Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, February 19, 2015

Official Report 904KB pdf

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Young Voters and School Debates

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-12222, in the name of Patrick Harvie, on young voters and school debates. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament celebrates the many school debates that took place in Glasgow and across Scotland during the independence referendum campaign, allowing young voters to engage with the issues and hear the arguments from campaigners on both sides; welcomes the broad cross-party consensus that has built up for a reduction in the voting age to 16 for Scottish Parliament elections; believes that high quality voter education and participation events in schools have great potential for harnessing young people’s interest in politics and establishing patterns of high voter turnout at an early age; considers that lessons must be learned from the best examples of this work during the referendum to ensure that engaging, creative and politically balanced debates become the norm in schools during future elections; welcomes the work of the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee in examining this area, and notes calls for all relevant parties and agencies to work together to maximise the democratic participation of young people.

12:32  

I am grateful for the chance to bring the motion to the chamber for debate and I am grateful to members who added their names in support of it.

I hope that we have a debate in which members recall with excitement and passion their experiences during the referendum campaign, and the positive atmosphere of engagement and inclusive debate that existed in schools. I hope that we avoid members saying how great it was that their side won in their local school. There are arguments about the way in which we engage with young voters in schools that should unite us all, whichever side of the referendum debate individual members or campaigners in our communities were on.

I think that all of us would share the historical concern about low voter turnout, particularly among young people. That is not just a problem in the short term; it is a problem that compounds itself with each generation, as more and more young people see voting as being not a normal thing to do. That low voter turnout feeds through the generations and becomes an ever more serious problem.

It is important to recognise that not turning out to vote is not the same as apathy. A great many people, including young people, who may not have voted in elections for years are still politically engaged and channel their political interests and energies in different directions. If they started turning out to vote but ended up losing their political interest in other areas, I would not necessarily see that as progress. I want to encourage people to vote as well as to be active and politically engaged citizens in every aspect of their lives.

We have an opportunity to turn around the problem of low voter turnout among young people by seizing the chance for voter participation, citizenship education and political engagement in schools in order to normalise the voting process, so that year after year schools churn out cohorts of young people for whom voting is a normal thing instead of a geek thing to do. The problem has been significant for a very long time.

If we can do that, we will not only ensure that young people see ways and reasons to get involved in politics and have their views expressed in the political sphere; we will also, I hope, turn around that dynamic and see turnout across the board rise year after year, as those young people carry on voting. We know statistically—there is good evidence not just from this country but from around the world—that most people who vote the first time they are entitled to vote keep on voting and engaging with politics, whereas a great many people who do not vote the first time they are entitled to vote are well into their 30s or older before they start voting—if they ever do it at all. It is a long-term dynamic that we need to turn around.

There was broad—albeit not unanimous—support for reducing the voting age to 16 for the referendum, but legitimate concerns were raised about how to ensure that engagement could take place in a neutral and balanced way, how to avoid schools becoming places where campaign activity took place inappropriately and what the boundaries were. Some of those concerns were legitimate even among those who supported reducing the voting age to 16. How well did we deal with those concerns? How well did we do neutral, balanced and inclusive voter education and engagement in schools?

In many places, voter education and engagement in schools was terrific and everything that I would have wished it to be. I took part in many debates, not just in Glasgow but around the country, in which young people had the chance to give campaigners and politicians on both sides a grilling, to put difficult questions to us and to engage themselves in telling us what they thought the priorities should be. They had the chance to debate not just whether they were voting yes or no, but what kind of country they wanted to live in. The sense that their first vote would be cast on a defining question for their society was itself engaging.

Voter education and engagement in schools was terrific in many places, but not everywhere; we must recognise that it was a bit patchy. Some local authorities specifically did not encourage schools to undertake debates and some set down rules about how debates would take place and whether the two campaigns would be allowed to participate. The rules were different in different local authorities. Some places left it entirely up to individual headteachers, so the level of participation and engagement that young people were exposed to varied from school to school. Some had different rules about whether campaign debates were permissible during the so-called purdah period. Different rules were applied in different ways in different parts of the country.

