Hansard Society - Political Engagement Briefings

Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Hansard Society, thank you for

coming. After months of crunching the data, analysing the numbers,

writing the report, this was not quite the circumstances we imagined

for our launch of this morning but here we are. Can I add a thank you

to Tim and Alex. Ding in a very late notice to speak on our panel,

because those of you familiar with the society will know that since

1944 when we started we have had a reputation strongly held for

nonpartisanship and with the heat of the campaign now across the airwaves

we decided it was not possible to have an unbalanced political panel

of MPs so I'm grateful to Tim and Alex for standing into the bridge. I

can see a number of familiar faces in the audience but for those of you

who are perhaps a little less familiar with the study, I'm going

to begin by outlining a bit of the background. It is, as Penny alluded

to, a the Times series study providing an annual benchmark on

political engagement in Great Britain. It is essentially a health

check on the state of art democracy, attitudes to the political process

with a particular focus on Parliament and MPs. Each audit is

based on an annual opinion poll survey taken in this case in

December and January by Ipsos MORI with a representative quota sample

of the public of adults aged 18 plus in Great Britain and the survey is

conducted face-to-face in urine's homes so I would like to thank Ipsos

MORI for the work that they have done to get us into safe harbour

today over the last few weeks. I always stress when I speak at events

about the audit that the results are a snapshot not a prediction of

engagement in politics at a particular moment in time and the

value of the audit is the trend data as much as the one-off results that

we see each year. For example, we've been looking at trend data around

general elections, generally spaced five years apart, so as you can

imagine an election after two years really destroys our trends and our

themes in the study. But nonetheless, we will be looking back

at some general election trends in today's results. Inevitably in the

time allowed I'm only going to be able to touch on some of the

headline numbers. There was a lot more detail in the report and you

will be getting a digital copy of it and a link to download shortly in

your inbox after this event so you can read all the detail there. So,

what do we look at? Well, each year we look at core indicators of

engagement, what we call the building blocks of engagement, that

we know our vital facets of how the public engage. They are grouped in

four areas - knowledge and interest, participation, efficacy and

satisfaction, influence and involvement. The core integrator

questions are supplemented by a range of questions about Parliament,

about MPs, people's perception of the institution of our democracy and

their representatives and from year to year we add in some topical

questions on topical themes of the moment and sometimes revisit these

on two or three-year cycles and the report sets out in much greater

detail the background for these indicators and why they have been

chosen, dating back to 2004. So, what are we actually covering in the

report? Well, there are three key themes. First is an EU referendum

effect. Can we see whether there has been a positive response from the

public in terms of political attitudes after the referendum, the

kind that those of you who are familiar with the audit will know we

saw two years ago after the audit following the Scottish independence

referendum, when engagement levels in Scotland were boosted

significantly. Two years later we can see in Scotland but engagement

levels started to subside but on many indicators they are still well

above the national average. So the question is, when we are putting the

survey into the field, will the referendum have had a similar effect

across Great Britain? Second is perceptions of Parliament, what are

the public think about the core institution of our democracy and

their elected representatives? And thirdly, going back to where we

began, the vote. Has the experience of that June vote last summer

changed people's attitudes to referendums, and what do they think

of experts? As we go through the headlines, I ask you to their two

thoughts in mind. How attitudes to politics changed and how political

behaviour changes. And if any of you have read by Times Red Box article

this morning, you will know the answer to that already. John and I

are going to divide the presentation on the themes between us so I'm

going to do the first half and then hand over. Firstly, before getting

into these three themes, given that we are facing an election, I wanted

to just look at two key elements of the data that are pertinent to the

electoral context. Certainty to vote - how certain to the public say they

are to vote in the event of an immediate general election? Bear in

mind, this question was asked some month ago before anybody had any

idea we would be facing an election, and it's a question that we've asked

for each of the audit dating back to 2004. As you can see, 59% said they

were absolutely certain to vote in the event of an immediate election,

the same as last year, the high watermark across the 14 years of the

audit. A further 16% on top of that said they were likely to vote.

