Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

It is a fact—I make no comment on it, as an impartial Chairman of my Committee—that referendums are constitutional matters and therefore are reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament. I recognise that there is some demand for a new referendum in Scotland, but even the Good Friday agreement says that there should not be a referendum more than once every seven years. There needs to be a respectable interval between referendums, otherwise they just become meaningless. How many times in the European Union have we seen another referendum called when the first gave the wrong result? I do not put the Scottish National party in that category, but calling referendums too often is actually a contempt for democracy.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Was there any discussion in the Committee about the franchise for the referendum? If 16 and 17-year-olds and EU citizens had been allowed to vote, we might have had a very different result. They will be allowed to vote in the Scottish council elections in two weeks, but they will be denied a vote in the UK general election about four weeks after that. Would it not be appropriate to have consistency, and for the franchise to be as wide as possible?

[Mr Jenkin]

I ask the hon. Gentleman: why stop at 16? Why not 14 or 12? These are subjective judgments made by different bodies in different parts of the constitution. That franchise is a devolved matter; it is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Personally, I favour maintaining the status quo in the UK.