3. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services: Reforming Electoral Arrangements in Local Government

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:52 pm on 30 January 2018.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 3:52, 30 January 2018

I will be succinct, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I gave you earlier a copy of this document, 'Votes @ 16', which was really a summation of views from working groups in Y Pant School and Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School in my constituency. Can I say how incredibly enthused they were, and I think are now, about this actual proposal? Let me just focus on a couple of points, and a question at the end. The first point that has been made, very succinctly, is that it would be non-understandable by that generation to talk about them having the right to vote if it can't be done online. Everything is done online, and I very much welcome the commitment you have about actually working out a mechanism on that.

The final point I want to make and ask you a question about is that the one thing that is absolutely clear is that the overwhelming majority of 16 to 17-year-olds want the right to vote, but provided they have the information, the capacity, to do so. That is a point they've made time and time again, and, in fact, when you originally asked them, they split 50:50 on this, but when you said 'if you were provided with the information that would enable you to participate properly', it rose to almost 100 per cent. It seems to me that the key challenge that we have to make for that generation, for those new voters, is the ability to engage from a very early age. And we have to get away from this obsession that we have about, 'Oh, you mustn't have politics in school'. Life is about politics, society is about politics, and we have to give the opportunity, from 12, 13, 14, 15 on—the ability to engage with them on political issues, on trade union issues, on social and economic issues, all the way through. Some of the schools that have their restrictions on that, I think we have to look at. So, we need a policy that is about positive and fair engagement with citizenship and social responsibility and that, it seems to me, is the biggest challenge of all in terms of the extending of the voting to 16 and 17-year-olds, even to the extent that quite a number actually said that, without that, they wouldn't want that opportunity. So, that is the challenge, Cabinet Secretary. How do you propose to deal with it?