We have the opportunity to learn from the best of what was done during the referendum campaign, in preparation for the next election. There is now broad support for reducing the voting age to 16 for elections as well. It will be more complicated to ensure political balance in a multi-party election, as opposed to a yes or no referendum. There will still be concerns about how to ensure neutrality, balance and inclusivity, and about how to deal with the reality that we are talking about not just citizenship education, but citizens who are already active participants in the political process. There will be concerns about how to deal with the fact that schools have not just a cohort of pupils but a cohort of young voters, some of whom will be campaigners, activists or party members from one part of the political spectrum or another. That is something that we should relish as a positive opportunity rather than a problem. Those concerns should be addressed positively rather than being used as an excuse to close down debate or to close down the opportunities that are in front of us.

We now have broad support for the principle that votes at 16 will be the norm for Scottish Parliament elections in the near future. I hope that that will happen for all elections in our society. Let us take that opportunity and use it to drive up among young people voter turnout and political participation that will stay with them as they grow older. If we learn from the best of what was achieved last year, we will manage that. If the situation remains patchy, we will lose a terrific opportunity. The chance to change the dynamic of our political process does not come around very often. We need to make sure that young people see the political process as something that they have a right and a positive reason to engage in. I hope that members will agree that we can learn from the best of what was achieved during last year’s referendum campaign.

12:40  

I offer my hearty congratulations to Patrick Harvie on giving us the opportunity to discuss this important subject.

He said that he wants a bit of excitement and passion so let me start with some. I was a rather sickly young kid, so I read a lot of books because I was at home a lot of the time. One of the early books I read—the first political book I read—when I was about seven, was a biography of Lloyd George. I found it fascinating because it had excitement and passion. The passion was that his mistress was Frances Stevenson, although at the age of seven, I did not quite understand what that meant. It was certainly something to do with passion and it was interesting. In those days, of course, the press was less interested in the private lives of politicians; Lloyd George conducted an affair with Frances Stevenson that extended over 45 years. He eventually married her after his wife died and just before he died.

The first election that I participated in was in the 1961 East Fife by-election when Sir John Gilmour won the seat for the Tories. I was out campaigning for the Liberals and, as a result, a few months later I joined the Scottish National Party in the Duncan institute in Cupar. There, 25 of us 15, 16 and 17-year-olds joined our first political party.

Getting youngsters engaged is therefore not new. There is a bit of a cycle to it and hopefully we are in an upward cycle that will continue.

Getting involved in public life can happen at a very early age. Mary Queen of Scots was eight days old when she became Queen when James V, her father, died after she was born in Linlithgow palace. I think her engagement with politics at that time would have been pretty minimal.

The motion that is before us contains a lot of interesting things. There is a consensus around votes for 16 and 17-year-olds; an online survey of young people shows that only 8.5 per cent are opposed to it. We can now say without much risk of contradiction that giving our youngsters the vote is pretty much generally the settled will. The survey also showed that there were some special issues to consider around data protection and so on related to registration, because this was the very first time we had registered people of that age. According to the survey, 50 per cent of people got information at schools, so schools played an important part in the campaign by ensuring that people were informed.

There was variation in the engagement of schools and, to some extent, the national campaigns on both sides of the argument had shortcomings. In my constituency I was, and during the campaign remained, and still am friends with people who espoused and campaigned for a different viewpoint. Politics can be conducted in a gentlemanly way, at least in Banffshire and Buchan Coast. Neither side had realised the extent to which we would empower and activate people at the grass roots.

In many places, we found that schools were trying to work with national bodies when the real energy of the campaign was in the plethora of small locally-based bodies. Schools found it difficult to engage. The pattern of politics had changed but the old methods were still being applied. Schools played it safe. If they could not get someone from both sides of the argument, they cancelled debates, which was fairly disappointing.

Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, points to what the Scottish Youth Parliament did through its aye naw mibbe campaign. It is important that young people themselves reach out to other young people. If we look at the survey we find that the overwhelming source of information for young people who voted was their peer group. That should be no surprise to us.

I return to Lloyd George—my great hero. As I approach my 70th birthday, I note that in 1908 he introduced the first national pension, which entitled 70-year olds to 5 shillings a week. Well done, Lloyd George, and well done, the Liberals, for encouraging me to get involved in politics. It is their loss that I chose to join the SNP because of their manifest shortcomings.

