Chapter 6: Democratic Engagement—improving connectivity
A new culture
263.Active citizens are crucial for the health of our democracy, yet there are a number of barriers which prevent citizens from being democratically engaged. In this chapter we look at how this can be addressed by changes in voter registration, how Government communicates with the public, and how the public are included in decision making processes.
264. Citizens should be taking an active part not only in the process of selecting who governs them but also in the continuing conversation on how they should be governed. There are many positive effects of this sort of democratic engagement, as explained by Dr Rod Dacombe:
“Civic engagement has clear benefits for government. Where citizens are engaged with public decision-making the actions of government reflect a greater plurality of views resulting in better-designed and more efficient public services. Similarly, citizens involved in this kind of activity tend to have more confidence in the workings of public agencies and feel a sense of confidence that government officials are working for them.
There are also benefits that can be accrued by the individuals involved. Civic engagement has been associated with better employment prospects, educational attainment and health outcomes. It also has an educative function, and through involvement in civic life, individuals learn a wide range of skills which allow them to better engage with other areas of public life. In short, civic engagement makes better citizens.
Beyond this, there are also wider social gains that can be made based on increasing the reserves of social capital in society that result from a more engaged populace. Civic engagement is associated with greater levels of tolerance, better knowledge of public affairs, and higher levels of trust and reciprocity across society. In all, the overwhelming weight of evidence points to a series of benefits associated with civic participation which are felt in numerous areas of social and political life.”229
265.However the current state of democratic engagement in the UK is not as strong as it could be. From 1922 to 1997 turnout at UK general elections remained above 71%. In 2001 it fell to only 59.4%. Since that point turnout has been slowly rising and reached 68.8% in 2017.230 The EU average is 66.1%, with the UK coming 11th out of 28 EU states.231 We must not be complacent as we begin to return to former voting levels in national elections. Turnout in 2016 local elections ranged from 33.3% for unitary councils to 34.6% for district councils.232 Only 16% of people feel that they have influence over decision-making nationally, and only 32% believe that if people like themselves get involved in politics then they can change the way the country is run. This is only slightly better at the local level where 23% of the public feel they have influence over decision-making.233
Figure 4: Turnout at a General Election 1918–2017
Source: House of Commons Library, Turnout at Elections, Briefing Paper, CBP 8060, July 2017
266.This goes beyond just low levels of voting, as Dr Henry Tam told the Committee:
“In terms of civic engagement as in democratic participation, the UK is lagging behind other European countries, judging by voting patterns and other participatory processes. From my discussions with colleagues working in local and central government, the trend reflects that; there is not sufficient democratic participation. There may be protest and activist actions, but in terms of engaging and interacting with local authorities, central government bodies and political institutions, and understanding how you can shape what they do, their policy priorities and the role you can play, the level of democratic engagement is very low.”234
267.This is a particular a problem for some groups. Young people and people from lower social classes are less likely to be interested in politics, and report knowing less about politics than other groups.235 However, as the Convenors of the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Young People’s Politics told the Committee: “there is no turnout gap between young people of high social grade or in full-time education and the average UK citizen. The problem, more precisely defined, involves the non-participation of young people from deprived backgrounds or of low socio-economic status”.236 There is a need for targeted action in communities that are marginalised and left behind, and this report makes recommendations to tackle that in its chapter on integration. However there is also a need for a wider societal change.
268.Efforts to promote civic engagement have to date too often focused solely on volunteering and not enough on democratic engagement. There is a need for a new culture of democratic engagement. This should not just include more people taking part in elections, but should reach into every part of Government. Citizens should be at the heart of decision-making in their local communities and should be able to have a clear line to Government. Government at all levels should make it as easy as possible for people to become involved.
269.As discussed elsewhere in this report, citizens will have to be properly equipped and enthused to take part. Citizenship education and the NCS should help young citizens understand their place in democracy and the role they can play in improving their communities.
