Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Richard Shepherd Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention; he is absolutely right. By a happy coincidence of timing, on Friday week—on 29 October—the UK Youth Parliament will, for the second time, have its annual sitting on these Benches. Last year, when the UK Youth Parliament so controversially sat on these Benches, it debated four subjects and had a vote at the end to decide which subject was the most important to it. The subject that came out on top by a long way was lowering the voting age to 16. Those are 11 to 18-year-olds who are democratically elected through their youth services, and who have a lot to say on the issue. A lot of us who were here and who heard them speak were very impressed, but the issue has not gone anywhere.

The Youth Parliament is about to return, and it would speak volumes if we said to them, “We heard what you said last time round. We know that this matters to you, and we have today voted to ensure that 16-year-olds can take part in this unique referendum. We will give people the vote at 16, at least partially, on this one-off occasion.” The 16-year-olds can then demonstrate themselves that the move strengthens democracy, rather than undermines it.

To end on a positive note, I really hope that we all vote for the amendment, especially those parties which had votes at 16 written into their manifesto and campaigned on the issue at the general election. I hope that those people, at least, will find their way into the Aye Lobby. I hope that they understand how important the issue is to those who are 16 on the day of the referendum, and who really care about the issue and about having their voices heard on that day, so that when they take part in the general election at the age of 18, they will have voted for the system in which they are taking part.

Ms Primarolo, I hope that you understand how important the issue is. We are in a new Parliament, and we have lots of Members who are much closer to the age of 16 than Members were in the previous Parliament. It would be great to test the mood of the Committee, just to see where people stand on the issue, because it really matters. This is the last act of discrimination that we really need to get rid of. We need to widen the franchise, and this is a fantastic opportunity to do so.

[Mr Shepherd]

This is an important group of amendments, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) and those who signed up to them. It seems extraordinary to most people when one says, “But you don’t have to be a British citizen to vote in a national election in Britain.” It is, by and large, a remarkable thing. It may be a post-imperial legacy, or there may be other reasons, but that is what this issue is about.

We are holding this debate on the Floor of the House of Commons because it is a constitutional debate, and it therefore affects our rules and our sense of self-governance. I am particularly grateful for the amendments because in his remarks my hon. Friend mentioned the various criteria that enable people to vote in very important elections in this country.

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[Mr MacNeil]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. I have already given an example to which there has not yet been an answer—of the Irish citizen from Northern Ireland living in Scotland. What about the children of those who have left the islands of Scotland and gone off to Australia or New Zealand? I know some people who have done so. Those children are the children of UK subjects and have the title of British citizen. Are they entitled to vote, although they have never lived in the UK, when those who have come here and are materially affected by what is happening would not be allowed to vote?

[Mr Shepherd]

As for those who have emigrated, and possibly even taken up Australian citizenship, I would say no. Why should they? They have made a declaration.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Shepherd]

I do not want to engage in an exchange across the Chamber of the kind that we have just had. I respect the hon. Gentleman’s opinions, but it seems that we are talking about a central, small part of an issue: what constitutes British citizenship? It is not as defined in 1947 any more, and there has been a whole series of extensions to that definition. Now, European—not British—citizens can determine how local taxes are arranged in the borough or elsewhere.

This is a question that would, frankly, have been startling to many people, certainly when I first came to the House. The numbers are huge: 3 million new British citizens have been created since 1997, and I do not see them returned on the electoral register. It has not leapt by that number. I want to assert the essential concepts of citizenship, because the Bill is, in the end, about our citizenship; it is about voting processes and how we elect a Government, and it explores the idea of a five-year mandatory Parliament. However, the essential issue here is who should vote. That is all it is about.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that somebody who holds British citizenship because of their UK-subject parents—I know that these are funny terms that are kind of inconsistent—and who has never lived in the UK should be able to vote in the referendum and that those who live here should not?

[Mr Shepherd]

I am using common terms, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for that. I understand British citizenship as a link by birth to a country. I also see it as the sentiment of the individual. As I said, there have been 3 million new British citizens in 13 years, and it is not impossible for them to express that sentiment and qualify for citizenship. I did not want to be distracted down the routes along which the hon. Gentleman was trying to lead me. I feel that we have started on a question and answer session, and that was not my intention.

[Sammy Wilson]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I totally agree with him. One of the prices for taking part in elections in the United Kingdom ought to be that someone is a citizen of the United Kingdom. Given that principle, with which I agree, does he consider that amendment 60 sits uneasily with it, in so far as we are making exceptions for people who opt for Irish citizenship and yet would be entitled to take part in the referendum to decide on the kind of voting system that there should be for British elections?

[Mr Shepherd]

In a sense, there are two parts to that. One is sentiment. Let me illustrate that the other way round. I take the Crossland example. It is not a bad one, and concerns the American wife of a British politician. She lived here for many years, was married to a British citizen and wanted to vote in British general elections, her husband being a leading Labour politician. That was impossible for her under her citizenship of the United States. It was absolutist. The United States has given way on that and recognises that American citizens can retain their American citizenships while voting, in certain circumstances, in a British election. There is their concept of citizenship. Where is ours?

What is the basis of our great universal appeal? It is the formation of our own society and its integrity—the integrity of our view of the rule of law, the constitutional tradition, the way in which we change our laws, and so on, which are mostly unknown to those who come from foreign parts, who are here temporarily, but qualify under the terms of our existing arrangements.

