Oral Answers to Questions

Wayne David Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are now in the latter stages of the legislation. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that the central purpose of individual voter registration is to bear down on fraud. That is something with which I should have thought all Members would agree. The Labour Government had plans to introduce individual voter registration, to come into effect on a slightly slower timetable than the one that we are introducing, yet for some reason the Labour party has now decided that it is against this anti-fraud measure from first principles—a very curious change of mind.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I note that the Government are happy for the Scottish Parliament to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the Scottish referendum, but surely to be consistent the Government should extend the franchise to all 16 and 17-year-olds throughout the United Kingdom. If the Government are prepared to do that, we on the Labour Benches will support them. Will they accept our offer?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, I personally am sympathetic to the principle of giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, but it is not something that we are going to proceed with as a Government because it is not agreed within the coalition. He should be precise about the powers that we have given to the Scottish Administration. We have given them a degree of discretion over the franchise that applies to referendums, which applies to all referendums because the franchise needs to be decided on a referendum-by-referendum basis. To that extent, the powers that we have granted to the Scottish Government are nothing exceptional to the decisions made on the franchise for each referendum, wherever that might take place.