EU Referendum Rules

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting start. Does he agree that if both sides of the campaign are supposed to be balanced, it is irresponsible for anyone to deliver literature in the closing days of any referendum campaign strongly advising people, “If in doubt, vote for the status quo”? If people are in doubt, they should not vote.

[John Penrose]

My point was that had we set up a super-majority as the petition suggests, we would have tilted the rules unfairly in favour of the remain campaign. With a fair and level playing field, both sides are free to make their cases as strongly as they can and to rebut the other side’s case if they feel that it is wrong. The hon. Gentleman clearly feels that some of the points that were made were entirely incorrect, but the correct response was to argue against them and engage in democratic debate at the time, not to try to tilt the playing field towards one side or the other.

Draft European Union Referendum (Conduct) Regulations 2016

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Thursday 11th February 2016 General Committees

[John Penrose]

I welcome the support in principle for the regulations expressed by the hon. Members for Caerphilly and for Glenrothes. They said that they were content that the regulations should go forward, although they had questions to ask, which I shall endeavour to answer. The hon. Member for Caerphilly said that we will consider perhaps more contentious statutory instruments in this referendum process, for example to set the date of the referendum and the designation period. Those are for another time, so I will not try your patience by talking about them, Mr McCabe; I will stick purely to what I hope is the relatively uncontentious piece of electoral plumbing before us.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the police officers at polling stations should be warranted police officers or PCSOs. Ultimately, it is down to local police forces, in conjunction and discussion with local election administrators, to decide where possible flashpoints and hot spots, if any, might be. They will know from previous elections which polling stations might have problems and which are unlikely to, and they will need to distribute their resources appropriately to reflect that. One would hope and expect that they will have people on stand-by or already available there. The important thing, as the hon. Gentleman rightly observed, is that there is more potential for police involvement at polling stations, should that be necessary—we all hope that it will not—to ensure that an orderly and safe poll, and, most importantly of all, a secret ballot, is properly concluded.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the extension of emergency proxy votes. We are trying to be a little careful because, as he will know, the report into electoral fraud that is being undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles) is due shortly. We will have to wait and see what it says, but it might have recommendations about postal voting and proxy voting as part of the overall position on electoral reform, so we will probably want to wait until it is published before making any substantial changes either to relax or to tighten up those rules. Of course, when the report does come out, I am sure that we will scrutinise it carefully.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether Gibraltarians should be treated the same as those in other overseas territories. I think he may be implicitly making common cause with my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who is very keen on ensuring that other overseas territories outside the continental mass of Europe have an opportunity for closer involvement in British democracy, and potentially to send MPs to Westminster. I encourage him to discuss that with my hon. Friend in detail, should he be so minded. Beyond that, I can add little to the elegant response to the hon. Gentleman’s point that was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, other than to say that our starting point was that the franchise—I think we covered this when we considered the primary legislation for the referendum—should be based on that for a UK parliamentary election. That explains why some of the other places around the globe that the hon. Member for Caerphilly cited are not part of the franchise. There have been limited changes, which we tried to minimise, but given Gibraltar’s special status within the continent of Europe and the fact that Gibraltarians get to vote in European parliamentary elections, we felt that that was worthy of one of the very few alterations to the basic franchise.

The hon. Gentleman also asked why Manchester was to be used for the declarations. The hon. Member for Glenrothes said that many people in northern England would support the idea of Manchester, but I suggest gently that he might want to tread a bit carefully because, from what I understand of the local and regional rivalries between cities in the north of England, he might not find that there is quite such a degree of unanimity about Manchester being the right place when people start to consider competing bids from other cities.

[Peter Grant]

Would not the Minister accept that even Manchester and Leeds may be united in their opinion of London?

[John Penrose]

The hon. Gentleman might think that some of the rivalries between English cities outside London are strong; I think they could rival that between Celtic and Rangers.

Matters such as the location and distribution of the regional counting centres are primarily for the Electoral Commission, because it is effectively the chief counting officer for the referendum, unlike in a normal parliamentary or local election, when that is done by local councils. The Electoral Commission will be in charge of many of the decisions about where things can be efficiently done.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes asked when the counts will start and how long they will last. In general, they will start as soon as practicable after the close of poll, although there will be some geographical issues with transporting ballot boxes around and so on. They will continue overnight so that we have a prompt declaration. Beyond that, this is a matter for the Electoral Commission, but its guidance applies in a similar way as in parliamentary elections. It will realise that the country will not be particularly understanding of unreasonable delays. People will want an answer, and they will want it quickly. The commission will understand the importance of a prompt and efficient count.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly asked about recounts which, again, are covered by the usual rules. The situation is heavily dependent on the professional good judgment of local count administrators, who are well trained and in most cases very experienced, because they handle many other elections. They are the people to whom we, as Members of Parliament, have spoken at our individual counts at parliamentary elections about bad and doubtful ballot papers, and whether there needs to be a bundle check of this or that part of the count. Those same rules will, broadly speaking, apply in the usual way to ensure the general level of good order we have all, rightly, come to expect in British elections, no matter what their purpose.