The importance of registering to vote
270.In December 2017, shortly after Ministers gave evidence to us, the Government published its Democratic Engagement Strategy.237 The Strategy rightly states the importance of voting and of registering to vote:
“No democratic expression is more powerful, however, than exercising the right to vote. That is why it is a priority to ensure that we have the most complete and accurate electoral registers possible. The journey to the ballot box may start in a thousand ways but arriving at the polling booth depends upon inclusion on the electoral roll.”238
271.Unfortunately, too many people who desire to vote are failing to register. Alistair Clark, who researched polling workers at the 2015 general election, told us:
“… the biggest problem they experienced was people turning up to vote, but not being on the electoral register for some reason (e.g. having moved house) … 69% of responding polling station workers highlighted this as a problem, with 39% experiencing between 2–5 instances of this, and a further 13% experiencing 6 or more instances on polling day … Polling station staff have no option but to turn away such individuals. This represents a missed opportunity to engage clearly democratically interested people for the future.”239
272.The recent change to Individual Electoral Registration has brought with it some challenges as well as presenting new opportunities. Dr Andrew Mycock, Reader in Politics at the University of Huddersfield, thought that the change had proved a success in developing social values and addressing cases of electoral fraud. However:
“the move to individual voter registration has made what was a simple if flawed process more complex and potentially less democratic. Significant numbers of voters have fallen off the electoral register, particularly young people under the new system. Individual registration penalises people who live mobile lives, such as students and those in private rented accommodation. The issue is not with individual registration per se. Australia has used individual voter registration for some time and it works on the straightforward principle that once registered, voters stay on the register. This is achieved by cross-referencing multiple databases if they move address.”240
273.The importance of using data to improve individual registration has been highlighted by the Electoral Commission as a lesson to learn from the 2017 General Election.241 They are creating a guide for Electoral Registration Officers on how best to use public data to improve electoral registration.
274.However, there is more that the Government could do to improve the accuracy of the electoral register and to better target households who could be missing from the register. Bite the Ballot have highlighted the possibility of the Government using commercial data sets in order to make voter registration more efficient. They had attempted to facilitate an agreement to share data between the Electoral Commission and Experian, the consumer credit company. Experian stand to gain from improved electoral roll data which they use to identify UK consumers. The Experian data could have allowed the Government to know where individuals live who probably are not registered to vote, and so to target their efforts much more efficiently. However, due to complications in data protection law there has yet to be an agreement.242 The Government’s democratic engagement strategy highlights using data sharing as a possible way to improve registration. It raises the possibility of using water company data, as landlords must inform water companies of a change of tenant. The strategy announces that they are conducting two scoping projects looking at Electoral Registration Officers’ access to external and council data.243 This is a positive development that we would hope to see continued and expanded upon.
275.We encourage the Government to continue exploring ways of making voter registration activities more efficient by harnessing existing commercial data sets.
276.It can be argued that the Government should move further in sharing data and create a national electoral register. This could make for a more accurate register, since it would reduce the likelihood of accidental or fraudulent double registration and increase the efficiency of voter registration. However there are equally concerns that creating a national database would infringe the privacy of individuals, and damage the principle of having local electoral registration officers. Resolving these disagreements is a large issue in its own right and beyond the scope of our Committee.
Identity and registering to vote
277.Whilst Individual Electoral Registration has allowed individuals to register to vote online, this process is not as easy as it could be. Operation Black Vote told us of their attempts to travel across the country registering voters; they found that the biggest barrier to the registration of voters was the need to have one’s national insurance number.244 The Minister defended the current position on the basis that the Government wished to ensure that the process was secure, and that in exceptional circumstances it was possible to register to vote using other Government ID.245 However, crucially it is not possible to register to vote online in a single sitting without one’s national insurance number. As most people do not know their national insurance number or carry it around with them day to day, this dramatically undermines the ability of organisations to offer on the spot voter registration.
278.Passports and driving licences are documents which the Government plainly believes are as secure as national insurance numbers—in the case of passports, perhaps more secure. We do not understand the insistence on the use of national insurance numbers. It seems to us that it should be permissible to register to vote using a passport, driving licence or national insurance number, whether online or offline. The current requirement seems to us to discourage voter registration without in any way enhancing security.
279.The Government should allow people to register to vote without a national insurance number on the basis of other recognised Government ID (passport, driving licence, etc).
