New Voting Methods

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:56 pm on 11 July 2018.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 2:56, 11 July 2018

Diolch, Gweinidog—or Cabinet Secretary, I should say. My question is nowhere near as exciting or interesting as Russ George's was regarding voting rights abroad. You've said—and forgive me, because I do have this on my phone—. If I can just quote the figures, first of all, for the last set of local council elections in Wales in May 2017, I think the voting turnout was 42 per cent, compared with 68.6 per cent for the general election, and 45.5 per cent for the 2016 Assembly election. You've said that local democracy is all about participation, and you want to increase the franchise to 16-year-olds and to those in prison, to name but a few.

While this side of the Chamber accepts that increasing the franchise, in certain areas at least, is certainly not a bad thing, would you accept that there is a concern that, by doing that, you could be masking a problem by avoiding from this point on a like-for-like comparison with general elections and with the Assembly elections as well? I probably haven't explained that too well myself either, Russ. So, while increasing the franchise in some areas is to be welcomed as a good thing—and certainly in terms of 16-year-olds, I would agree with that increase—at the same time we won't be able to look at these figures in future and say, 'The council election votes are worse than others.' Shouldn't you be addressing the basic problem, which is that people already registered to vote are not voting enough in council elections?