European Union Referendum Bill

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

There is a £6 million bill associated with the proposal and I object to their lordships simply writing a blank cheque. Perhaps, like the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East, they do not care where the money comes from. The main principle for the many Government Members who have voted against extending the franchise is that this is not the way to do it. I agree with the hon. Lady: if we were to do it for the referendum, we would then inevitably have to lower the age for major nationwide UK elections. We should consider all the eventualities of extending the vote, including extending to 16-year-olds the right to represent a constituency, but, given the short amount of time available today, we are not in a position to do so or, therefore, to accept the Lords amendment. I hope the House rejects it.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to talk as a Scottish MP about giving Scottish teenagers the vote in the European referendum.

It is something of an irony that it is the unelected upper Chamber that sent the issue back to this House. If Government Members are unhappy about that, we have a very simple solution: they should scrap the upper Chamber. In this instance, however, I am glad that the other place has given us the opportunity to debate this. When we previously debated the issue back in June, a number of Members, particularly Conservative Members, said that at some point the time would come but that now was not the time. I hope they took the opportunity to reconsider their position over the summer.

This is a question of democracy. The Minister said that this is a Westminster bubble issue, but I do not understand how giving more people the vote and the opportunity to participate in the democratic process is a Westminster bubble issue—in fact, it is quite the opposite. Those who will be 16 on the day of the European referendum will, I am afraid, have to live with the decision for longer than most of us in this Chamber. As we have noted, 16 and 17-year-olds can pay tax and get married, although I concede to the Minister that they cannot drive a bus.

On a more sober point, a 2010 Demos report showed that some of the first troops to lose their lives in the conflict in Iraq were too young to have cast their vote. This House recently voted on a similar issue, so it is worth reflecting on that.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman assist me by explaining why 15 is not the right age?

[Stephen Gethins]

We think that 16 is the right age, and that is why we have drawn from the experience of the Scottish independence referendum. It is a good age for participation and people pay tax at that age, although the Minister talked about six-year-olds paying tax. We think 16 is a good age to start voting.

The question of participation should always be high on the agenda of this House. We should always look at different ways to encourage more people to be involved in the democratic process. Evidence suggests that the earlier we involve young people, the more likely they are to stay involved. As the Electoral Reform Society has found, if people vote early, they vote often. Conservative Members might not like that very much, but we think it is positive.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

Not at the moment. The United Kingdom has a tale of two legislatures. On 18 June—the very day that this House struck down amendments to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote—the Scottish Parliament, which is clearly the wiser institution, passed the Scottish Elections (Reduction in Voting Age) Bill to extend the franchise to Holyrood elections. And you know what? It was passed unanimously. As the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) pointed out, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives has said that she is a

“fully paid-up member of the ‘votes at 16’ club now”.

I welcome that, along with the fact that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now for votes at 16. In a rare show of unity—I hope I am not jinxing this—the most recent former leader of the UK Labour party, its Scottish leader and its current leader all appear to back votes at 16. I hope that I have not spoken too soon.

[Patrick Grady]

Given the comments made about the views of 16 and 17-year-olds on this issue, is my hon. Friend aware that both the Scottish and the UK Youth Parliaments have endorsed votes at 16?

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[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Electoral Reform Society has said that the

“UK Government should follow Holyrood’s example”

for the EU referendum and all other elections. SNP Members have a little bit of experience of referendums, and we should follow the gold standard set by the Scottish independence referendum. It is a shame that the issue of EU nationals has not come back to the House, but we are able to debate the vote for 16 and 17-year-olds. It is a shame that people from other European countries —EU nationals make such a huge contribution—will not be able to vote.

It is easy to see why politicians from across the spectrum—Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats—have been won over by votes for 16-year-olds. In the independence referendum, turnout among 16 and 17-year-olds was 75%, and 97% of them said that they would contribute by voting again. They accessed more information and were much better at accessing information than any other age group, which makes all of us much more accountable.

[Mr Jackson]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

On that point, I will gladly give way.

[Mr Jackson]

One wonders what we ever did before the SNP arrived with its 56 seats in this Parliament, but obviously we struggled on manfully. The hon. Gentleman will know that the franchise was extended to 18-year-olds in 1969. Since then, very rarely has turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds gone above 50%, although for the over-70s the percentage figure is in the high 70s. With more information available—we have never had so much information about policy and politics—why does he think that young people across the UK are so disengaged?

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman is not of course the only person who is delighted to see so many new SNP Members bringing their wisdom to this Chamber. We refer to the independence referendum because we have the facts and the evidence to show that if we include 16 and 17-year-olds in the process, they get involved. To make the argument that Westminster elections did not inspire people to get involved in elections in the past is more of a reflection on Westminster politicians than on the public at large. We have the evidence that 16-year-olds got involved. It was good that they campaigned—good for those who got involved on the no side as well as for those who did so on the yes side. It was a positive thing all round, and I pay tribute to those people.

Just as with the rest of the population, if we give young people a genuine opportunity to get involved in a meaningful democratic process, they will do so, and the European Union referendum provides us with such an opportunity. To give the Minister and the Prime Minister more of an incentive, I suspect that 16-year-olds will be better informed and give their Government a fairer hearing on the deal they are negotiating with Brussels than will their own Back Benchers.

This House has been left behind on votes for 16-year-olds. It is happening in Scotland, the Isle of Man and elsewhere. Let us not be left behind again. Let us back votes for 16-year-olds.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I rise to support the Government on Lords amendment 1. A number of arguments have been deployed for extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds in the European referendum. I have listened to them in this and other debates, and they can be distilled into two broad camps. The first argument—we have just heard an example of it from the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins)—is that what has been done in Scotland should be done across the rest of the UK. The other argument is that this is about their future and, because this is a one-off referendum, they should be allowed to have a say in their future. I will address each point in turn.

I lived for a year on Deeside—in the Dee valley between Ballater and Aboyne—which is a truly beautiful and wonderful part of the world. From living there, I discovered that lots of things in Scotland are done differently from how we do them in England and Wales, but vive la difference: we do not necessarily want to create complete homogeneity across the whole of the UK. I suspect that one reason why SNP Members are so passionate about independence is that they want to do things differently from how they are done in England and Wales, so I find it slightly strange that, in their collective desire to be independent and different, they are suggesting we should all be the same.

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[James Cleverly]

I will give way in a moment.

I advise SNP Members to be a little careful about what they wish for. If their position is that any devolved power they exercise must then, by extension, be absorbed by the rest of the UK, that will create a lot of friction and disharmony as people in rest of the United Kingdom—

[Stephen Gethins]

rose—

[James Cleverly]

At least let me get to the end of my point.

Those people will feel aggrieved at the automatic assumption that devolved decisions made in Scotland are therefore going to wash across to the rest of the United Kingdom.

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[Carol Monaghan]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

rose—

[James Cleverly]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

rose—

[Mr Jackson]

I cannot take any interventions from my Caledonian friends.

In conclusion, it is a constitutional outrage that the superannuated, unelected, unaccountable panjandrums in the House of Lords have told us what the elected House should be doing even though we have a settled view on this. They should learn their place. They must be subservient to the elected House, and it is high time that we had House of Lords reform.