12:45  

I congratulate Patrick Harvie on securing the debate on this important subject. It is fair to say that the referendum galvanised Scotland at home, at work, in community centres, in pubs and, of course, in our schools. People in villages, town and cities, whether they were yes or no, definitely had a view, which came over loud and clear. With a turnout of 85 per cent, it was like nothing that I had ever experienced. I do not think that Scotland had experienced that level of turnout before.

Nowhere was the referendum more of a hot topic than in our schools. With votes for 16 and 17-year-olds for the first time, lots of schools organised debates, some more freely than others, given some of the rules that Patrick Harvie spoke about. I took part in a number of those school debates in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth and elsewhere in Central Scotland. Anybody who participated in those debates would say that the general interest and level of engagement from the young people who were there was incredible.

Like Patrick Harvie, I would not want to cheer one side’s win over the other. More than anything, I would celebrate the fact that the young people who were there were open to the arguments that were being put forward. They were amenable to different points. In fact, I think the votes that took place showed that quite a few people had changed their minds over the course of the debate and were open to that information—they were probably a lot more open to arguments or information than anybody in the chamber.

I have been a supporter of votes at 16 for a long time and I am delighted that progress is finally being made. I do not think it is right that 16 and 17-year-olds can leave school, get a job, pay tax and drive a car but do not have any say in electing any of us or their local representatives at council level.

As someone who was brought up in a political family, I was involved in election campaigns from a very young age. I have been involved to some extent in every election in Scotland since 1992. Growing up, I was desperate to vote after handing out all those leaflets, being on battle buses and giving out balloons. I only wish that I could have had that chance earlier. I have been involved in every election since 1992, but I cast my first vote in 2004, 12 years on from first being engaged. I am sure that some members can do the maths on that one.

I am pleased that we in the Labour Party have committed to extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds at a United Kingdom level, to extend the UK electorate by 1.5 million people. I am pleased that there seems to be a broad consensus here that we should do the same for Scottish Parliament and, I hope, council elections.

Putting the referendum to one side, we still have an issue with voter disengagement across the country. There are lots of reasons for that. The European election, which was a matter of months before the referendum, had only a 33 per cent turnout. In North Lanarkshire, there was a similar turnout for the council elections in 2012. Therefore, it is really important that we not only extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, but ensure that they get a balanced political education in school and that debates and mock elections are increased and become the norm so that there is greater political engagement and understanding. As Patrick Harvie pointed out, we should ensure that people are motivated to vote in the first election and that that becomes a pattern for the rest of their life.

There is something else that we should consider when we extend the franchise. The new generation of 16 and 17-year-olds who will be allowed to cast their first votes after years of taking part in online elections through Facebook or voting for the winner of “The X Factor” over the phone will suddenly have to vote for a new Government by post or perhaps in a cold and draughty community hall.

Will you draw to a close, please?

We should also look at that matter to increase turnout.

With that point made, I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience and thank Patrick Harvie for bringing the debate to the chamber.

12:51  

I, too, thank Patrick Harvie for securing this debate on young voters and for welcoming the excellent work of the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee. I think that we all share the concerns about voter turnout, and Patrick Harvie’s analysis was excellent.

I have known Stewart Stevenson for a long time. I put on the record that I thank our own Stewart for another of his truly unique, excellent and memorable contributions.

I did my fair share of hustings across the Highlands. John Finnie and I almost started to share cars—I think that I did more hustings with him than I did with any other parliamentarian. We met 16 and 17-year-olds not just in schools; they also attended meetings in village halls; they joined in with the street stalls; and they were at the highland games, the agricultural shows and the many other gatherings to debate and join in the referendum campaign. We had a great team of young people in Moray, some of whom were still a few months too young to vote in the referendum. They were certainly much more informed in the political debate than I ever was at their age.

The Scottish Conservatives fully support the call for the franchise to be extended to include 16 and 17-year-olds in all elections, and we were pleased that the Prime Minister’s signature on the Edinburgh agreement allowed 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum last year.

I noticed that an article in The Guardian on 7 January stated that the Prime Minister

“said he would be open to leaving it to MPs in the Commons to decide whether the vote should be extended to 16- and 17-year-olds.”