I hope that I have covered all the points raised and that we can move to approving these regulations, given the welcome cross-party support that has been evident today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft European Union Referendum (Conduct) Regulations 2016.

EU Referendum: Timing

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I shall address those points in a moment. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pick me up if he feels that I have glossed over any of them inappropriately.

Let me repeat that there are no clues. Alan Greenspan, the famously gnomic and opaque former chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, once said:

“I guess I should warn you: if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I've said.”

He went on to say:

“I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

In other words, clues are to be avoided.

However, even if we do not know the precise date on which the referendum will be held, we know several dates on which it will definitely not be held. It will not be held on 5 May this year or on 4 May 2017, because both those dates are expressly excluded in the primary legislation that we passed last year, and—as was recently promised by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—it will not be held within six weeks of 5 May this year. Although we do not yet know the exact date, those exclusions are important, because they create and guarantee enough time between the referendum and any other upcoming elections to ensure that the important issues that arise in each set of polls are debated fully and separately in each case.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Referendum Act specifies a 10-week period between the Government’s publication of their response to the negotiations and the referendum date, presumably because both this House and the other place thought that people needed that period to digest the information. Would it not be wrong for three of those 10 weeks to fall right in the middle of an election campaign affecting over 20 million citizens who will be voting in the referendum a few weeks later?

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

If I can ask the hon. Gentleman to hold his horses, I hope to come back to that later. I am sure he will pick me up on that if I do not address it sufficiently.

At this point, I should declare a small, non-financial family interest. A couple of years ago, my wife was appointed to the House of Lords. When she was appointed, I had to point out to her that I had a long track record of voting multiple times to abolish her, and anybody like her, from the House of Lords in due course. She has forgiven me and I am sure the House will be delighted to hear that relations over the family breakfast table are not too strained. However, I can reassure hon. Members that my personal views have not changed, despite the family involvement. Given the chance, I would vote to make them far more democratically legitimate.

I started by assuming, I think not necessarily entirely correctly, that the SNP was exclusively and purely a unicameralist party. I think we have heard support for that view during the debate from many SNP Members, the hon. Member for Luton North and, to some degree, my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). I hope I am not putting words in anybody’s mouth, but I think I heard some degree of qualified willingness to at least consider a more democratically legitimate second Chamber as an alternative to the perhaps favoured unicameralist view.

[Peter Grant]

Just to clarify that point, the view of the SNP and the Scottish Government was that, had we won the referendum last year, we would not have needed a second Chamber in Scotland because the Scottish Parliament works effectively. This Parliament, in the view of the SNP, is not working effectively and so a second Chamber is beneficial, but it must be democratically elected.

[John Penrose]

That is very helpful in clarifying the SNP’s view and it leads me to talk about opportunities for reform. I, and the Government, would certainly favour keeping a second Chamber and making it more effective if the opportunity ever presented itself. There are huge advantages to having an effective second Chamber here. I say that because often the level of scrutiny imposed on any Government by the second Chamber is not a comfortable experience. It has not always been a comfortable experience for previous Labour, Conservative or even coalition Governments. Even though it is not necessarily easy or comfortable—on occasions it can be incredibly frustrating—I believe it is democratically justified and desirable, and that it results, at least in Westminster, in better law. I went along to the Lords yesterday and stood at the Bar, listening to its debate on the Strathclyde review. I challenge anybody to say it was not a high-quality and capable discussion, conducted at a high level and very clearly expressed. It has a great deal to offer, regardless of its legitimacy, and our democracy would be the poorer without a revising second Chamber.

As colleagues on both sides have said, however, we need to be careful about the Lords’ powers and composition. The problem is agreeing not on the need for reform but on how we do it. As the hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) said, we should be discussing not whether change is needed but what kind of change could be achieved. That is where we all come up against a serious and fundamental practical problem. While many people agree that some kind of reform and improved democratic legitimacy for the upper House is vital, agreeing on its form and creating a democratic consensus about what it should look like—as opposed simply to agreeing that there should be something—is a great deal harder. And that is what politics is all about; it is about forging the necessary democratic consensus. I think the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) mentioned the need for a democratic debate.

We need to forge a democratic consensus not on the need for change but on the form it should take. That is where the previous attempt in the last Parliament came unstuck. There were far too many competing recipes for what the revised House of Lords might look like and a plethora of different approaches. It came unstuck not because of a lack of ideas but because there were too many ideas and not enough people agreed on any one of them, and therefore the opponents of reform won through.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has in his own party people who are concerned and who will be on one side of the issue or the other during the referendum campaign. Equally, my party has people on both sides. There are huge sensitivities, even if they are not being voiced especially loudly at present, which need to be understood and honoured. We must make sure that this is seen as a studiously fair referendum which will therefore settle the issue for a very long time to come.