Forgetting about the election in front of us for the moment, as you

can see on the slide, audits four and mine are posed general election

themes, and marks the same stage of the political cycle following the

2005 and 2010 general elections, the same stage as we are at now after

the 2015 election and, as you can see, certainty to vote was sustained

in 2007 but at a lower level, while it fell considerably in 2012 and you

can see the drop-off in the 2012 numbers in the years of Coalition

government. As ever, older members of the public are more likely to say

they are certain to vote than younger ones. 75% of the over 55s

said they are certain, 44% of 18 to 34-year-olds. To stress again, this

is not a prediction, it is a snapshot of what people said they

would do some months ago and we know that election turnout was higher

last time. But I think the fact that certainty to vote is holding up and

is at the highest level we've recorded in the series has got to be

a good portent for June eight. What about political parties? Well, in

last year's audit, we saw a really quite significant increase in the

number of people claiming to be a strong supporter of a political

party. Rose by 11 points to 41%. This year, that has gone and we are

back down to much more accustomed levels of support with around three

in ten people saying they are a strong supporter of the party. We

thought the increase last year might have been a post-election hangover

and these results seem to bear that out. The growth in support last

year, interestingly, was particularly pronounced among 18 to

24-year-olds. At increased last year from 13% 238% and has settled back

now to 22%, still higher than two years ago but down on last year. So,

has there been a referendum if that? Has there been a positive impact as

a result of the referendum, of the kind we witnessed in Scotland?

Electoral participation is not the only indicator of the health of our

democracy. Turnout, as we know, in last year's referendum was high,

millions of pounds spent campaigning, the question is, did it

have any impact? This slide shows six of our key indicators of

engagement that we look at every year and compares the results to

last year. As you can see, whilst in Scotland last time we saw big

increases apart from satisfaction with government, but on this slide,

as you can see, for Britain nationwide public attitudes have

either remain stable or have fallen back and, in most instances, they've

fallen back to the kind of pre-general election levels that we

saw after the post-election boost that we saw in last year's results.

So you see faint interest in our knowledge of politics has declined,

perceived knowledge of Parliament also down. Satisfaction with the

system of governing Britain has barely changed and remains low at

31%, as does people's sense of the efficacy of their own involvement in

politics. So really, these are adults -- these results suggest

there has been no positive effect as a result of the poll last summer.

The result that I find particularly interesting is that the EU

referendum was one of the most consequential acts of

decision-making in this country. Despite the seismic impact of the

result, the proportion of people who feel they have influence over

national decision-making has increased by just three points since

last year and now stands at 16%. Are given the referendum result, we

might have expected that those who voted Leave might feel quite

influential in national decision-making as a result of what

has happened but, as you can see, sense of influence is in line with

the national average. We tend to concentrate on the statistically

significant findings, these are not statistically significant but in

that I think is where the interest lies. As in previous audits,

people's low sense of their personal political influence continues to be

outstripped by their desire to be involved in politics, particularly

at the local level. This graph shows the difference, the gap between the

public's desire for involvement in politics locally and nationally, the

top is at the top of the chart, the two lines at the top their perceived

sense of influence on decision-making. Only 16% feel they

have some influence over decision-making nationally but 41%

would like to be involved in decision-making and more people,

46%, would like to be involved in local decisions. But just 23%

currently feel that they have some influence at a local level. Overall,

there is a desire to get involved, particularly at the local level,

that remains untapped, and the referendum hasn't made any

difference to that at all. Now, turning to Parliament, in the last

few years we've asked a battery of questions about public perceptions

of Parliament's role and work and the standout result this year, as in

previous years, is that a very significant majority of the public

think that Parliament is essential to our democracy. 73% say that, the

same as last year. Seven points higher than at the same stage of the

previous post 2010 general election cycle that we looked at in audit

nine. Beyond that, as you can see from the chart, the public attitudes

are largely unchanged. Sustaining the significant increase in

improvements we saw on these questions last year. The public

clearly value the institution but there are two points of caution in

the data. The first is that overall satisfaction with the way Parliament

works has declined to 30% and now stands six points lower than it did

at the start of the audit series and secondly, the public's perceived

knowledge of Parliament has also declined by seven points to 45% but

is higher than it was at the same stage of the political cycle after

the 2005 and 2010 elections, and knowledge levels are 12 points

higher than they were at the start of the audit in 2004. We've also

introduced a battery of new questions about Parliament, to

explore perceptions of it in relation to six core functions that

are identified down the left-hand side of the slide. We ask how

important these functions are two people and to what extent they think

Parliament has done a good job in relation to each of them in the last

few years. Unsurprisingly, a majority of the public think it is

important that Parliament performs each of these responsibilities

tested. At least eight in ten people say that they are important to them.

Checking the way public money is raised and spent by the government

tops the table, 90% say it is important, and of that nearly two

thirds rate it as very important. Yet despite ranking all those

functions very highly, only four in ten people believe that Parliament

has done a good job in carrying out those responsibilities in the last

few years. The institution's perceived strengths are debating

issues of public concern, scrutinising the government and

amending legislation but there is clearly significant scope for

improvement across all areas, as you can see there. At this point, I'm

going to hand over to Joel, who is going to talk about how MPs should

spend their time, of great interest to all those candidates who may well

be coming back, and he will wrap up the presentation.