A role for universities, colleges and schools
280.The Electoral Commission told us that young people are less likely to be registered than other groups and that this is one of the main drivers of lower registration overall.246 There is a need for targeted action on increasing electoral registration amongst young people. The University of Sheffield told us about their recent successful efforts to integrate voter registration with registering at the University. They offer students a simple tick box to register, and under a contract with the local Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) are able to reuse data they already hold on the student to complete the registration process.247 For the University of Sheffield this sits within their wider vision of themselves as a civic university with an obligation to create active citizens. This vision should be applauded.
281.During the passage of the Bill for the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 creating the Office for Students (OfS), an amendment was introduced in this House imposing on the OfS an obligation to require every university to give students an opportunity to opt in to registration.248 This was not accepted by the Government, and the House of Commons substituted an amendment (now section 13(1) of the Act) giving the OfS discretion as to which steps it “considers appropriate” to require universities to take.249 It is anticipated that these steps will require universities to copy the Sheffield model. We very much welcome the guidance issued in February 2018 by the Department for Education to the OfS explaining that they expect the OfS to encourage higher education providers to promote electoral registration among students.250 However, for those who do not attend university there remains a lack of targeted action to make sure that they are included on the electoral register.
282.There are a number of opposing views on the role of assisted or automatic registration. Bite the Ballot noted that there is a good opportunity for the Government to trial automatic voter registration with people who are just turning 16 and being given their NI number (which was allocated at birth) for the first time.251 In their joint submission 11 youth organisations252 also supported automatically registering young people at the point at which they receive their NI number as a way to encourage young people to get involved.253
283.The Sheffield model could be a way forward for schools and Further Education (FE) colleges. If schools were to help young people with the registration process, then the decision whether or not to register would still rest with the individual concerned, but it would be easier to register. This would require schools and FE colleges to be able to contract with local EROs and verify the details of students in the same way that universities can at the moment. The Government’s position is that every individual should have responsibility for registering to vote, and the Minister told the Committee that automatically registering young people would undermine this principle.254 We agree that the responsibility is ultimately the individual’s, but assistance with the registration process would not unduly undermine this. It is also important to ensure that individuals undertaking apprenticeships are not left out of this process. In the case of an apprenticeship the body responsible for the provision of education should also be responsible for assisting with electoral registration.
284.The Government should pilot assisted registration at a number of schools and Further Education colleges across the country.
285.If the pilot is successful, the Government should consider making Regulations to impose on schools, Further Education colleges and apprenticeship providers a duty to assist Electoral Registration Officers when required to do so.
Engaging with Government (at any level) and Parliament
286.Whilst voting is an important part of the democratic process it is far from being the only part. The Democratic Engagement Strategy makes this point:
“Democratic engagement can take many forms: watching local council debates or attending MPs’ surgeries; joining a mass protest or writing a letter to a newspaper; canvassing for a political party or sharing views on social media. Whether collective or individual, large or small, regular or intermittent, these assertions of interest in the decisions that shape our world underpin a vibrant and healthy democracy.”255
287.However, these few sentences represent the only attempt within the Strategy to address any form of democratic engagement other than voting. This represents a shocking omission. A well-functioning democratic society requires more than individuals turning up to vote every few years. An active citizenry should be involved in constant dialogue with all levels of government, discussing the quality of government they receive and how it can be improved. Elections are just one part of the way that citizens engage with those who govern them, and this process of engagement is in need of improvement.
How Government listens
288.At a basic level, democratic engagement is about engaging with Government, and for too many that is not a positive experience. In Clacton-on-Sea, the Committee heard that people found it difficult to engage with Government; those who had done so felt discouraged from attempting to do so again. Many of those who attended and had experience of engaging with Government were either councillors themselves or had friends or relatives who had served on the council. It was also clear that their disaffection with politics and government at all levels was on the basis of experience rather than a presumption of ill will or incompetence. They felt that any time they talked to government authorities or officials they could not get a proper response to their questions. There was a strong perception that what they were writing was not being read because they received what felt like stock responses. They reported feeling a lack of respect for them as individuals, and that there was a lack of basic customer service. This was the case when they were writing to Government both about specific matters like sorting out a partner’s immigration status and also when trying to find out Government policy on a specific subject like the age limits on apprenticeships. On policy they were not given satisfactory answers as to why a policy existed or how it could be changed.
