argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Other
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will have to tell me what amendment I put my name to which tries to tilt the playing field the other way. All we have ever tried to do is keep it level. My God, that is an effort in a House like this, I can tell you.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, perhaps I may step into the lion’s den and say that I strenuously oppose these amendments and believe that we should stick with the current age of majority of 18 Two arguments have been advanced by the proponents of 16. The first is that this decision may last for another 40 years and will affect a whole generation of young people. That is true. However, in that case, should we not push the age down so that people younger than 16 and 17 can vote, because it will also greatly affect 15 year-olds, 14 year-olds, 13 year-olds and 12 year-olds? There is an argument that it could go down to as low as 10. I am not suggesting that it should, but if one adopts the logic that this decision affects young people disproportionately and that young people should have a say, at 10 years old they have reached the age of criminal responsibility and, if we can assume that from that age onwards they have that reasoning ability, there may be no reason why they should not be able to vote. Logic dictates that there is nothing magical about lowering the age to 16 and sticking at 16. The second argument is that young people are much more mature these days: they are more sophisticated; they understand politics and the world; and they would be enthusiastic voters. I do not deny their enthusiasm but that is not a good enough ground per se for extending the franchise. If we change the voting age based on maturity, I suspect all the behavioural experts would give the vote to girls at age 10 and to boys at age 25. Making a judgment on who is mature enough to vote is more subjective than picking an arbitrary age However, my main objection is that everything we have done in Parliament over recent years has involved raising the age at which young people can do things because we, in this House and in the other place, have concluded that under 18 year-olds cannot be trusted to do things on their own and do not have the maturity to make decisions. With the assistance of our wonderful Library, I have looked at the minimum ages we have set for young people to do certain things. This is in accordance with English law, I stress. Those who favourably quote Scotland should be aware that Scots law has traditionally permitted young people to do some things at an earlier age, such as marry without parental consent. That is perhaps one reason why lowering the voting age in Scotland was not such a big issue We know that young people under 18 can marry in England only with parental consent.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): They did not have the right to vote in a referendum previously. They may have the right to vote in Scottish elections but this is a United Kingdom referendum. I would be quite happy to explain to young Scots that while they may have the right to vote in Scotland, it does not automatically follow that they have the right to vote in a United Kingdom election No one under the age of 18 can gamble: we passed that law in 1934. No one under 18 can get a tattoo: we passed that law in 1969. No one under 18 can serve on a jury—a 1974 Act. No one under 18 can watch a violent or pornographic film—a 1984 Act. In 1985 we banned anyone under 18 from buying solvents. No one under 18 can buy alcohol. Interestingly, the Scottish NHS and Government have been trying to push the age up to 21. They tried that in 2008 and are keen to do so again Under a 1987 law, no one under the age of 18 can sign a property agreement. In 1996 my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne and I increased the age at which one can buy a knife from 16 to 18. In 2003 we banned anyone aged under 18 from buying paint stripper, and in 2005 we banned anyone aged under 18 from possessing fireworks in a public place. In 2007 we raised the age at which someone can buy tobacco to 18, while in 2010 we banned anyone under the age of 18 from using a sunbed.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to differ with the noble Lord. I have almost concluded my remarks on the timescale on which we ban things and I am trying to show that, over the years, this House and the other place have been raising the age at which young people are permitted to do things. It is quite incongruous to suggest that, as we raise the age bar every year because we do not trust the ability of young people to make certain decisions, we should suddenly say that we will lower to 16 the age at which people have the right to vote in this referendum On 21 July this year we banned anyone under the age of 18 from buying fireworks. Without listing all the other legislation through which we have prohibited under 18 year-olds from doing things like opening a bank account, making a will or appearing in an adult court, the trend is pretty obvious. Rather than Parliament acknowledging that young people are growing up faster and can be trusted with decisions, rightly or wrongly, we have been going in the opposite direction. Almost every year we have been raising from 16 to 18 the age at which young people can do things. I simply say that we cannot have it both ways, as the proponents of this amendment are arguing. We cannot say that young people should be permitted to vote at the age of 16 because they are more aware and mature—and then push the age up to 18 for almost everything else I conclude by saying that if under 18 year-olds are not fit to serve on a jury and judge the fate of an individual human being, I submit that they are not fit to decide the fate of a nation.