Thanks, good morning. I am going to kick off... I don't know if there

are any MPs in the house. At the audit we asked a question and and we

found the public believe MPs to be the most effective group in

holding... To account. What MPs do and how they spend their time is key

in carrying out their responsibilities. To explore this

issue further, we repeated the question we last asked in 2010 in

audit seven following the MPs' inspectors crisis to gauge what the

public thought were the most important ways MPs should spend

their time. Selecting from a list of 11 possible options. The results

suggest a mixed picture. Representing the views of local

people remains today as in audit seven the most important way that

the people think MPs should spend their time. Just under half the

public, around 47%, say this. That is 12 points ahead of the next

ranked priority. Representing the UK's national interest remains the

second ranked priority but fewer people prioritised this today. 41

said this was important to them in audit seven but just 35% say the

same now. Holding the Government to account is third on the list with

just over a third of the public choosing this option. 34%,

marginally more than chose it in audit seven. Referring back to the

earlier slide, fewer people, despite attaching importance to the need to

debate issues of public concern, fewer people today think that

debating important issues in the House of Commons is an important way

for MPs to spend their time, just under a third, 32% say so compared

to about 37% seven years ago. Given the spotlight thrown on Parliament

during and after the referendum, we were interested in whether or not

there would have been any change in the way that the public has engaged

with the institution this year. In the last audit we explored in what

ways, if any, the public had engaged with Parliament in the previous 12

months and we provided a list of eight possible ways they could have

done so. We also asked which options they would be prepared to take if

they felt strongly about an issue and the results are quite

encouraging this ship. More than half the public say they have

engaged with Parliament in the last 12 months and that is a ten point

increase from audit 13. The most significant areas of growth can be

found in the number of people who say they have watched or listened to

a Parliamentary debate or committee meeting. This has risen from 31% to

39%. Those who have watched a Parliamentary event or listened to

events in the future as risen by up to 40% as well. The number of people

who say they have signed an e-petition is up seven points, to

22%. 40% say they would do so in the future if they felt strongly about

an issue. Since the new Parliamentary petition system was

launched after the last general election, there has been 31 million

signatures from 14 million different e-mail addresses so we have to go

back to the 19th century to find a time when petitioning Parliament on

issues of concern was such a common event nationwide. There has also

been an improvement in the number of people visiting Parliament's website

and information materials, it has risen to 12%. Turning to what people

would be prepared to do if they felt strongly about an issue, contacting

an MP or appear for their views is by far the most popular option.

Pretty much the same as last year, which was 51%. Like many Parliament

to run the world Westminster faces importance and value on its public

engagement work, providing a range of mechanisms to convey impartial

information to the public about how our democracy works. During the

referendum campaign, impartial briefings from the library staff

were a key resource used by campaigners and jealous. Not

everyone can or want to come to Westminster, so how can Parliament

best reach the public to provide this information to those who want

it? We asked the public to select from a list of six options. The ways

in which they would most to receive this information. The top two

choices reflect the dominance of digital as a means of reaching the

public. Four in ten people, 40%, choose material that can be

downloaded from the Parliament website and just over a third chose

information via social media. Vying the social media was hosting school

visits. Just over a quarter selected local workshops about how Parliament

works. Just under a quarter would encourage the public to visit

Parliament. Focusing on the most disengaged groups, the top three

options for those aged 18 to 34, those in social group D, E, and

BMEs, providing material for for downloading from the website,

information on social media and hosting school visits to Parliament.