It is worth pointing out that young people themselves, the very people whose enfranchisement we are debating today, are not at all sure that that would be a good idea. The most recent polls show that although there is a reasonable majority of 16-year-olds in favour of this change, 17-year-olds do not support it overall, and just 36% of 18-year-olds are in favour. What that says about 18-year-olds’ opinion of their younger selves two years earlier I shall leave others to conclude. There is a solid majority against the change among all other adults over 18.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

rose—

[John Penrose]

I will give way once more, then I will try to finish the point.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way even though he said he could not. Does he agree that in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum, young people below the age of 25 were resolutely opposed to extending the franchise to under-18s. After the referendum they and almost everyone else in Scotland, including the leader of his own party in Scotland, very nearly unanimously agreed that it was the right thing to do: the doubters have been persuaded.

[John Penrose]

I hope I can come on to that point in the next part of my remarks. The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a solid majority across the country against this change among all adults, as well as among 18-year-olds and, to a lesser extent, 17-year-olds. That shows that this is not some great progressive cause where an oppressed minority is waiting to be liberated by enlightened public support; quite the opposite. The risk is that for those watching our debate outside the Chamber, it will seem like a Westminster bubble issue, a trendy obsession for an out of touch political class, rather than a burning social crusade with widespread democratic support. Even worse, there may be a suspicion that some are supporting the proposition because they feel that they could gain some tawdry tactical party political advantage from it for one side or the other. None of these reasons would strengthen or help us as we decide on an issue as important for our country’s future as whether we stay in the EU or leave. We should have no part in such suspicions.

Finally, I want to touch on the financial implications. Mr Speaker has certified that this Bill engages the Commons financial privilege because extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for the referendum would cost extra. Cost is far from the only reason the Government disagree with the amendment but, for procedural reasons, the House is not able both to waive privilege and to disagree with the amendment, so I want to be clear. The Government disagree on principled as well as financial grounds with the proposal to lower the voting age.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and John Penrose

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It would be lopsided indeed if we were to take a different approach for our nationals than has been done elsewhere in the EU. As I was saying, British citizens were not entitled to vote in the Dutch or French referendums.

Finally, switching from the parliamentary to the local elections franchise would block British citizens living abroad from voting at all, because they are not entitled to vote at local elections. The net effect of the amendments would be to deny British citizens living abroad the right to vote on their own country’s future while giving that right to other Europeans who are living here but have chosen not to become citizens. That strikes me as fundamentally unfair and inequitable. I hope that the hon. Members will withdraw their amendments when the time comes.

We have also heard about the need to give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds for the first time in a UK-wide poll. There are a number of amendments to that effect, in the names of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the right hon. Member for Gordon and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). This is a referendum about an issue of huge national significance, and the starting point for determining who is entitled to vote must therefore be the franchise for parliamentary elections. Members will be aware that the voting age for parliamentary elections is set at 18. The voting age was 18 in the 1975 referendum on EC membership and the 2011 alternative vote referendum.

Let us not forget, as a number of Members have pointed out, that the voting age in most democracies, including most member states in the EU, is also 18. Only Austria in the EU currently allows voting at 16, although we have heard that Scotland is now heading in that direction, and that it is just hours away from extending its franchise for Holyrood elections as well, as is their devolved and democratic right. I salute its ability to do that.

Hon. Members have pointed out the precedent of the Scottish independence referendum, which was of course based on the devolved right, as we have heard. It is also right that the decisions about the franchise for elections and referendums that take place throughout the United Kingdom should be taken by this Parliament, in the same way as decisions taken for the franchise for elections to Holyrood are taken by the Holyrood Parliament.

[Peter Grant]

I recognise that this Parliament will take the decision, but will the Minister explain why he is so keen to follow the example set by other EU countries, which so many of his colleagues want to cut us off from, and why he will not follow the example of a country that his colleagues suggest should stay attached to the United Kingdom?

[John Penrose]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the comments made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). There is a degree of symmetry here and it would be bizarre indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) pointed out, to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote on an issue of such national importance when they cannot vote on their local council and on who collects the bins. This needs to be done on a broader basis, and I shall come on to that point in a minute.

Hon. Members have also said that young people are engaged and politically active. That is absolutely true, but it is also true of many 15-year-olds and not of some 50-year-olds. Political engagement is not a strong enough justification in and of itself for giving or denying the vote. Another argument that we have heard is that people can marry or join the Army at 16, and we have heard of a series of other activities that can or cannot be done at 16, 17, 18 or 21. I think the examples given included driving steam tractors. The important point is that in this country we have always viewed attaining adulthood and majority as a process rather than an event. It is not neat—I do not think it can be—and it varies from person to person and by activity to activity. If we want to compare different activities, the list on the parliamentary website that has been mentioned of things that are allowed at 16, 17, 18 or otherwise includes body piercing and having a tattoo at 18. I do not think that those are necessarily fruitful or relevant comparisons. We need to accept adulthood as a process, not an event, and that it is therefore tricky to deal with.

A number of my colleagues have said that they agree with, or are at least sympathetic to, the principle of votes at 16, but are concerned that it should not be done just for this election. I agree with that point. Many Members, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), for Colchester (Will Quince), for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Bath (Ben Howlett), felt the same way and said that this is an important decision that needs to be taken for the franchise as a whole rather than for an individual election. I believe that that is right and I do not believe that this Bill is the right place to make significant changes to the franchise.