argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I slightly worry about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and his use of words such as "hypocrite". Earlier in the week, we had a noble Lord from the Opposition referring to the Prime Minister as a liar. We have rules in this House about asperity of speech. If the noble Lord cares to look at the Companion, he will find that it is a very difficult and unpleasant process if those rules are called into being.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
William Spicer (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been reflecting on the exchange between my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on the question of degrees of hypocrisy. I wonder whether it might be viewed as pretty hypocritical to push an amendment to delay the referendum for two years, hoping that it might go away in time for the general election.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I take the liberty of correcting the noble Lord on what he said about the referendum being held in May or June next year. The fact is that this Bill is very unlikely to get Royal Assent before Christmas, and we need 16 weeks from then, which takes us to the end of June.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
William Garel-Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the noble Lord not think that it is fairer to judge Lady Thatcher by what she did when she was Prime Minister rather than by what she might have done or thought when she was not?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise for interrupting my noble friend, but I had forgotten that there is another argument that is put forward when you are a Minister and you do not want to accept the amendment and your arguments are a bit thin, and that is that the drafting is not correct. Would it not be possible at a later stage in the Bill for the Minister to bring forward an amendment which was drafted correctly and met my noble friend’s purpose?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Joyce Anelay (Conservative, Centre-right): I know the noble Lord’s experience of these matters so he is probably well ahead of me on this, but perhaps I can remind him that in 2006 and 2007 Germany and Finland swapped presidency dates to avoid national elections in each, so it can be done I was also asked a pertinent question by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I may have misheard, but I thought my noble friend said in the context of the date of the referendum that the Prime Minister would make a recommendation to both Houses and both Houses would be able to decide. As that is by regulation, would that not get us into some difficulty in this House?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that the grouping of the amendments is somewhat weird. I cannot quite understand why Amendment 1 was grouped with Amendment 2, other than that one followed the other. They do not seem to have an awful lot in common. I congratulate the noble Lord, because his amendment certainly created much more interest and lively debate than mine I am very grateful to the House, because there seems to be almost complete unanimity over my amendment. I take my noble friend’s point that the wording could perhaps have been better, but I was enormously encouraged—almost shocked—to get the support of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to whom I am very grateful. The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about the Delegated Powers Committee having a view on this as well was also very encouraging. We have the Electoral Commission and the whole of your Lordships’ House, I think, in support. Indeed, it is in the spirit of what the Government have already said. On that basis, I take my noble friend’s point that it was not very well worded, so work must be done. May I check with her where this leaves us today? Presumably, an amendment will be put forward which is better worded but applies itself to the spirit of my amendment and will be tabled at Report as a government amendment. Is that correct?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Howard Emerson Flight (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise in support of Amendments 3 and 4, proposed by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. The unspoken point here is that some people believe that whatever proposition comes first on a referendum has a marginal advantage because people react to the first thing that they read. I personally rather doubt that that is the case. But there is an argument that, if you have a referendum, you do not have one to say that you want no change—you have a referendum to consider whether you want change or not. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that the change proposition should come first. But there will no doubt be an ongoing tug of war on this issue, due to the view that whichever proposition comes first has some advantage. I would like to see evidence as to whether that is the case.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wigley—at least he has some commitment from my noble friend the Minister to come back to him. I did not get the impression that there was the overwhelming support from the Committee for Amendments 3 and 4 that there was for Amendment 1. Therefore, I am not looking to come back with an improved form of the amendment on Report and I am more than happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord seems to be advancing two propositions, both of which I find puzzling. The first is that those of us in this Chamber have no concern for the future of our country after we are dead. I do not believe that that is the case at all. The second proposition is that 17 year-olds are somehow of a different generation from 18 year-olds. I do not understand that either.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): When we discussed this in the context of giving the Scottish Parliament the power to decide this, I warned that the Scottish Parliament would give the vote to 16 year-olds and that this would then be used as an argument for doing the same here, which is what the noble Lord has been doing. Does this not relate to the issue of the age of majority? In Scotland, 16 year-olds are not allowed to buy a pint of beer or a packet of cigarettes. Should we not look at this in the context of the appropriate age of majority and not in the context of a Bill of this kind?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Other
