Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:51 pm on 6 December 2017.
Thank you very much for introducing these ideas. I think there's a lot of merit to them. Would you agree that the health service, above all, does need to have much better citizen participation? Just because the health service is free at the point of need doesn't mean that we should be getting people going to the doctor because they've got a sore throat. We really do need to get people to choose well, like the Government campaign says. We need people to take some responsibility for their own health. So, I think prudent healthcare summarises that and I think, without prudent healthcare, we will find, increasingly, that the health service cannot meet the more complex needs of citizens who have serious illnesses. So, I think this is something that it would be useful to pursue.
But I also wanted to just ask you whether you think that we also need to do something to reverse the suppression of voter participation that's gone on over the last few years. The way in which it's been made more difficult for people to register to vote means that there are many thousands—indeed, across the country in the UK, many millions of people—who are not registered to vote. Either because of literacy issues or other reasons, they are unable to grasp this simple process. Would you therefore consider including in your Bill making it an obligation on public services that, when they are transacting business with the citizen, whether it's on council tax, housing benefit, child benefit, DVLA, or changing a licence, automatically that public service would be able to register them to vote? This isn't an obligation to vote, but this is enabling them to register to vote. So, I would be interested to know whether you think that would be part of your Bill.