10. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve voter participation, especially in young people? OAQ(5)0184(FM)

We continue to work with our partners to encourage people to register, first of all, and to vote ahead of local government elections in 2017. Assuming the Wales Bill, of course, is satisfactory as far as this institution is concerned, and it gains parliamentary approval, we will be in a position to consider the best use of new powers in electoral matters.

One use may be to lower the voting age to 16 for our elections. This was thought to have transformed voter participation amongst younger people in Scotland when the law was changed for the Scottish referendum. It would also allow us very elegantly to promote in the 14 to 18 age group a whole new concept of civics education and voter participation. This is something we really need to do; citizens have to be aware of their responsibilities, as well, in terms of keeping a healthy democracy going, and education is key to that.

It is absolutely key to it. When I meet people on the doorstep and they tell me that they don’t vote, I ask them to repeat what they’ve just said but without actually using their voice. And I say, ‘Well, there you are, you haven’t got a voice if you don’t vote. If you said to me, “I do vote, but why should I vote for you?”—then politicians take notice.' It’s sad that we’ve seen a decline, I’d say since the mid 1990s, in voter participation, and if we’re honest as politicians, it’s very difficult to understand the reason or reasons for that. We know that in Scotland the turnout was high in the independence referendum. But one of the things we have done, for example, is to fund an NUS Wales and Democracy Club website, ‘Where Do I Vote?’ It was launched in March of this year. It enables students and others to find the polling station they were registered at and it covered 10 of the 22 local authority areas, accounting for around 47 per cent of Welsh electors.

I thank the First Minister.