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I do not know what I think about this issue any more. I was trying to think of the phrase and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, helped me out as always. What is it about consistency? Consistency is the hallmark of small minds. I should like to say that I have been completely consistent on this matter. When the Government decided in their wisdom to allow the Scottish Parliament to introduce votes for 16 year-olds, I argued against it on the grounds that it would set a precedent and we would end up having to have votes for 16 year-olds in general elections and every other thing and that we should not go about these matters in a piecemeal manner When the Government decided to allow 16 year-olds to have the vote, not in Welsh elections but in a referendum in Wales to decide if the Assembly should have tax-raising powers, I argued that there was no consistency in this matter and asked why they were making a distinction. I have consistently argued that these matters—the matters of the age of majority—should be looked at as a whole and not on the basis of piecemeal changes. Here we are again with the amendment of the noble Baroness seeking to make another piecemeal change I do not want to repeat the brilliant arguments that were put by my noble friend Lord Blencathra—
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, I will repeat them if you like The best argument I have seen in support of not changing the law for 16 year-olds can be found in the article that was written by the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the papers this morning, in which he argues that it is hypocrisy to argue against votes for 16-year-olds. He says that you are able to fight in the Army when you are 16—not true. He says you can marry when you are 16—not true. He says that anyone who pays tax should be able to vote. Noble Lords opposite all laughed when my noble friend said, "Why not 13 and 14 year-olds?" Every seven year-old pays tax when they buy a bag of sweets or an ice cream. It is VAT.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, it is an argument. I am not surprised that the Liberal Democrat Benches are wincing because that argument was put forward by their leader this very day Then we have had the argument about Scotland. We are told that Scotland has led the way in this revolution, recognising the rights and responsibilities of 16 year-olds. Well, in April Scotland will introduce legislation that requires every child in Scotland from ages nought to 18 to have a state guardian to check up on whether their parents are looking after them. So, the state guardian will need to make sure that 16 year- olds, presumably in exercising their votes, are being properly dealt with. How can we have a state guardian to protect you from your parents and at the same time argue that you are able to vote? We all know why the SNP wanted 16 year-olds to have the vote. It is true that they came out very enthusiastically and voted for independence.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): They did indeed. Those noble Lords who are saying they did not did not spend much time campaigning in Scotland The turnout was certainly higher: 75% of 16 and 17 year-olds voted in the referendum of Scotland; only 54% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted. The funny thing about 16 year-olds is that they turn into 18 year-olds. Is it not extraordinary that the turnout fell to 54% as against 92% of people who are over 55, and 85% of 35 to 54 year-olds?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Matthew Ridley (Conservative, Centre-right): In the spirit of bipartisan compromise, a suggestion in the previous amendment was that perhaps one should delay voting. Perhaps we should say that 16 year-olds can indeed have the vote but delay it for two years?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I like my noble friend’s idea of what constitutes a compromise. The Scottish position arose out of sheer opportunism by the SNP. We can argue whether or not it worked for that party, but that is why it wanted to give votes to 16 year-olds Having said that, the Government are all over the place on this. The Prime Minister gave an undertaking to the First Minister that he will do all he can to ensure that 16 and 17 year-olds can vote in the next Holyrood elections. Indeed, he has been as good as his word: 16 year-olds will be able to vote in the Holyrood elections in May, just as they voted in the referendum. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, who is in her place, is right that this is a rather embarrassing thing to deal with in Scotland—to explain why they could vote in the referendum on independence and will in the Scottish elections, but they will not in the referendum on our membership of the European Union. I agree that it is embarrassing, but it was the party opposite who decided to grant devolution and to devolve these powers. We are discussing a United Kingdom issue. It is very embarrassing that every 16, 17 and 18 year-old in Scotland will have a state guardian, unlike people in England. That is the consequence of devolution, which the parties opposite supported with so much enthusiasm My answer to the 16 year-old who says, "Why do I not have a vote in Scotland on this matter?", would be, "Because we have gone through an idiotic period of piecemeal constitutional reform". The proper thing to do is to consider all the issues that have been mentioned. Why can you not—
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I will give way in a moment. Why can you not buy a packet of cigarettes and do all the things that my noble friend mentioned? We need to look at the age of majority and make it as consistent as possible throughout the United Kingdom in respect of every area of activity, and not to say, "Wouldn’t it be a good idea to add to the confusion by making a change in a Bill of this nature?".
