European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

The noble Earl referred to previous considerations of this matter. Three commissions have looked at it. They disagreed about whether the age should be lowered, but they all agreed that there was a great gap in the evidence as to whether young people would be sufficiently responsible in weighing up their vote to take care to be informed about the issues. But is not the evidence now clear, because we have had the Scottish referendum where all those questions were answered?

[Lord Allen of Kensington (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. As a Scot involved in the Better Together campaign last year, I saw first-hand 16 and 17 year-olds taking this responsibility very seriously. I had robust debates probably more with 16 and 17 year- olds than with their parents. They were not necessarily on our side, so this is not about manipulating the position. They were one of the most knowledgeable groups because they had literally done their homework. As your Lordships have heard, more of them voted. The facts are that 75% of them turned out and voted compared to 54% of 18 to 24 year-olds.

We often criticise young people for not getting involved in the political process but I think, having spent many years in television, that we, too, were part of that problem. We could not get young people to engage in the political process but now we have a great opportunity. However, surely we are putting out mixed messages. We want them to engage but we do not want to give them the vote.

The Scottish referendum showed that young people are knowledgeable and can be trusted with the vote. They take this new responsibility seriously. This House has already decided to lower the voting age for local government elections to 16; 16 and 17 year-olds will be given the vote in the Scottish Parliament and I believe that Wales will follow suit. Do we really want to say to 16 and 17 year-olds that they are old enough to be involved in the debate but not old enough to be involved in the election. These elections will have more impact on them than they will on any of us.