Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel]

I shall stop taking interventions now.

The argument, which I shall now try to make without taking too many interventions, is that a limit at 18, 16, 14 or 12 is quite random. Individuals mature at different times—I shall not make personal assumptions—so when we draw the line under any voting age, there will be some people who are more mature and others who are less mature, but there are lots of reasons why 16, and not 18, is a good age at which to draw the line. Although I should love to see votes at 16 for every election—parliamentary, local government and referendums—the Bill offers us our only real opportunity to lower the voting age in a referendum, because referendums come up very rarely. The change could be quite easily made; as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has pointed out, 16-year-olds are already on the electoral register, so the process will not be difficult for local authorities. Sixteen is a good age at which to draw the line, because it has to be drawn somewhere. All those 16-year-olds will be 18 by the time of the general election, at which point the new voting system will be in place—or not. All I am arguing is that those people need to have a say.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the proposal offers a good way to test the water for 16-year-olds. If Members on the Government Benches are right and no 16-year-olds are interested and none of them takes part, we can learn from that, perhaps by engaging further with them. The proposal offers a good test-bed for us to engage with younger people, which everyone in the House supports.

[Natascha Engel]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Since 2002, and the glorious days of the Labour Government, all secondary schools have given citizenship education. All young people who will be 16 by the time of the referendum will have had some citizenship education, and they will have some knowledge and understanding of participation in the voting process. We talk about engagement, but if we are really serious about engaging young people in democracy we need to allow them to participate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank my hon. Friend for making an important additional point in support of the proposal.

I encourage hon. Members in all parts of the House to be brave and to support the excellent case that has been made this evening by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire. I respect the fact that there are some in the House who, in principle, are opposed to any lowering of the voting age from 18. If Members feel that strongly, the onus is on those of us who support a reduction to 16 to persuade them. I am more sceptical of those who fought an election on a manifesto to reduce the age to 16 yet are telling us today that although they support the reduction in principle, this is not the opportunity for us to do that.

[Mark Tami]

Name them!

[Stephen Twigg]

We have not had the vote yet. How can I name our Liberal Democrat friends when we have not yet had the vote? I encourage Liberal Democrat Members to consider this. The case has been made, including by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) over a number of years, in favour of making the change, on the basis of equality and of democratic reform. I am a strong supporter of the referendum. It is an important opportunity for us to debate how the House is elected, and I would very much like us to give 16 and 17-year-olds the opportunity to be part of that decision when it is made next May.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Unfortunately it was a Liberal who first said that England was the mother of all Parliaments, so I can only excuse him. However, if the hon. Gentleman wanted to point out that the first Parliament was not on these isles at all, he would be absolutely right: it was the Althing, the Parliament of Iceland, which has sat since 929.

My point is that on election night we were deeply embarrassed by the fact that so many people were unable to vote in so many parliamentary constituencies. The Deputy Prime Minister himself said that the situation was simply unacceptable in a democracy:

“It is not right that hundreds later found themselves unable to exercise their vote when the polls closed. That should never, ever happen again in our democracy”.

In fact, the situation in his own constituency was among the worst in the land. The returning officer, John Mothersole—a name I have not come across before—apologised to voters who were turned away, saying that the council had “got things wrong.” He said that the turnout had been phenomenal, probably the highest in 30 years. That was not quite right—it was not the highest turnout in 30 years—but the fact that some 200 people were turned away in Ranmoor in Sheffield, Hallam and the police had to deal with an angry crowd of about 100 would-be voters is a clear indication that there is a significant issue to consider.

[Mark Tami]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this problem is made worse by a number of local authorities closing polling stations, which means that the number of people having to attend one particular polling station is much greater than in the past?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is true that some people vote some days before the election when they vote by post, but for many people—those doing shift work, for example—it is vital to keep the polling stations open right up to 10 pm; otherwise, they would not be able to meet their work obligations as well as their voting duties.