289.This is not an acceptable basis for Government to communicate with its citizens. A key foundation for democratic engagement is that citizens feel their concerns are listened to and that Government is responding to them. Democratic engagement is a two way process. There are many things Government could consider to improve communication, from changing the way staff at every level respond to emails to ensuring that automated phone lines tell people approximately how long their waiting time may be.
290.The Government should review its guidance for Government departments communicating with members of the public to encourage more personalised communication that directly responds to people’s concerns. It should include telling people who they can talk to if they disagree with the response, and who would be responsible for changing policy.
291.There were similar complaints about engaging with MPs. In their case too people we spoke to in Clacton-on-Sea expressed a general concern that not just Government but all politicians were not listening to them or people like them. People felt that they often received copy and pasted, standard responses to personal correspondence. They knew that the local MP was short-staffed and expressed sympathy with their workload. They were also aware of and expressed disdain for form letters and emails that were sent to MPs by campaign groups and did not feel that these needed replying to. However, they felt that there should be more support to ensure constituents who wrote personalised letters received personalised responses to their questions. They also expressed a strong desire for MPs to be honest with them and to tell them when the MP disagreed with them, and the reasons for the disagreement. It was felt that responses were mostly “spin” and not about dealing with the issues that were raised in the original correspondence.
292.We agree with those witnesses who stressed the importance of Members of Parliament offering personalised replies to personal letters addressed to them, explaining honestly when they disagreed with the member of the public, and giving their reasons for doing so.
293.The complexity of multi-tiered government also represents a major barrier to a thriving culture of democratic engagement. At an event we organised to hear the voices of young people, we heard that overly complicated structures discourage young people from engaging. The young people told the Committee that they and other young people were interested in improving their communities, but that they were motivated by issues and not by structures. They found it difficult to engage with some levels of government. Some of the young people were highly engaged in politics and yet had never seen a parish council, and were unable to go to meetings as they took place on Friday afternoons. They also raised the issue that many young people do not know about their local government structures, and whether they have a two tier or unitary local authority. Young people’s lack of interest in process and structures was also supported by Dr Roman Gerodimos from Bournemouth University:
“… citizenship and civic engagement have to be oriented towards solving actual problems and addressing real people’s needs—and to be seen to be doing that. Creating generic process-oriented participation opportunities is unlikely to succeed; research has shown that young people are less likely to engage with process-driven outlets, than issue-driven ones.”256
294.The same problem was raised by Lord Phillips of Sudbury who told the Committee that people are not able to understand the multiple tiers of government that apply to them:
“I was in a class of randomly selected 15 and 16 year-olds on Monday at the same school that I went into in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I just wanted to try them out, so to speak. It was as clear as clear can be that there is a detachment of young people from, if I can put it, the establishment. If I take my home town of Sudbury, we are now subject to five tiers of government. I left questionnaires for these kids and they filled them in and sent them back. They do not understand anything about three of those tiers. They understand a bit about the local council and a bit about Westminster, but they do not know how the parish or town council interacts with the district council, county councils, Westminster or Strasbourg. Most of them do not have the vaguest idea.” 257
295.We heard the same issues of complexity preventing engagement in Clacton-on-Sea. People complained about there being so many different Government departments who they felt always told them that it was someone else’s responsibility to deal with their problem. They suggested that people living in the area had a lack of awareness about how the community is run. One complaint was that a council “one-stop-shop” which had been helpful at resolving issues had been closed due to a lack of funding. This was compounded by what they saw as the diminishing ability of the local Citizens Advice Bureau to help them with their problems. They stated that it was no longer possible to speak to a person who could help. There was a strongly expressed desire for the ability to speak to someone who was an expert and could help them with their problem. When they were asked to rank all the policy suggestions to increase civic engagement, they placed first the idea of a single place where they could talk to someone who could give them answers from all Government departments and all tiers of local government.
296.These problems can fall hardest on those with least. Universal Credit claimants who are being charged for tax credit debt are unclear whether their problem can be resolved by HMRC or DWP, and contacting the Government does not resolve this. In one case contacting the DWP universal credit line led to them being told to call the DWP debt management department, which in turn led to them being told to call HMRC, which itself failed to answer the question.258 It is understandable that some matters fall across Government departments; however it is not acceptable that the responsibility for negotiating this complexity falls on the citizen affected.