The Government have opened up this great can of worms, in the sense that by putting the Bill on the Order Paper as a constitutional measure, they are inviting people who do not necessarily have any attachment to the concept of the United Kingdom or the integrity of its institutions to vote. Why? If we were to do a poll on this—my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) seems to rely on the stars of polls—most people would be very confused by what my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West said as he listed the various categories which, on the various sections, may vote for this, that and the other.

The amendment is important and I will most certainly vote for it. There should be a duty to ensure that everybody is validly on the electoral register. That is not funded properly. Local authorities maintain that they cannot afford to do it. Mine are already allocating numbers, because they have a small grant, of those who should go out to get people to register. One can look at any electoral register—I see it in my own constituency—and two missing residents jumps to eight, which jumps to 10 or perhaps 14. There are all those missing residents, and not just residents, but citizens.

When constructing the boundaries that will come from the Bill, we do not know what that will mean in terms of equality of boroughs. Some 95% of immigration into the United Kingdom is into England. It is concentrated in cities and in certain areas. Illegal immigration, as we know, is very high. Statistics are adduced for that. Immigrants who come from a Commonwealth country and speak English often apply to go on to an electoral register. They need it for other reasons, to show that they are householders and so on. Under the terms of the Bill, they will vote. It may not be lawful that they should vote, but there is no mechanism by which we can identify whether they are entitled to vote. I shall support the amendment.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall contribute briefly in support of amendment 332 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). Like her, I speak as a former 16-year-old, and also as a former chair of the all-party group on youth affairs. It is important that in this debate, hon. Members in all parts of the House are listening to the organisations representing young people who, as she said so eloquently, have been campaigning for many years for the principle of votes at 16.

I was 16 in 1983, and there was a general election that year which some of us remember only too well. I stood in a mock general election in my school and I came fourth as the Labour party candidate, although 14 years later perhaps made up for it by winning in that same constituency in 1997. I cite that because in my experience 15, 16 and 17-year-olds are often extremely interested in politics. The case that has been made for votes at 16 is about recognising the rights of citizenship that include the right to vote in elections.

The referendum gives us a first opportunity to try out the notion of giving votes to 16 and 17-year-olds. As a supporter of that, I am confident that it will work and that many 16 and 17-year-olds will choose to participate, for the reasons that my hon. Friend gave. Those who are more sceptical will have the opportunity to see whether it might not be quite so successful in practice.

My hon. Friend, who was subject to many questions and interventions, made the case clearly as to why it makes sense for 16 to be the age at which the limit is set. Of course, as she said, it is to some extent an arbitrary age, as is any age. An age lower than 16 would be problematic and would raise practical issues about the registration process, as hon. Members have said, whereas we already ask 16 and 17-year-olds to put their names down when placing people on the electoral register each year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said, it is a straightforward proposition to suggest that 16 and 17-year-olds should be entitled to vote in the referendum.

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[Mr Harper]

Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth, and the usual practice is that in such cases we do not take steps to remove the right of qualifying citizens from those countries to vote in our elections.

It is worth saying that the right of Commonwealth citizens to register to vote is restricted in electoral law to qualifying Commonwealth citizens—those who do not require leave to enter or remain under the immigration legislation, or those who do require leave but have it. I say that because my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills suggested that in some constituencies significant numbers of illegal immigrants had managed to get themselves on to the electoral register and that there was no duty on electoral registration officers to do anything about that. But that is not the case. Electoral registration officers have a duty to maintain an accurate and complete register and to inquire whether people are eligible to be—

[Mr Shepherd]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Harper]

I see that my hon. Friend is back in his place.

[Mr Shepherd]

Of course, there is no money. The state of the register is as I reported in my speech. There are many people in that situation, and he cannot disprove that—any more than I can prove it—because no efforts are made to identify whether a Commonwealth citizen who applies to go on the register is here lawfully.

[Mr Harper]

I would say two things to my hon. Friend. First, money is provided to local authorities as part of their normal funding, and it is a matter for the local authority to decide on priorities. In his own case, if he is dissatisfied with how the electoral registration officer is conducting himself, I suggest that he speaks to the chief executive of his local authority and makes those strong representations.

Secondly, given our proposals to move to individual voter registration in 2014, we will be improving the registration system and making it much more difficult for people who are not entitled to be on the register to be on it. I have written to local authority chief executives to ask them to take part in data-matching pilots in which we can, first, identify those who are more likely not to be on the register who should be, enabling authorities to target their resources on them and, secondly, target voters who should not be on the electoral register, to enable authorities to ensure that the register is not just complete but accurate. So there are two avenues there that my hon. Friend can pursue.

I want to address the argument made by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), whose amendment 332 would extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. As I said, our approach has been that the people voting in the referendum should be those entitled to vote in a Westminster election. She, perfectly reasonably, is continuing her long-running campaign, supported by a number of hon. Members, to lower the voting age. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, I do not think that experimenting with the franchise in this Bill is the right way to go.

Many hon. Members will know my views on lowering the voting age, but—on a note of agreement—my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) is right. He is a firm advocate of lowering the voting age in elections in general, but he acknowledges that trying to do that in this Bill, for one specific referendum, is not the right thing to do.