The debate down south is interesting, too. The article also said that a number of Tory back benchers,

“including former minister Damian Green, have expressed support for reducing the voting age”.

That is very healthy, and I think that we all understand that that is their decision, not ours.

The Smith commission, of course, is now taking the next step in lowering the voting age for 16 and 17-year-olds in Scottish Parliament elections. That will be in place for the 2016 election, as we implement the first stage of the Smith commission’s historic cross-party agreement on the devolution of further powers to Scotland. That will give us all the powers in relation to the Scottish Parliament and local government elections here.

Whether a person was for or against giving votes to 16 or 17-year-olds, no one could fail to be impressed by their participation and understanding of the issues relating to the referendum. They made their own case. The questions from school pupils on the currency, European Union membership, international crime, defence, terrorism and even MI5 could not fail to impress. The 16 and 17-year-olds were not passive bystanders in the debate; they were at the heart of it.

I attended hustings in schools from Tobermory to Gordonstoun with Richard Lochhead. At both Elgin high school and Gordonstoun school, the attendance was around 300. I noticed that a member of staff at Gordonstoun wore a yes badge. From that, I assume that that school placed no restriction on freedom of expression or, indeed, freedom of speech. Unfortunately, Highland Council barred us from taking part in a debate at Kingussie high school. We resorted to the village hall, which some pupils were allowed to attend at the end of their school day.

That is unlike what happened in Scottish Borders Council, where schools were encouraged to hold debates during school hours given the transport and travel issues in rural areas. It is also worth mentioning that South Ayrshire Council provided a session for young people who had recently left school and were in the skills towards employment project to improve their employability. The council brought those young people into the debate, too.

Conservatives would not wish to dictate to local authorities how to conduct their approach in schools to referendums or national elections. However, we trust that all local authorities will reflect—as Patrick Harvie said that they should—on what they did during the referendum: what worked, what did not and what they would do differently next time round. We have to respect the democratic status and responsibilities of councils.

I note that the mock elections in schools in both Aberdeenshire and Moray predicted a no majority at a time when the polls were emphatically predicting a yes. It seems that the 16 and 17-year-olds predicted the outcome much more accurately than many of the pollsters did.

12:56  

I congratulate Patrick Harvie on securing this debate on young voters. We all agree that it is an important topic not just to young people but for democracy as a whole. The fact that pupils from Hyndland secondary school were in the gallery a short time ago during their visit to the Parliament—we hope to meet them later—is a good example of schools engaging with politics. Local members and Patrick Harvie can vouch for the fact that when he, I and others took part in mock elections, the scrutiny and the questions were very good. Not just that school but others throughout the country put many different questions to us, and I think that we all learned from that.

The referendum brought about a huge interest in politics and participation. It was on a scale that none of us had seen before. I take on board what Patrick Harvie said about that. It was exciting, not just for me but for others as well, and it is really important to continue with that participation, as the motion says. I welcome the cross-party support for votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in Scottish Parliament elections. I also take on board what Mary Scanlon said about David Cameron and Westminster. I certainly encourage all parties at Westminster to look to extend the voting age for all parliamentary elections. Mark Griffin also mentioned that.

Patrick Harvie spoke about the excitement and the vibrancy during the referendum campaign, and he is absolutely correct. It was overwhelming. Young people and everyone involved, certainly in my area in Glasgow, came alive. People would ask us questions in the street and in community centres. When we went to visit school groups and groups in various children’s organisations, the referendum was all that they could talk about, because it meant something to them. They were so involved. It was absolutely wonderful. I hope that we can continue that participation, and I must say that a number of schools that I have visited since then have done that. Some have done vox pops, some of them have radio stations and some use Facebook and Twitter. Those things were organised during the referendum campaign, but they have continued from there.

It is important to mention the education service here in the Parliament, which does a great job, not just in outreach to schools but in bringing kids into the Parliament and enabling them to speak to us and ask us questions. It does an excellent job.

Stewart Stevenson mentioned the Scottish Youth Parliament, which also does a fantastic job. A couple of months ago, I was in Cardiff with a representative of the Scottish Youth Parliament, and we talked to people from other areas including the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. They were so impressed by what we are doing in the Scottish Parliament to engage young people and encourage them to become involved.