297.The young people, Lord Phillips of Sudbury and those at Clacton-on-Sea all raised citizenship education as a potential solution to some of the difficulties of engaging with Government. As discussed in chapter 3, improved citizenship education has an important role in enabling citizens to engage with their Government. However, the Government itself has a role to play in making it easier to engage with. Central Government has simplified its online identity with the single GOV.UK website, but that unity of approach does not exist once a person contacts a Government department. Although GOV.UK does in many places link to the relevant areas of devolved or local government websites, more could be done to simplify citizen’s interactions with any layer of Government. GOV.UK also does not provide information on how policy can be changed. The Government only appears to seek opinions at pre-determined times through consultations when options have already been agreed upon.
298.The Government should co-ordinate with the devolved administrations and local government to create a “no wrong door” approach to the state. A citizen should not need to know who a service is provided by in order to be put in contact with the provider.
299.The Government should co-ordinate with the devolved administrations and local government to create a “no wrong door” approach for those who seek to change policy. If a member of the public seeks to change a policy they should be told who the decision maker is.
300.The Government should investigate the feasibility of creating single points of contact in communities where people can get answers to questions that may fall across several departments, or between central and local government, or between them and other major service providers like the National Health Service.
How the Government talks to you
301.Democratic engagement is also undermined on a practical level by citizens being inadequately informed of important developments. Democracy Club, an organisation that provides civic technology, told us that requirements for local authorities to give notice needed to be updated for the digital age:
“Democracy Club advocates some small legal changes that would improve civic education and engagement. One would be to update the requirements of ‘giving notice’, as in ‘the local authority shall give notice … ‘ to fit with a digital age. Today, this notice should be given in open, machine- and human-readable formats, which can help power digital services to boost engagement. When data on democratic engagement is available in an open digital format, not only by the posting of a sheet of A4 paper on a board outside a council office, Britain will be making progress.”259
302.This concern was not conveyed to the Committee only by people working in civic technology. In Clacton-on-Sea we heard that local government needed to improve the way it communicated, and needed to use more digital methods like social media websites. Those present complained of the poor way in which important changes were communicated to local people. They described long leaflets that they received through the post which would go straight into the rubbish bin. Local authorities may be following the direct letter of the law on how they should inform the public of changes, but they are not following the spirit of the law that requires the public to be informed. This is partly a case where local authorities are overwhelming the public with overly long consultations and other documents which can put people off. This is an area where less can be more.
303.Beyond the specific need to inform the public about new developments
there should be a broader expectation of transparency. Civil society organisations like Democracy Club and mySociety can provide civic technology which can allow citizens to engage in new and better ways. Fixmystreet.com allows residents to report local problems to their local authority. WhereDoIVote.co.uk can help citizens know where their polling station is. However, in order for civic technology to succeed, Government must be open to it. Democracy Club highlighted to the Committee that their polling station finder service and other civic engagement services were less effective because the Government does not publish the necessary open address data.260 If different layers of Government commit to making sure that they are open with their data and use machine readable formats, then civic technology groups can harvest this data to boost democratic engagement for all.
304.Local Authorities should improve the way they notify the public, using open and machine readable formats. They should also investigate using digital methods like email newsletters and social media to ensure that the public are aware of changes.
305.The Government should ensure that across all levels of Government data for democratic engagement is available in an open digital format.
How citizens and Government collaborate
306.Government at all levels can also help boost democratic engagement by bringing citizens into the process of deciding and creating government activity. Local authorities are best placed to do this as they have a closer connection to a specific community. There are many different ways in which they can engage with the public. The Local Government Association has created a helpful guidebook for local authorities to help determine how and when to engage with citizens.261 This can range from information giving (where the local authority cannot give citizens an opportunity to change a service) through to co-production (where citizens help run the service with the local authority). The broad principle should be that where the local authority itself has more leeway to act it should bring in the public earlier at a more basic stage. Where they are unconstrained the local authority should seek to outline the problem to the public and let them help to come up with solutions. If the number of options is more limited, then the local authority should bring people in to help choose between the limited options. The tools local authorities can use reflect this spectrum of opportunities. They include citizens juries, where a small number of representative citizens are randomly selected to help decide on specific policy issues, and citizens’ summits, where large numbers are brought together to address a broad topic (these are examples of mini-publics detailed in Box 2).
