Number: WG 32167 Welsh Government Consultation – summary of responses Electoral Reform in Local Government in Wales April 2018 Mae’r ddogfen yma hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg.1 This document is also available in Welsh. © Crown Copyright Digital ISBN 978-1-78903-500-1 Contents 1. Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3 2. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 4 3. Overview of Responses .................................................................................................. 5 4. Analysis of Responses to the Consultation Questions .................................................... 7 1. Building the Franchise .................................................................................................... 7 3. The voting system ........................................................................................................ 19 4. The voting process ....................................................................................................... 23 5. Standing for election ..................................................................................................... 38 6. Returning Officers ........................................................................................................ 45 7. Prisoner voting ............................................................................................................. 48 5. Next Steps ..................................................................................................................... 54 6. List of Respondents ....................................................................................................... 55 Annex 1 – Cabinet Secretary’s Oral Statement on Electoral Reform ................................... 60 2 1. Introduction 1.1 The Welsh Government issued the consultation document, Electoral Reform in Local Government in Wales on 18 July 2017. The consultation period ran for twelve weeks to 10 October 2017. 1.2 The consultation followed on from the White Paper, Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed issued on 31 January 2017, and sought views on proposals to enhance engagement in democracy, voter eligibility and exercise of votes and how elections can be better organised. 1.3 This document sets out a summary of the responses to the consultation exercise at Section 4.1 1 Where figures contained in section 4 total more or less than 100%, this is due to rounding. 3 2. Methodology 2.1. In addition to the principal consultation document, the Welsh Government also produced a youth friendly, easy read and British Sign Language versions of the consultation paper. There were made available on the Welsh Government’s website. The Youth Friendly and Easy Read documents were abridged to suit the target audience for these accessible versions. 2.2. The previous Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government also held two round table workshops with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales and her young representatives, one in North Wales and one in South Wales. 2.3. The principal consultation document posed 43 questions on electoral reform. A further three questions were included seeking views on any related Welsh language issues or other relevant concerns not specifically addressed within the consultation paper. Due to a technical error these were omitted from the online response form but were available to view in the main PDF consultation document. 2.4 A summary of responses to the youth-friendly and easy-read questions has been incorporated in the analysis of the responses to the principal consultation paper and has been referenced where necessary or where the views of respondents to this consultation differ particularly to that of the main consultation. 4 3. Overview of Responses 3.1 979 responses were received in total from organisations and a large number of members of the public. 3.2 The number of respondents by type to and consultation document was as below: Full Version Number of respondents 775 100% Member of the public 648 84 County or County borough council 19 3 Town or Community Council 20 3 Political Group / Party 29 4 Representative body, Professional body or Association 25 3 Elected member 18 2 Third sector 10 1 Trades union 2 0 Government agency / other public sector body 2 0 Other 1 0 Easy Read Version Number of respondents 5 100% Member of the public 4 80 County or County borough council 0 0 Town or Community Council 0 0 Political Group / Party 0 0 Representative body, Professional body or Association 0 0 Elected member 0 0 Third sector 1 20 Trades union 0 0 Government agency / other public sector body 0 0 Other 0 0 5 Youth Friendly Number of respondents 199 100% Member of the public 5 3 County or County borough council 2 1 Town or Community Council 0 0 Political Group / Party 0 0 Representative body, Professional body or Association 0 0 Elected member 0 0 Third sector 0 0 Trades union 0 0 Government agency / other public sector body 0 0 Other 194 97 British Sign Language 3.3. There were no respondents to the British Sign Language version of the consultation. 3.4. A list of respondents is included at Section 6. All of those responding to the Youth Friendly version of the consultation have been classed as anonymous respondents, and a number of respondents to the other versions of the consultation chose to remain anonymous and these have been omitted from that list. 6 4. Analysis of Responses to the Consultation Questions 1. Building the Franchise Votes for 16 and 17 year olds Q1. Do you agree that the qualifying age for voting in Welsh local government elections should be lowered to 16? Easy Read (ER) Q1. Do you agree that the age of voting in Welsh local elections should be 16? Youth Friendly (YF) Q1. Do you think we should lower the voting age for Welsh elections? There was strong support for the proposal to lower the minimum voting age for local government elections to 16. More than two-thirds of respondents supported the proposal. This was broadly consistent across all categories of respondent, although, at 72%, slightly higher in the 182 responses submitted in response to the youth-friendly version. A number of common views emerged. Amongst those supportive of the proposal one theme was that it “made sense” in the context of other age-dependent duties, such as paying tax, and the range of rights already enjoyed by young people. Some saw it as a welcome and natural extension of recognising young people’s rights. Many agreed that lowering the voting age would increase participation of young people in the democratic process and decision-making in matters that affect them. Some also welcomed it as a step towards votes for 16-18-year-olds in all elections and one which would build on what they saw as positive experiences in Scotland. One theme common both to those who agreed and disagreed was young people’s readiness to participate. Some considered a lowering of the qualifying age to be consistent with developments in the school curriculum which would enhance young 7 people’s understanding. Many responses from those who disagreed with the proposal expressed the view that young people often did not have sufficient maturity and/or experience to understand and engage in the complex nature of politics. Some felt that young people would need first to be more exposed by their schools to coverage of politics and better educated in matters relating to democracy. Some felt that lowering the voting age might be considered to be treating ‘children’ as adults before they were ready. A further reservation was that there was no evidence to support lowering the voting age. A small number considered that lessons from the Scottish experience had yet to be digested. EU Citizens and citizens of other countries Q2. Should EU citizens who move to Wales once the UK has left the EU continue to acquire the right to vote? ER Q2. Do you want people from the EU, who come here after we leave the EU, to have a vote? YF Q2. Do you think EU citizens who move to Wales after we leave the EU should be able to vote in our elections? 3% 22% Agree Disagree Neither 75% Again, there was strong support for this proposal, with three-quarters of respondents to the principal consultation document expressing agreement. Similarly strong support was also seen in response to the youth friendly and easy read documents. Again, there was broad support across the respondent categories. A number of respondents expressed the view that, until the outcome of Brexit negotiations became clearer, it would be difficult to take a firm position. From more definitive responses, there was some common ground between those agreeing and disagreeing with the proposition. This tended to manifest itself in the view that voting should be conditional upon either citizenship or a qualifying residency period. These views ranged from only UK citizens should have a right to vote, to a view that the right to vote should be dependent upon people becoming full residents of the UK or having satisfied a minimum term of residency. A number of people on either side of the debate considered that there should be no taxation without representation or vice versa: “those who don’t pay taxes shouldn’t have the right to 8 vote” and, “those who pay taxes should have the right to vote for the people who decide how those taxes may be spent” were illustrative comments. Q3. Should voting rights be extended to