Norman Beresford Tebbit (Conservative, Centre-right): Has it ever occurred to the noble Lord that old people never get younger but young people, granted reasonable luck, get older? The older they get, the more they become like old people. It is a very curious thing. He is saying that their views as young people should be counted but that those of us who are in our advanced years are silly old fools who really should not be trusted with the future of the country at all.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Richard Balfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, earlier this year I tabled a Private Member’s Bill that came so low down the list that it is never likely to be debated. It sought to extend to European citizens the right to vote in British elections, on the basis of no taxation without representation. If people pay taxes to the British Exchequer, the fact that they hold a different passport should not preclude them from exercising a say in how their money is spent. Having tabled that Bill, I went into the electoral system that we have in great depth. I did not realise exactly how complex it is. That certainly led me to conclude that a debate on the European Union Referendum Bill is not the place to start extending the franchise All my life I have heard guff about young people. When I was 16 years old and I became an official in the local branch of my trade union, everybody was saying, "Isn’t it marvellous. We really need young people here". There is a sort of idolisation of the young. Of course, we need young people but we also need mature people. I spoke in our group meeting not so long ago against the idea of throwing all noble Lords out of this House when they get to 80. I am some way short of 80 but I do not propose to support something that disfranchises people because they have reached a certain age. I know some people of 60 who are nowhere near as bright as our good and noble friend Lord Plumb. He is not here at the moment, but at the age of 90 he gave one of the best speeches I have heard in the European Parliament recently when he spoke at the Former Members’ Association. To get back to the point, when this was proposed initially, I thought it was tabled because the "yes" side thought that more young people would vote yes than no. I am not sure that that is the case now, having looked at the evidence. I now ask, why are we extending or changing the franchise on the back of a Bill about the European Union? Why are we making these changes when we consider the difficulties that we could have in registering the said people? I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, to respond to that. This is not like Scotland where there was a long lead-in to the referendum between the Act and the voting date. This referendum could take place within a very short time. For the moment, I am not convinced that the age and wisdom of a small group of people spanning just two years is worth making a fundamental change to the electoral system.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Richard Balfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I also thank the noble Baroness for her intervention but this is a Bill not about extending the franchise but about a European referendum. I intend to vote yes in this referendum unless some dreadful tragedy happens in the renegotiation. I am not persuaded that extending the vote is part of the purpose of this Bill. It is as simple as that. It will lead to a lot of problems. It may be within the noble Lord’s prerogative, as he appears to be responding to this amendment, so I ask him to raise with his colleagues the need for a fundamental look at the electoral system in this country I was recently monitoring an election in a place called Kyrgyzstan, on the border with China. It has introduced biometric testing for being on the electoral register. I learnt when I was there that Mr Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, believes that this is a way of having votes without fraud. There are all sorts of ideas out there and I believe that these amendments, which I might be prepared to support in a Bill extending the franchise, are none the less not right for this particular Bill. I ask the noble Lord to communicate to his colleagues the desirability of a look at the way in which the franchise works. It seems to me odd, and has done for a long time, that people can pay tax and not have a vote, and people can pay no tax at all, can be living in, for instance, Brussels with highly paid jobs for many years, and according to some noble Lords be completely out of touch with reality and the world, yet they can vote in a UK election I suggest that we need a fundamental look at the franchise. I have steered three children successfully through the gap from 16 to 18—they are now well beyond it—and they vote for a variety of parties. I look round and see that all three of the major parties represented in this House have had votes from our family in the recent past, so they are certainly capable of making up their minds. I end where I began: I do not think this Bill is the place to extend the franchise.