Box 2: Example of engagement and consultation
|
Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar suggest mini-publics as a way of involving citizens: “Mini-publics are made up of randomly selected citizens, for instance, chosen by lot from the electoral roll or a similar source that may function as a proxy for the relevant population. The principle here is that everyone affected by the topic in question has an equal chance of being selected, and this underpins the legitimacy of the process … Participants are remunerated, the discussions are facilitated, and experts provide evidence and advocacy of relevant information and positions and are then cross-examined by the lay citizens. They are usually issue specific, and dissolved as soon as the issue has been deliberated on.” “Many citizens lack the inclination to participate. However, because mini-publics use random selection and invite specific citizens they are more likely to participate. If they decline the invite they are replaced by someone with similar demographics … when opportunities to participate beyond the ballot box are extended to citizens, specific interests mobilise their support and capture these processes, meaning they are not representative of the whole public. Random sampling means mini-publics tend to include non-partisan participants and the possibility of capture by special interests is reduced significantly.”262 |
307.There has also been work on best practice by previous Governments to ensure democratic engagement in decisions, as Dr Henry Tam told us:
“… one of the best examples of a sustained and high impact support programme is provided by ‘Together We Can’, the programme for civil renewal and community empowerment implemented by the UK government in partnership with local authorities and community organisations across England from 2003 to 2010. The programme involved coordinating the activities of 12 government departments to provide support to national, regional, and local groups to experiment, learn, share, and promote practices that help more citizens engage in the democratic development of policies that affect them, especially in areas where trust and participation in the activities of government bodies were at the outset low.”263
308.The crucial fact is that this extensive literature exists and there is not a need for new innovative approaches. Instead a focus is needed on using established methods, as highlighted by Dr Tam. He told us that Governments keep saying that they want to be innovative and try something new. That is not necessarily what is needed: “We have well-tried and tested practices, up to here; if there was funding support for even a tenth of these, democratic engagement would improve immeasurably.”264 There is a clear lack of collective memory within local and national government and a need for using what is already known to work rather than reinventing the wheel.
309.Dr Tam also stressed that the work is “very highly skilled and often underrated”.265 When an inexperienced and untrained person is running a consultation process it can have a negative effect, creating anger and damaging the prospects for future collaboration. For consultation to be effective it must be well resourced.
310.The work of including citizens in decisions in their communities is especially important in the poorest areas but it must be done properly, as the Church Urban Fund told the Committee:
“In the more deprived communities within which much of our work is focused, many people are accustomed to being ‘done to’, rather than being trusted to work together with professionals, politicians and others to contribute their own knowledge and experience to finding solutions, whether to personal issues, local decision-making, or national government policy. The trend towards co-production arguably has the potential to shift this balance of power in relation to service provision (if adequately resourced), but to foster the same effect in relation to public policy, people in local communities will need to see very tangible evidence of deep listening and responses to what they have to contribute.”266
311.There are established frameworks for local authorities to use and all that is needed is the investment to carry them out. By sticking to what is known to work they can ensure that they get more bang for their buck.
312.The Government should ensure that local authorities, health bodies and other public agencies bring the public, especially marginalised groups, into decision-making as early as possible, invest in high quality consultation processes, provide proper feedback to local communities and use the many evidence-based community engagement initiatives.
313.Parliament is currently considering major renovation work to the Palace of Westminster. The Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster considered whether this could be an opportunity to increase engagement with Parliament. Experts agree that this represents an opportunity to improve engagement. Penny Young, Librarian and Director General of Information Services in the House of Commons and Chair of the Parliamentary Visitors Group, told the Joint Committee that Restoration and Renewal work would provide “an opportunity to communicate what Parliament is about.”267 Professor Matthew Flinders, this Committee’s specialist adviser, and Dr Leann-Marie McCarthy-Cotter, told the Joint Committee that the work could be a “vibrant and positive opportunity for democratic renewal.”268
314.We agree with the evidence given to the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster that the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace should be used as an opportunity to make Parliament more easily accessible, and to improve education about its activities.