Parliament has been experimenting with and growing its social media

presence and a new education Centre which opened in 2016 will enable

Parliament to increase the number of school pupils visiting Westminster

from approximately 40,000 per year to around 100,000. Some improvements

are under way to address two of the top rooty-mac for Parliament to

reach out and disseminate information to the public. An

element of this's orders was exploring attitudes to referendums

in general. -- this year's audit. After four referendums in six years,

to UK wide, one in Scotland and one in Wales, the public exhibit decline

in support for more of this method of decision-making. A clear

majority, three in five British adults or 61%, agree that important

questions should be determined by referendums more often than they are

today. However, this is significantly below levels of

support for more referendums recorded in audits prior to the EU

referendum. When this was asked last year, and when the past it again in

2012, support for referendums stood at 76% and 72% respectively. It

decline in 15 -- of 15 percentage points. Looking at party affinity,

those who are strong supporters of Ukip are most likely to support the

use of referendums to determine important questions. That is nearly

nine in ten Ukip supporters. In contrast, the supporters of the most

avowedly pro-EU party, the Lib Dems, are least likely to support the use

of referendums as a decision-making mechanism, only 40% of the

supporters do so. Younger people are also more likely to support

referendums, two thirds of 18 to 34-year-olds agreed that referendums

should be used to determine important questions more often than

today. This contrasts with 54% of those aged 55 and above who would

say the same. In the aftermath of the EU referendum when questions

were raised about how government and Parliament will take the decision

forward, we decided to test public attitudes to a range of

decision-making mechanisms and across several different policy

scenarios. We asked which mechanism people thought would work best to

produce a decision in Britain's best interests, government taking the

decision without a vote in Parliament, a Parliamentary vote,

local government deciding for their own area, or the public deciding

through a referendum, for example. Each option was put across five

different policy areas, covering national and local issues, and

constitutional and ethical matters. We suggested a method for electing

MPs, financial matters relating to the NHS, fracking, assisted dying

and the future relationship with the EU. Overall, public opinion was

split. No decision-making attracts the majority support for any policy

scenario. But decisions by the public through referendum were the

most popular. Some patterns of preference can be discerned. On the

constitutional and ethical questions, four in ten of the public

selected themselves via referendum as the best way to take a decision

in the country's best interests. Significantly ahead of the decision

being taken by government or Parliament. In relation to deciding

how money -- how much money the government should spend on the NHS,

the public think Parliament would be better placed to decide. Almost as

many people thought that local government should decide as thought

the public should do so. While the decision by the public were still

the most popular option to address the issue of fracking, here support

was lower in relation to the constitutional and ethical

questions. Only three in ten option -- opted for a decision by the

public. It was on this question that a decision by the local government

supported -- attracted more support. One finding in this year's results

was that although more people in the life of this audit claimed to be

more knowledgeable about the EU, 42%, there are still barely more

than four in ten people, this indicates it has increased by only

five points in the year despite the referendum. As in ordered 13, the

most affluent groups are among the most likely to say they feel

knowledgeable about the EU. Those with graduate-level education are

more than twice as likely to feel knowledgeable as those with none at

all. Those living in London perceive themselves to be quite knowledgeable

about the EU and 55% significantly above national average. Scots, 49%,

and those living in the south of England, 47% claim to be

knowledgeable, in contrast to the Welsh and those living in the North

of England whose knowledge levels are significantly below the national

average. The Lib Dems are most apt to say they feel knowledgeable about

the EU. So, although experts were widely criticised by prominent Leave

campaigners during the referendum campaign, many of the public found

them to be among the most trusted and useful sources of information

about the referendum. Second only to TV and radio news programmes.

Considerably ahead of the official Leave and Remain campaigns. TV and

radio news programmes were considered among the most useful by

37% of the public, and most trustworthy by 34%, far in front of

any other source of information. No other source attracted the support

of more than two in ten members of the public. Experts were valued by

20% of the most useful source and 21% found them most trustworthy.

Newspapers were viewed as useful to 80% of the public and 16% as a

trusted source. -- 18%. Online sources of information were

considered most useful and trustworthy by only one in ten of

the population. The Leave campaign focused a lot of digital targeting

of the messages. The official campaigns only had a limited impact

on public in terms of providing information. Nearly one in ten said

they were the most useful or trustworthy source. The significant

effort put in by the campaigns to highlight the support of the

business sector may also have been a wasted effort. The more than 5% fund

businesses to be a useful source of information. -- no more than 5%

found. 70% of the public found none of the options listed to be a

trustworthy source of information. 13% found none of them to be useful.