It has not ended there, as I am sure members agree. The general election campaign is starting, and the young people who were involved in the referendum campaign, particularly in my area in Glasgow, are back on the streets again. They are back in what we call the Partick hub, which was launched once again on Saturday. The young people are back. I also want to put in a plug for Lady Gaga—not “the” Lady Gaga, but one of our activists who comes along and sings at some of our events.

Certainly the interest in politics has transcended to the general election campaign as well. We have captured it, and we cannot let it go.

I thank everyone, and Patrick Harvie in particular, for supporting the motion. I enjoyed all the speeches today.

13:00  

Thank you and good afternoon, Presiding Officer. I, too, thank Patrick Harvie for securing today’s debate.

It is an honour to talk in today’s debate about young voters and their engagement. The 85 per cent turnout in last September’s referendum on Scotland’s future was truly remarkable. However, a recent survey by TNS found that only 64 per cent of people who voted in the referendum will, or are planning to, vote in the upcoming general election. More than 100,000 16 and 17-year-olds came out to vote in the referendum, no doubt stimulated by the great importance of the question that they were being asked about Scotland’s future. The fact remains, though, that engaging young people in debate has proven to be quite difficult.

As I have stated before, there is a wider problem of youth disengagement from politics. Putting the referendum aside, recent reports suggest that 30 per cent of those aged 18 to 25 were not even registered to vote in advance of the recent local and European elections. There are also people who were registered to vote but did not actually bother voting. In the last general election, in 2010, fewer than half of all 18 to 24-year-olds voted, which was much lower than the national average.

Scotland has played an important role in supporting and encouraging debate on politics, although there was an issue in the run-up to the referendum. As passions ran high, there were some instances of young people feeling intimidated by both teachers and pupils of different opinions. However, some of the most stimulating and thought-provoking experiences during the referendum campaign came from talking to young people up and down Scotland. On the whole, the referendum was a positive experience for 16 and 17-year-olds, which needs to be built upon.

The Labour Party, like me, strongly supports the extension of voting rights to that age group. I am happy to see the broad cross-party backing for reducing the voting age to 16 years. Let us continue to build on that.

What is remarkable is the fact that the Labour Party wants to introduce the measure right across the United Kingdom, and that is important. Sixteen and 17-year-olds can already, as has been stated, get married, hold jobs, be parents and be successful and important elements of our communities. Why should they be denied the vote?

It takes me back to the early days, when women did not have the vote. It took a lot of campaigning for them to get it. I think that voting is important, that young people should be encouraged to do it and that the new media systems should be used for it, as colleagues have already mentioned.

Online voting can be done and should be encouraged, because it would mean that many people—people with disabilities, people who have difficulties in accessing buildings and the like—could participate in voting themselves, rather than have someone else vote for them. I know that the postal system is there—there are postal votes—however, I think that people want to see their vote registered online themselves. If we can introduce that in the future, it would be very helpful.

Overall, I am a great supporter of the voting age being reduced to allow our young citizens to participate in that as they do in everyday life.

13:04  

I congratulate Patrick Harvie and thank him for bringing the debate to the chamber at such a timely moment. As members have said, the referendum was a remarkable demonstration of democracy at its best, and it is right that the chamber both recognises and celebrates the impact that young people have had on politics and the opportunity that the extension of the franchise presents to our democracy.

It is also right that we should seek to maintain the momentum in civic engagement that was gained through the referendum, not only among young people but right across the population in town hall meetings, public events and school debates. The referendum, with its phenomenal 84.5 per cent turnout, showed that people are not indifferent to politics by nature. People engage strongly when they see that they have a role to play and that they can impact and affect the outcomes. Perhaps one of the biggest roles for us, as politicians, is to show people that they have a role to play at various levels. Individuals across the country, many of whom had never voted before and some of whom had not even registered to vote previously, engaged, sought information and made their decision because they saw what could be achieved and that their vote could make a difference that would impact on their lives.

Like other members, I commend our schools, local authorities and other organisations that arranged, supported and participated in school debates, public hustings and information events that allowed young voters to engage with the issues and hear the arguments from both sides. Political debates and mock referendums in schools gave young people the chance to express their opinions on Scotland’s future, and they did so in a mature and thoughtful manner. However, I take on board the point that a number of members made about the situation being variable, and we may need to consider how a more consistent approach can be taken. I will steal Patrick Harvie’s words and say that we need to learn from the best as we take the matter forward.