315.The Delivery Authority that will oversee the Restoration and Renewal process should incorporate outreach and creative forms of engagement in its work on the Palace of Westminster.
Support for disabled citizens
316.People with physical disabilities are more likely to be registered than those with no such disabilities, but they have problems with actually casting their votes, as Fazilet Hadi explained:
“When people go out to vote for local or central government, most people take it absolutely as their God-given right to do that, but it does not feel like that if you are blind or partially sighted; it is not an accessible process, the materials do not come to you in an accessible form. If you want to do a postal vote, you do not necessarily get things in Braille or large print and, if you want go to a polling station, the template does not quite work and the staff have not been trained.”269
317.Disabled citizens face other barriers in taking part in the democratic process. Philip Connolly, the Policy and Development Manager at Disability Rights UK told us:
“There are lots of ways in which the political parties operate which produce, in a sense, and perhaps it is an unconscious bias, more a monoculture and do not reflect their community. There are very few disabled MPs who are knowingly disabled. There is an issue about how Parliament looks to disabled people, whether they feel it reflects them and how they are supported to stand for office. The fund [to support disabled people to seek public office] … was abolished about two or three years ago. It is a great shame that there is no support, with reasonable adjustments, to stand for public office.”270
318.The Government should restore the Access to Elected Office Fund which gave grants of between £250 and £40,000 to disabled candidates seeking election to elected office.
Votes at 16
319.The issue of the voting age has become increasingly relevant now that 16 year olds in Scotland have been granted the right to vote in devolved elections, and the Welsh Government has announced plans to lower the voting age for council elections.271 However, the issue has divided our witnesses. There is no consensus on whether the age should be lowered to 16 or whether it should remain at 18. Proponents of the change listed being able to marry and become a member of the armed forces as a reason for considering that 16 year olds are sufficiently responsible to vote. However this raises questions of whether it is right for people to be trusted as responsible enough to vote whilst not being responsible enough to “buy a beer or cigarettes or even drive to their friends or buy a firework”, as Professor Jon Tonge, Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, pointed out.272 As we heard from Dr Andrew Mycock, the voting age going in one direction and other rights going in the other is a “very confusing message”.273 This line of reasoning points toward a comprehensive review of the rights and reasoning behind these decisions. Dr Mycock and Professor Tonge are currently undertaking a research project on these matters which should help inform future debate on this issue.274
320.A further question raised was over the extent to which there was democratic backing for the change. Professor Tonge told the Committee that young people were almost equally split amongst themselves on the topic and that a majority of those over 18 were against, although he indicated that the existing data on this is quite out of date.275 Michael Sani of Bite the Ballot suggested that it was not our place to recommend lowering the voting age, but that any such proposal should come from the young people themselves. He thought that young people should campaign for it in the “same way that the vote was given to the suffragettes and everyone else where people actively campaigned for it.” According to him, this would also be good for the young people and it would empower them to achieve more change in the future.276
321.The counter argument we heard was from young people themselves. In our meeting where we listened to the voices of young people they highlighted the lack of votes at 16 as a sore point. They pointed out that the Make Your Mark campaign coordinated by the UK Youth Parliament included the votes of over 950,000 young people who had voted to make votes at 16 one of their core campaigns. However, an analysis of the young people’s votes shows that it received 101,041 votes and came 5th out of 10 topics.277 This suggests that young people care more about other topics than about votes at 16. The topic that received the most votes was “A curriculum to prepare us for life” which supports a radical overhaul of citizenship education.278
322.Citizenship education is a crucial piece of the puzzle for thinking about the age at which people can vote. Professor Tonge used the analogy of driving a car: “You would not let people go out on the road and drive a car without giving them some lessons first, yet we expect them—particularly if we lower the voting age to 16—to go out and vote without giving them any training in what our political systems are about. It seems perverse.”279 The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that if the UK should choose to lower its voting age it should ensure it is supported by “active citizenship and human rights education”.280
323.Even if the intent was there for better citizenship education to follow lowering the voting age, historical precedent suggests this may not happen for some time, as Dr Mycock explained:
“If we go back to 1969, there were promises after the point of lowering the voting age to 18 that we would bring in some form of political or civic education and, lo and behold, we did—in 2002. If we are going to think about lowering the voting age now, it needs to be taken seriously because there is a need to support young people to ensure that they feel confident about going to the ballot box.”281
324.Our main concern is that our recommendations on citizenship education are accepted and implemented. When this has happened will be the right time to consider lowering the voting age to 16.
