Voting (16 and 17-year-olds)
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government on devolving the power to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in Scottish parliamentary elections. (S4T-00877)
That issue was discussed when the Prime Minister and the First Minister met yesterday. The Prime Minister gave a commitment that the necessary transfer of powers will be undertaken in time to allow the Scottish Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for the 2016 elections. Both Governments are now working to develop a section 30 order that will require to be agreed by the UK Parliament by March 2015 in order to fulfil that commitment and deliver that power as swiftly as possible.
I thank the Deputy First Minister for his answer, which I am sure will be welcomed by members on all sides of the chamber.
The 2014 referendum was exceptional in terms of public engagement and interest. Young people were at the core of that civic engagement, culminating in the fantastic event at the Hydro, which my own son attended. What measures will the Scottish Government take to ensure that young people are as informed and engaged in the 2016 election as they were in the referendum campaign?
The events to which Clare Adamson refers—the debate in the Hydro that involved many thousands of 16 and 17-year-old voters, which was viewed objectively to have been one of the best and most effective debates of the entire referendum campaign, and the enormous participation by 16 and 17-year-olds in voting in the referendum—give us great confidence in the future of Scotland and in the democratic participation of young people in our country.
As a consequence of the consultation exercise on encouraging civic participation in the run-up to the referendum, the Government took steps to support increased political literacy among young people through the education system and to explore ways in which young people can participate in our wider democratic politics. In the programme for government that we published in November, we set out our commitment to learn lessons from the referendum to inform our future planning for the election campaign, and that is exactly what the Government will do. We want to ensure that, once we have the necessary legislation in place, young people will be able to participate in the 2016 election. That will happen only if we have sufficient time to legislate accordingly, and for that to happen we need a section 30 order agreed by March next year.
That is a welcome step forward, and it now seems to be agreed that it is right for 16 and 17-year-olds to have the vote. It is now incumbent on Westminster to move towards votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in European and Westminster elections.
There is no reason why that should not be the case. Many young people who participated in the referendum in September will be somewhat disappointed that they cannot participate in the Westminster election that will take place in May. The case for extending the voting franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds to all elections is unanswerable, and I encourage the UK Government to accede to that suggestion.
I welcome the UK Government’s commitment and the Deputy First Minister’s comments. Can he tell us what planning the electoral registration officers could do now, in advance of the section 30 order, to ensure that we maximise the registration of 16 and 17-year-olds? I am conscious that that takes quite a bit of time.
I extend a warm welcome to Jackie Baillie in her role of shadowing me in the Parliament in the period ahead. I look forward to working with her as co-operatively as I have always worked with my counterparts in other parties, and I look forward to her contribution.
The question is timely, given that the Electoral Commission has today published its assessment of the operation of the Scottish referendum. The headline of the Electoral Commission’s news release announcing its report is “Scottish referendum well run and provides lessons for future referendums in the UK”. We can take a lot of confidence from the arrangements that were put in place for the operation of the referendum. Ninety-seven per cent of the adult population who were registered to vote did so, and in many circumstances—as we all know around the country—the Electoral Commission had to go the extra mile to ensure that the demand among those who wanted to register could be satisfied, right up to the last moments of the registration window.
We will work closely with electoral registration officers around the country in taking forward the legislation to ensure that we have all the resources and steps in place to enable everyone who wants to register for the 2016 elections—particularly 16 and 17-year-olds—to do so. The key point for us is the necessity to have adequate time to legislate to do that properly, and for that to happen the issue needs to clear the UK Parliament by March 2015. We will work with the UK Government to enable that to happen.
The agreement by all five parties on the Smith commission to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote in Scottish Parliament elections was a very welcome and constructive development, and I am glad that the First Minister found her recent meeting with the Prime Minister in that respect positive and constructive. How does the Scottish Government propose to maintain and grow that positive relationship with the United Kingdom Government?
As Miss Goldie knows, the Scottish Government is nothing but co-operative with and helpful to the UK Government, and we look forward to that approach being reciprocated by our counterparts in the UK Government.
A lot of good intergovernmental work goes on but, as Miss Goldie will know from her participation in the Smith commission, there are elements of the intergovernmental working system that need to be improved. I hope that the Smith commission’s recommendations in that respect are taken forward effectively, as the early signals on 16 and 17-year-olds give us confidence will be the case, to make sure that some of the problems that were identified by the Smith commission can be addressed appropriately through the joint working of the Scottish and UK Administrations. On behalf of the Scottish Government, I can say to Miss Goldie that we will do everything in our power to ensure that that is achieved.
Further to Clare Adamson’s first supplementary question, is the Scottish Government considering providing material that is aimed specifically at 16 and 17-year-olds in the event that the proposal that they get the vote comes through?
