Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has been generous in giving way.

[Mark Durkan]

She will regret this.

[Sammy Wilson]

She probably will, because I am a bit confused about the argument for the amendment. It started off as an argument that, as people would be using the system to vote at the next election, they should have some say about it. As has been pointed out, that ought to mean reducing the age to 14, because 14-year-olds will be using the system. Then the argument changed and we heard that we had to choose an arbitrary age, and it was 16. What is the central point that the hon. Lady is making? Is it that people should have a say about the system that will be used when they first have a vote at a general election? If that is the case, why is the age not 14? Why not choose any number at all and put it in the amendment?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.