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I will have a go at a respectable argument. Is the answer to the noble Lord’s point about the mess that we are in that we should not proceed with constitutional or franchise reform on a piecemeal basis On the point about the difference between a 16 year-old north of the border and south of it, I am sure that the noble Lord has been to a place called Gretna Green. That exists because 16 year-olds south of the border are not allowed to marry without parental consent, whereas in Scotland that consent is not needed. There is a precedent. It is not a particularly good one, but it illustrates what happens when you do not look at the age of majority in a coherent, cross-border manner.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to the noble Lord. It was not our Government who let the genie out of the bottle, but the Scottish nationalists in Scotland. It was this House and the other House that gave the Scottish nationalist Government the power to make piecemeal changes to the franchise. I warned against it at the time. I warned that we would end up with people making piecemeal changes to the franchise, which should be looked at in the context of the overall age of majority I am not sure that I do agree with the noble Lord. We agree that it is a mess but the way to sort it out is to look at it across the board on the basis of the age of majority, not to add to the mess by making yet one more piecemeal change regarding voting in this particular referendum. I was responding to his point on what you say to a 16 year-old about how the law is different on different sides of the border. Gretna Green is a long-standing example.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): I did not make that speech. I was in no position to make it. I cannot recall what my views were. I was not a Member of Parliament then and I certainly was not in this place. My point of view now is based on what the law currently is for the age of majority and why Governments and both Houses of Parliament have accepted 18 and granted all these rights to people only when they reach the age of 18 Let me briefly conclude on this point. Until you are aged 18 you cannot open a bank account in your own name. You cannot even get a tattoo, buy fireworks or make a will. You cannot even carry an organ donor card or use a sunbed for tanning. You cannot stand as a Member of Parliament until you are aged 18. If we lower the voting age to 16 are we then going to allow people to stand as a Member of Parliament when they are 16? There are a range of other examples but I will not bore the House with them.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): There is a lot of detail there and it is a route that I dare not step down. Whatever language or terminology I try carefully to choose, I will inevitably offend someone somewhere. That is not a risk I wish to take. I simply say that the fact that one can get the pill at the age of 16—rightly so—is no justification for saying one should therefore have the right to vote I concluded with a list of all the things that Parliament has decided that people can do only when they are aged 18. Some sound so trivial, but if that is what Parliament decides, it is perfectly legitimate to say that the age of majority is fixed at 18 and that we should not lower it for the purposes of this referendum Just because young Scottish people aged 16 and 17 were enthusiastic, it is irrelevant to deciding on this matter. Politically, we know why the SNP Government lowered the age. It is because their private polling suggested that 16 and 17 year-olds would be twice as likely to vote for independence as for staying in the union. You can bet your bottom dollar—or your pound Scots—that if their private polling had been the other way around, the Scottish Government would not have lowered the voting age to 16. They would have kept it. If these amendments are passed, accepted by the other place and become law, we will have 16 and 17 year-old Commonwealth and Irish citizens also being granted the right to vote, because they are included on the register. If some noble Lords’ amendments to include European citizens were passed as well, we would have 16 and 17 year-old children from European countries also being allowed to vote. If we get a close result with that scenario, I think a lot of British people would be outraged that a majority of 200,000 to 300,000, either way, had swung the vote, because of the inclusion of 16 and 17 year-old European, Commonwealth and Irish citizens. That is a rather dangerous route to go down. However, we may be able to talk about that later I oppose these amendments because the age of majority is 18. It should stick at that but if we want to change it we should do it in a general Bill relating to the franchise. We should then take a close look at all the other things that these 16 and 17 year-old children cannot do, because, if we lower the age of majority to 16, we should change the law on a whole range of things from buying knives to buying a pint.