their say is something we should all seek to deliver, without exception and with no excuses.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that if she checks Hansard she will see my support from this Dispatch Box and from the Division Lobby for votes at 16, with colleagues from the Labour Benches, although when it became clear that the elected House and the Government were not going to move on that, we did not support another round of ping-pong. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for tabling the Question and enabling us to have this short debate.