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): If the noble Lord were a more frequent attender at this House he would know that I harry the Government almost every day on the issue of not having piecemeal reform and that I support the idea of a constitutional convention. I certainly am speaking not for the Government, but for those of us who believe that we should not make constitutional changes. Indeed, the noble Lord makes his own point. The Labour Party’s position is that we should have a constitutional convention to sort all these matters out, but here it is doing the opposite of what it says that it wants and making a piecemeal change. If I may say so, the noble Lord has made a point that has come back to hit him like a boomerang Interestingly, in moving her amendment the noble Baroness said in her defence that it would apply only to these elections and that she was not making a general change to the franchise. I did not really understand that. She also said that we need a broader debate. Presumably she was trying to cover this point about the constitutional convention and the need to look at these things as a whole. I am sure the noble Baroness will forgive me for pointing out that she elided the issue of 16 to 18 year-olds. Only four countries in the world allow 16 year-olds a vote in general elections. They are Austria, Nicaragua, Brazil—where it is voluntary for 16 year-olds and compulsory for older voters—and Cuba. I do not think that Castro is a great symbol of democracy—although with the current leadership of the Labour Party I can see the attraction. I have a serious point to make. In an article, the leader of the Liberal Democrats had a real go at my colleague in the other place David Nuttall. He said in a mocking way that people who are against votes for 16 year-olds even suggest that somehow it could result in sexual exploitation. To be fair to the noble Baroness, she accepted the point that a register of young people which will allow 16 year-olds to vote has to be a carefully drawn-up, separate and confidential register. I listened to all the arguments about how all this could be done very quickly and wondered whether these were the same people who, not a matter of weeks ago, were telling us that individual registration could not be done in a year because it was too difficult and there was not enough time to get people on the register. Can these be the same people? Suddenly, we are told that it is all very different. When my noble friend Lord Ridley made his point about national insurance, they said, "We will just give everybody a national insurance number". That is the most extraordinary statement. How much will all this cost, and for what purpose?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Someone is saying "democracy". Democracy involves having a consistent and well-thought-through attitude towards the franchise. It does not consist of giving young people the vote and dressing it up as some kind of liberty for them, when actually the reason some want to give 16 year-olds the vote is because they are hoping they will vote for them. That is what is behind all this and it is no way in which to determine our franchise. Therefore, I have to say, I am not in favour of this amendment.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, but I cannot agree with him. I am one of those who hope that we will have a referendum with an emphatic result in favour of remaining within the European Union. Unless there are some extraordinary events between now and holding the referendum, I believe that I shall be campaigning—I hope vigorously—on that front Last year, my 16 year-old grand-daughter, who will be 18 tomorrow, voted—with my encouragement—for Scotland to remain within the United Kingdom. I was delighted that she did. She and her classmates took an intelligent and very sensible approach to the whole issue. But the fact that they considered it carefully does not, I believe, give your Lordships’ House the freedom to indulge in what my noble friend Lord Forsyth very persuasively called piecemeal change. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out, this House recently decided—on his initiative, and I gave him my strong support— that 17 year-olds should not be detained in police custody overnight. He made a quietly passionate speech in that sense and I was delighted to make a brief speech supporting him We are all over the shop on this one. It is not coherent or sensible to argue that on the one hand you cannot smoke or drink, or do all those things that my noble friend Lord Blencathra set out in his very amusing speech, but on the other that you can vote. We need to look at two issues and this Bill is not the occasion for so doing. We need to look at the age of maturity—what one can and should be able to do at the age of 16 or 18. Have we got it right? Have we been sensible in creating more and more impediments, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra pointed out, or have we been wrong? We also have to look very sensibly and coherently at the franchise.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Other
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I may just finish, then of course I will give way. The Bill takes the UK franchise as it is, which seems to be an entirely logical and sensible thing to do. I give way to my old friend.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have already said, my grand-daughter is 18 tomorrow and she will be entirely free to vote, as I hope she will, in this referendum and every other election, and at every other opportunity when she can vote There was nothing inconsistent—the saying of course refers to foolish consistency as the hobgoblin of small minds, not the hallmark—in saying as I did at the time of the referendum, "You have been given this responsibility; I hope that you will exercise it responsibly; but I do not believe in general that what is being done is right". I argued that in this House when we discussed the matter. No one who was present when I argued on these things before would be at all surprised by what I am saying. My noble friend Lord Tyler—I still call him that—and I clashed several times on this issue when we were talking about the Scottish referendum and other things. The fact is that it is perfectly possible to say, "If you have been given this responsibility, exercise it, but I do not believe that we are wise". I certainly did not believe that the Prime Minister was wise to concede this in the case of the Scottish referendum, any more than I think that he was wise recently to say what he did about 16 and 17 year-olds voting in the Scottish general election. One wonders whether they will have to be accompanied by guardians—but that is another matter entirely.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I am getting bids for alternatives, and the latest is that consistency is the bugbear of a mediocre mind. Perhaps I can help my noble friend with his grand-daughter. Surely the point is that his grand-daughter would have been able to vote in the Scottish referendum but not in the general election that we have just had.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): On the numbers, it is certainly true that 75% of 16 year-olds voted—of course, it was a novelty—but that is not very different from the figure for 25 to 34 year-olds, which was 72%. It is true that there was a fall-off for voters aged between 18 and 24, but then a lot of those people had gone off to university and were not able to vote. So there is no evidence whatever that somehow or other, this increases participation in elections.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): What the noble Lord is saying, as others have said, is that the decision to reduce the voting age for the Scottish referendum is a precedent that has to be followed for all elections of all kinds. That makes it a very important matter indeed, which clearly the Westminster Parliament as a whole needs to pronounce on. Can he remind us by what majority the Westminster Parliament decided that this should happen in Scotland?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
Matthew Ridley (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord said that the Electoral Commission’s advice is based on the experience of Scotland. Does he accept that when the franchise was extended to 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland, we still had household registration without the requirement, as I said earlier, for national insurance numbers and so on, and that the process would be much more complex now?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-18
Topic: Civil Rights
William Trimble (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been reflecting on this issue and the piecemeal way it has been done. Presumably when David Cameron decided that he wanted to make sure that people aged between 16 and 18 did not have a vote, it must have been because he considered, or feared, that most of them would vote to leave.