Curriculum for excellence gives all learners the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and understanding that are needed to be politically literate. It helps learners to continue to develop as responsible citizens, to participate in decision making, to take an active role in society and to be directly involved in changing their communities for the better. It is not just about voting; it can be about other participation as well. Education Scotland’s online resource for learners and educators covers the importance of not just political literacy and an understanding of politics but the role of social media and gives information about how young people can get involved in the democratic processes in their schools and communities.

All parties, including the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and the Electoral Commission, have the shared aim of ensuring that all young people are prepared to cast a well-informed vote after engaging in balanced and well-informed consideration of the issues.

Does the minister agree—and will he put it to the directors of education—that part of the engagement that all young people should expect is active debates that they do not have to be signed up to a modern studies class to take part in? Such debates should be something that all young people get to participate in and experience in schools. Does the minister believe that that should become the norm everywhere?

I am not going to stand here and tell schools how to provide education, but I think that we should learn from the best and, in schools where such debates took place, the young people appreciated it because it gave them the ability to make the most informed decision possible. As Mr Griffin mentioned, that was probably the age group who changed their vote most often as they heard the arguments and decided for themselves. The days of young people voting as their parents voted and for no other purpose are gone. Young people have shown that they are going to make up their own minds and make their own decisions on the basis of the facts as they see them.

As members, we all know of examples in our constituencies of young people being given the opportunity to engage, learn and make mature, thoughtful and responsible decisions. They have grasped every opportunity willingly and with ability. Scotland’s young people have amply demonstrated their enthusiasm, engagement and willingness to participate in the democratic process. They have not taken that responsibility lightly, and neither should we.

A lot has been said about the record-breaking turnout and unprecedented levels of engagement by the people of Scotland. Scotland should be proud of the fact that we are now the most democratically engaged nation in western Europe. We must not lose the momentum that was reflected in the substantial number of people who voted for the first time, including 16 and 17-year-olds, and the Scottish Government is committed to playing its part in achieving that ambition.

Our programme for government that was published in November 2014 set out our commitment to learn lessons from the referendum, as Patrick Harvie mentioned, and to continue the process of making voting more meaningful for our people and communities. In particular, we want to ensure that young people have the opportunity to engage meaningfully with and shape the democratic debate, as they did ahead of the referendum. It has long been the Scottish Government’s policy to extend the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds where we can do so, and we did that for the referendum because it was the right thing to do to encourage the participation of young people in Scotland’s democratic processes and give them a voice on matters that affect them.

We have had success on that front, and I am delighted that there is now cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament for extending the franchise to include 16 and 17-year-olds for the Scottish Parliament and local government elections. I am delighted that we now have a deal with the UK Government to transfer the required powers to make that possible, and the Scottish Government now intends to bring forward legislation to the Scottish Parliament as soon as possible after the order in question is in force to lower the voting age to 16 for those elections, which will allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the 2016 Scottish Parliament and local government elections and all future elections.

During the debate on 23 September 2014, the then First Minister called on all parties to take a vow to urge the UK Government to build on the success of the referendum and to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections. However, many young people who participated in the referendum in September will be somewhat disappointed that they cannot participate in the Westminster elections that will take place in May—Mark Griffin described feeling a similar frustration when he was 12, I think.

Who would deny that the decision to extend the referendum franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds and its implementation were an outstanding success that contributed to the unprecedented levels of democratic engagement that we witnessed? The case for extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds in all elections is no longer theoretical: it is now unarguable. Unfortunately, the powers in relation to the franchise for UK elections and European Union elections remain with Westminster. The Scottish Government and—I hope—everyone in this chamber will urge the UK Government to bring forward legislation at Westminster as soon as possible to lower the voting age for Westminster elections, too.

Again, I thank Patrick Harvie for bringing the debate to the chamber. I urge everyone across the chamber to work with the Scottish Government to ensure swift passage of the legislation to enfranchise 16 and 17-year-olds, so that it is in good time for the Scottish Parliament elections on 5 May 2016.

13:12 Meeting suspended.  

14:00 On resuming—