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael John Dobbs (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, a considerable amount of thunder has been generated by a debate which is actually quite subtle. There are no blacks and whites in this but a kaleidoscope of colours, and that is entirely appropriate when we are talking about young people who are just starting their adult lives My first political experience was as a 12 year-old when I was knocking up on election day and I had a bucket of water thrown over me. That was certainly an immersion in the political process, but I am not sure it gave me a right to vote at the age of 12. I have listened very carefully to this impassioned debate. I always listen very carefully to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I usually agree with him. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made a passionate speech about why we should not give 16 year-olds the vote. My noble friend—I am not sure if he is here—Lord Borwick, of Hawkshead, made a passionate speech at Second Reading against giving votes to 16 year-olds. I have just listened to a very powerful speech by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the matter, but I assure him that I do not believe that this is a matter of party politics. It is a matter of judgment which crosses all parties Like so many others, when I was campaigning up in Scotland, I was very impressed with the response and the seriousness of young Scottish voters. We older voters might actually learn a great deal from their example and their engagement. I am bothered by the fact that, although the coalition Government and the Prime Minister did not specifically approve votes for 16 year-olds, they did acquiesce in votes for 16 year- olds. So the question I am struggling with is: how can it be right to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in a referendum on Scotland but not in a referendum on Europe? There has to be some sort of consistency. Perish the thought, but I actually find myself agreeing with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was saying earlier—I hope he will forgive me for that It is a matter of balance. When I think about it and when I see those who have been supporting votes for 16 and 17 year-olds, I may not lose only my balance but shall probably lose my sense of sanity as well—climbing into bed with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes; it will have to be a very stout bed-frame to take both of us. I have no idea which way 16 and 17 year-olds might vote. Will they look up to that European ideal that impressed so many of us when we were younger, or will they simply do what so many other young voters in Europe have done and stick two fingers up at the establishment? I suspect that the establishment will be piling in to say, "You must vote to remain". I do not know, but it does not matter. It comes down to a question of balance and judgment.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not an argument about maturity, not about how people will vote? When I was 16, I thought I was a socialist but I grew out of it. Just because the Scottish Government, for political reasons, decided to give 16 year-olds the vote, that does not mean that the argument about maturity is being addressed. Is that not the central argument?
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Michael John Dobbs (Conservative, Centre-right): It is certainly a central argument. I have a 20 year-old who is a devout Corbynista. I would love to take the vote from him, but I do not have the right to do so, even though I think that his judgment on politics—as well as choice of football club—may be rather flawed. If one takes a totally logical approach, as the noble Baroness was saying earlier, there are many elderly people who are perhaps not as capable and as competent as they might be in exercising their judgment. We have to look for a balance. I cannot see how we can face 16 and 17 year-old voters and say yes in Scotland and no as far as Europe is concerned. Although I shall end up with some very strange bedfellows on this one, I urge my noble friend to take a very close look at this issue again and see whether the Government cannot make progress on it.
European Union Referendum Bill — House of Lords, 2015-10-28
Topic: Civil Rights
Terence Langley Higgins (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am not in favour of these amendments and I think it would be very naïve to suppose that if we accept them we will avoid a slippery slope as far as the age of consent is concerned, along with the many other issues that have been raised. If that kind of change is to be made, rather than being pushed into it by the precedent of what happened in Scotland it is very important we should have an overall view of the whole issue in a Bill which is publicised and which allows the public to express their view on all these issues. The Government are right to say they will use—with very minor exceptions—the same franchise as was used in the very recent local election Many noble Lords have been over this course before. I remember very well when I was in the House of the Commons that the issue of lowering the voting age came up. I said to my secretary that if I got a single letter—at that time I had an enormous mailbag—from someone in the lower age group saying they would like the vote, then I would vote for it, but if I did not get such a letter I would vote against it. I did not get such a letter. In this day and age we are not inundated to the same extent with mailbags. Instead we are inundated with emails. I wonder how many Members have had an email from someone in the age group which the proposal would enfranchise saying that they would really like the vote. I have not had one. I have had enormous numbers of emails but not one like that. That is because this issue has not been publicised. This has become an internal view of the House of Lords and we are not taking other arguments sufficiently into account.