Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:46 pm on 13 February 2019.
Thank you to David Melding for his observations on the Bill as it stands at this point. On the matter of votes at 16 and 17, the points that you make about all of education and citizenship awareness within education and young people's education—those were the exact points made by Laura McAllister's independent report in recommending that votes at 16 and 17 should be introduced in Wales, but should only be done so in partnership with a very in-depth look at how we promote information and engagement with young people, whether that's through the formal role of schools and the curriculum—. And it's a matter I've discussed already with the education Minister and we're keen to work together on how we do this in preparation, if this law is passed, for 16 and 17-year-olds having the vote in 2021. And, of course, it can be done in a more informal context, through social media and our work on that, especially with the Wales Youth Parliament, which has proved to be very successful over the past few months.
In fact, the point that you make about how engaged 16 and 17-year-olds are compared to possibly other age ranges is an interesting one. The evidence in Scotland—and, of course, Scotland have had at least two examples of using voting for 16 and 17-year-olds, for the independence referendum and then for their Scottish Parliament—was that 16 and 17-year-olds were far better versed in the mechanics of voting, and how to vote and where to vote, than the age range that follows them, the 18 to 24-year-olds, where they may all have left their home environment, moved to another locality and their first voting experience is in an area that they aren't as familiar with. Certainly, that was the interesting experience from Scotland in introducing votes at 16 and 17.
On the main change, the clauses within the Bill as drafted, and also the name itself—the use of 'Senedd' or 'Senedd'/'Welsh Parliament'—that is work in progress, as you say, David, and I look forward to going in front of the committee of the people of goodwill to see whether we can develop further thinking on this. I would urge caution at all times and Members to remember that this is a piece of constitutional legislation and it will require 40 Members of this Assembly, and not a simple majority, to finally pass the Bill, and I hope that all Members, in thinking about interesting amendments that they may wish to put to this Bill in Stage 2 and Stage 3, will always have, at the back of their minds, that in Stage 4, it'll require 40 Members to support it and not just a simple majority. I'd actually forgotten that you were the Chair of the constitutional committee during the fourth Assembly, David—forgive me for that. But the provisions on disqualification are as that committee outlined to us, and very much so in light of the difficult experience of 2011. So, we are now following the Wales Act 2017, giving us the powers to enable us to put into legislation the recommendations from that committee.
Public engagement, of course, can be improved without the need for legislation, and we always need to improve on that work. But as you say, there is an interesting discussion that we need to have here about a more participatory way of looking at politics in Wales that may not require legislation, and we need to look to interesting models that we can trial without legislation to see what is possible for us to improve our relationship and the understanding that the people of Wales have of what we do here and their input into what we do on their behalf.