Today sees the first reading of the Representation of the People Bill, the government’s landmark legislation reforming how elections work. This promises to make some fundamental reforms to the way we vote, as well as who can cast a ballot on election day – many of which we have been campaigning on for years.
The headline reform is the first expansion of the franchise in half a century, as the bill will expand the voting age in all elections to 16. Firstly, this will end the unfair and absurd situation that now exists where 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in half the country, Scotland and Wales, but not the other half, England and Northern Ireland, purely due to where they live. Sixteen and 17-year-olds have been voting in Scottish Parliament and local elections since 2014, and in Wales for Senedd and council elections since 2021. The ERS has long campaigned to end the inequalities that have developed in our national franchise, and it is right that ministers are taking action to address them.
Lowering the voting age will future-proof our democracy by engaging young people in the political process at the point where they are starting to take on the responsibilities of adulthood, and also help them cast that all-important, habit-forming first vote. When people vote early, they are more likely to keep voting for life. The important thing is now to make sure young people are supported to cast the crucial first vote with proper, impartial citizenship education explaining how politics and elections work in this country, as well as improving the voter registration system.
It is likely the reason the government chose to call the legislation the Representation of the People bill was so it harkens back to predecessor acts of the same name that widened voting rights, starting with the first Representation of the People Act of 1832 (more commonly known as the Great Reform Act), which arguably set Britain on course to becoming the modern democracy it is now.
Flexible voting and improving registration
The bill is also looking to make voting simpler and improve the registration process This is something the ERS has again campaigned hard for, as the Electoral Commission estimates that around 8 million people are currently not on the electoral register and the UK has recently been named as one of the most difficult places to register to vote.
Participation is the lifeblood of our democracy, and if fewer people are voting it is becoming weaker. If you are eligible, you should be registered automatically. Automating voter registration will make life simpler for voters, help enfranchise millions and set our democracy on a healthier path by helping to ensure everyone who is entitled to do so has the opportunity to cast their vote.
The bill gives Electoral Registration Officers powers to access existing government data in order to register voters more automatically and allows for pilots to take place to try out different ways of doing this. It is urgent that the government takes these pilots forward quickly to ensure automatic registration is in place for the next general election and millions of voters don’t miss out on taking part.
Cleaning up money in politics
Another key area of the bill is looking at tightening the rules around donations and money flowing into our politics. After the last few weeks, the public will be rightly concerned about the influence that money and the super wealthy can exert on our democracy. Our politics should not be for sale to the highest bidder, and the current rules are outdated and riddled with loopholes that help donors evade transparency – which only damages trust in politics.
There is a caveat with the current bill, in that the government launched an inquiry into foreign financial interference in our politics, which is being headed by the former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft. This is likely to bring forward recommendations that could further shape the bill. So will likely see the full scope of what the bill intends after the inquiry reports back at the end of March.
This bill is an opportunity that must be taken to ensure dark money doesn’t corrupt our democracy. We have long called for greater transparency and tighter rules on political finance, and it is welcome to see proposed changes to protect the UK’s democracy from foreign funding.
There also needs to be a donations cap to prevent huge sums pouring into politics and distorting it towards serving special interests rather than the national interest. The rules need to ensure that politicians are always focused on the needs of voters, not donors.
A big missed opportunity on electoral reform
However, there is a huge glaring omission in the bill – and that is the lack of action on Westminster’s faltering electoral system. At the moment, millions of votes simply don’t count.
The last general election was the most disproportional ever, meaning this Parliament least represents how the British people voted in history. That situation could get worse at the next general election as our two-party system struggles to cope with the new reality of five and six-party politics.
We welcomed the government’s move to scrap First Past the Post for mayoral elections, but the same rationale should mean that ministers can also see that the same malfunctioning system should be scrapped for Westminster.
If the government really wants their Representation of the People Bill to live up to its name, it needs to scrap Westminster’s outdated and distorting voting system and replace it with a fair proportional system that accurately reflects how people voted with seats in Parliament.
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