It is important in any election contest that we prepare material that can be used for voter education purposes extremely carefully and in a fashion that meets the highest possible standards for objectivity. That will be the Government’s objective in that respect. From my experience of talking to 16 and 17-year-olds during the referendum process, I was struck by the extent to which it was valued that some of the process of voting was demystified for young people. The more we can do that and the more we can remove barriers to participation in our democratic process, the greater democratic participation will be.
It is pretty clear from the Electoral Commission’s report that the work that was undertaken to prepare properly for the referendum, to inform people about the process and to enable them to participate in it was a significant factor in contributing to the referendum’s success, so the Government will want to learn the lessons from that and apply them to future parliamentary contests.
Private Rented Sector (Average Monthly Rent)
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent HomeLet report, which indicated that the average monthly rent in Scotland has risen by nearly 12 per cent in the last year. (S4T-00878)
I congratulate Mary Fee on her new position in the shadow cabinet.
HomeLet reported that the average monthly rent was 11.7 per cent higher in November 2014 than it was in November 2013. Previous HomeLet reports—which are published every month—show wide variations. For example, HomeLet reported an annual increase of 2.6 per cent in October 2014 compared with October 2013 and a decrease of 0.2 per cent in September 2014 compared with September 2013. Therefore, although HomeLet reports a rise of almost 12 per cent in Scotland for November 2014, I would be cautious about how much can be read into one month’s findings.
The recently published Scottish Government statistics show that, since 2010, 16 of the 18 broad rental market areas in Scotland have seen below-inflation changes in average rents for two-bedroom properties, which is the most common size of property in the private rented sector. The Scottish Government is carefully monitoring rental levels, and we are already exploring issues relating to rent levels as part of our consultation on the new private tenancy.
As the minister is well aware, statistics from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that a quarter of Scotland’s poorest households are in the private rented sector compared with one in 10 a decade ago, and around 23 per cent of household income is spent on housing costs. Why did the minister not support Scottish Labour’s cap on rent rises earlier this year? Will she look again at the issue and reconsider?
As I have explained to the chamber several times, rent was not part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill when it was introduced. It did not come up in the consultation and, with the exception of Patrick Harvie and the Green Party, members did not raise it with me when I offered to meet members of all parties, including Mary Fee as shadow housing spokesperson.
When the bill was introduced, I said that we would look at private sector tenancy and that we would consult stakeholders and other political parties. I know that the Labour Party has already submitted a response to the consultation. We believe that the right way to deal with something that will have such a significant impact as rents is to have as wide a consultation as possible. We are looking at that. The consultation runs until 28 December and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on it at this stage.
There has been a huge increase in the private rented sector, partly due to the lack of social housing and partly due to the lack of affordable housing. There is a huge disparity in the cost of private sector renting across the country, but in Aberdeen and the centre of Edinburgh it is many hundreds of pounds.
Although I have a degree of sympathy with the idea of the market setting the rent and of there being a kind of equalised rent in an area, many thousands of people say that they cannot afford to pay their rent this month and they fear that they will not be able to pay their rent in six months’ time. We need action on the matter now; we do not need to wait until the end of a consultation. We need the minister to step up and take action now.
We are also addressing the issue in terms of supply. We are increasing the supply of affordable housing, because that is the best way to reduce private sector rents. We are well aware that there are hotspot areas such as Aberdeen, which Mary Fee mentioned. We are looking at ways of working with the local authority and housing associations to ensure that we can provide houses there for key workers who are struggling.
We believe that we are doing it the right way. It is about consultation, as we need to get that evidence. Before we take action, we need to look at the evidence in the report that Mary Fee referred to and other reports on rent levels to see exactly what the impact is of rent levels across Scotland. That is precisely why we are consulting. If action is required, we certainly will take it.
Both Mary Fee and the minister have recognised that the situation with rent levels is not the same in all parts of the country. Does that variation not reinforce the argument that a different policy response on rent levels would be appropriate in different parts of the country? There may well be places where the market, without any kind of intervention, is ticking along nicely and satisfactorily and other areas where the market is deeply damaging to people’s economic wellbeing, which has a knock-on effect on their health. Surely we should be going in the direction of a rental policy that recognises regional variations.
I say again that that is precisely why we are consulting. The evidence is now showing that increases are much greater in some parts of the country than in others. That is part of what we are consulting on. What Patrick Harvie is suggesting may well be the outcome, but until we have all the evidence and all the consultation responses, I would not want to take a firm position on it.
Does the minister agree that the private rented sector provides a vital contribution to the housing of many people across Scotland? Although members have acknowledged that significant differences exist, does the minister agree that it would be irresponsible for us to prejudge the consultation in such a way as to frighten the private rented sector and stimulate a contraction in that industry at a time when we need it most?
I certainly agree that the private sector is a vital part of our housing system and the Scottish Government is keen to grow it. We have funded the private rented sector champion to do just that.
As I said in response to the previous question, I am not going to pre-empt the consultation responses. I will say only that the consultation is taking place and we will look very closely at its evidence, to see how we will take things forward.
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