230 There is some concern that all of these measures of turnout are underestimating levels of turnout in the UK: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3098436&download=yes However, the adjusted estimates in this paper present a similar picture of the UK’s turnout levels over time although at an overall higher point. This would still indicate lower turnout than pre-2001 levels. International comparisons are difficult as the same effect will mean that turnout may be underestimated in other countries.
232 Ibid.
233 Hansard Society, Audit of Political Engagement 14 (April 2017): https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/projects/research/audit-of-political-engagement [accessed 12 March 2018]
235 Hansard Society, Audit of Political Engagement 14 (April 2017): https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/projects/research/audit-of-political-engagement [accessed 12 March 2018]
236 Written evidence from Convenors of the UK Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Young People’s Politics (CCE0087)
237 HM Government, Every Voice Matters: Building A Democracy That Works For Everyone (December 2017): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669130/democratic_engagement_strategy_2017.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
238 Ibid.
241 The Electoral Commission, Electoral registration at the June 2017 UK general election (July 2017): https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/232761/Electoral-registration-report-July-2017.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
243 HM Government, Every Voice Matters: Building A Democracy That Works For Everyone (December 2017): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669130/democratic_engagement_strategy_2017.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
247 We heard about this on our visit to Sheffield detailed in Appendix 7.
248 Following the amendment, clause 16 (3) read: “The list of principles [adopted and published by the OfS] must include a requirement that every provider—(a) provides all eligible students with the opportunity to opt in to be added to the electoral register through the process of enrolling with that provider, and (b) enters into a data sharing agreement with the local electoral registration officer to add eligible students to the electoral register.”
249 Section 13(1) of the Act provides that the registration conditions of a higher education institution may include “(f) a condition requiring the governing body of the provider to take such steps as the OfS considers appropriate for facilitating cooperation between the provider and one or more electoral registration officers in England for the purpose of enabling the electoral registration of students who are on higher education courses provided by the provider.”.
250 Department for Education, Facilitating Electoral Registration (February 2018): https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/1019/facilitating-electoral-registration-guidance.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
252 See paragraph 168, footnote 158.
255 HM Government, Every Voice Matters: Building A Democracy That Works For Everyone (December 2017): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669130/democratic_engagement_strategy_2017.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
258 ‘Tax credit debt: The Universal Credit problem nobody is talking about’, Politics.co.uk (9 January 2018): http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2018/01/09/tax-credit-debt-the-universal-credit-problem-nobody-is-talki [accessed 12 March 2018]
261 Local Government Association, New Conversations: LGA guide to engagement (February 2017): https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/New%20Conversations%20Guide%2012.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
267 Oral evidence taken before the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, 29 February 2016 (Session 2015–16), Q 54 (Penny Young)
268 Written evidence from Professor Matthew Flinders and Dr Leanne-Marie McCarthy-Cotter to the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster (RAR0006)
271 ‘Votes at 16: Wales voting reforms see voting age lowered’, BBC (January 2018): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-42848685 [accessed 12 March 2018]
274 University of Huddersfield, ‘£119k grant to evaluate whether 16-year-olrds should get the vote’: https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2017/december/119kgranttoevaluatewhether16-year-oldsshouldgetthevote/ [accessed 12 March 2018]
277 UK Youth Parliament, Make Your Mark 2017: Result Report (November 2017) http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017-Make-Your-Mark-Results-Report-v2.pdf [accessed 12 March 2018]
278 UK Youth Parliament, ‘England Campaign: Curriculum for Life’: http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/campaign/curriculum-life/ [accessed 12 March 2018]
280 United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (July 2016): http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CRC%2fC%2fGBR%2fCO%2f5&Lang=en [accessed 12 March 2018]