-- 70%. Finally, the last slide, an interesting question. Turning back

to support for referendums, support for more referendums than today is

lowest in Scotland compared to other parts of Britain. Indicating perhaps

a level of referendum fatigue following to referendums in less

than two years. A development that may not bode well for the prospects

of a second independence referendum. Support for more referendums among

Scots has declined 55%, a drop of 19 percentage points from the 74%

recorded in the last audit wave. Net support for referendums in Scotland

now stands at only plus 11 compared to the national average of plus 26%

and the plus 50% recorded in Scotland in the last audit. On that,

that is the presentation. Thank you very much. I think the observations

I would make that the EU referendum does not seem to have provided a

much engagement as expected. Despite the fact they delivered a seismic

shock to the UK and the EU and to politicians. And whilst the public

still feel referendums are important, some people have gone off

them as a mechanism for making decisions. If the liquor perceptions

of Parliament, they are definitely not where we expect them to be in

terms of public engagement. If you look at actual behaviour, signing

petitions and watching and listening to debates, perhaps experts and

media have had something of a bad press. So, I turn now to a couple of

experts. First, Tim, what do you make of this? Thank you for inviting

me, and also thank you to the Hansard Society and the House of

Commons for funding what is an incredible resource, not least

because as we have heard, it allows us to track trends over time. It is

also worth saying it is an incredibly attractively produced

resource and certainly it is a lesson for all us experts and

academics on how to not only produce numbers, but to communicate them

very clearly. And I would also like to say I am impressed by the gender

balanced panel, but also the gender balanced audience. One of the

advantages of sitting on a podium is that you can count the audience and

it is 52% men, 48% women! A spooky percentage, after the referendum.

I want to talk more about the present on the future than the past,

so I'm not going to say very much about the referendum because I think

others will talk more about that, other than to say something about

differences in perceptions of their usefulness. It is, I think, very

interesting that when you ask people about whether the referendum --

whether referendums should be used more to decide important questions,

they're a very significant differences, for example, between

people who voted Remain and people who voted Leave. 74% of people who

voted Leave would like more use of referendums, 47% of people who voted

Remain would like to see the same. 88% Ukip supporters would like to

see more referendums, 42% of Liberal Democrat supporters would like to

see more referendums. You can dismiss these differences in as

simply a product of being a bad loser, if you like. But

interestingly, you don't get such big differences when it comes to

representative general elections. In general elections, the losers accept

acceptably, generally speaking, and don't necessarily see any problem

with the mechanism, ie going to the ballot box and choosing constituency

representatives, as inherently problematic. There are some

concerns, I think, about the legitimacy, at least the perceived

legitimacy, and differences on that of referendums and I, for one, am a

little bit worried that referendums because they are inherently binary

are inherently divisive devices in democracy and therefore perhaps tend

towards the sceptical side. I don't want to say very much, either, about

Parliament because I think that will be brought up a bit later, other

than a couple of things. One very interesting finding is that people

still trust Parliament and MPs in particular to hold the government to

account and the figure for that was significantly higher than it was for

the courts. I do wonder after the whole Article 50 shenanigans, when

that question is asked next time around, whether more people will

think that the courts have just as much say or ability to check

government than the Commons all the Lord's. The other interesting

finding about Parliament, I thought, was the fact that generally

speaking, given that people seem to want MPs to concentrate on local

issues and their constituency work, MPs clearly are doing the right

thing. If you look at the trends since the 1960s, MPs have been doing

an awful lot more constituency work than they ever did. This is clearly

something that the public wants them to do so I think it is impressive

that what MPs do and what the public want them to do seem to be so

in-line. Also on the subject of Parliament, I wanted to say

something about the fact that people are not particularly impressed by

the ability of Parliament to represent ordinary people's

interests. I rather suspect, and there is some research on this -

more needs to be done - that this is actually less of a function of what

MPs do than it is a function of what MPs look and sound like. MPs are now

overwhelmingly middle-class graduates. That's not true yet of

the electorate. And that Miss match, I think, does encourage people to

think that those people in there or in here have little understanding,

little to do with them, although we do also know from research that when

people actually deal with their MP, they are very satisfied with the

service that they get, so there is that mismatch between people's

abstract views and their particular experience. But enough of

referendums and Parliament. What I want to concentrate on is attitudes

to politics and political behaviour. I'm not actually very surprised that

there appears to have been a drop-off in the number of people who

say that they are interested in politics. I suspect that by the end

of 2016, when this survey was taken, the beginning of 2017, people had

had enough of politics and their answers to some extent reflected

that fatigue and that, of course, was before Theresa May called a snap

general election. Likewise, I'm not entirely surprised that there's been

no significant rise, despite the referendum, in people feeling that

they have an influence on national decisions. After all, people have

only delivered their decision. The promises made during that campaign

have not themselves been delivered. I think people will be waiting to

see whether what they told the UK government to do back in the summer

of 2016 will actually result in what they want the UK government to do as

a result of that decision. I rather fear that because of the nature of

some of the promises made during that campaign, that actually,

because those promises may turn out to be undeliverable, that, in fact,

the referendum may, in the end, end up alienating more people than it

infuses but time will tell. Still, we should note, one of the

interesting things about this audit and previous audits show that people

don't want to be involved in national or even local

decision-making. They are what one of my former colleagues at Sussex

University, Paul Webb, used in research from America, called

Stealth Democrats. In other words, we like other people to make the

decisions for us until things get really, really serious, when we

start paying attention and put pressure on them to make decisions

in our interests. What I'd like to finish on and focus on is this

question that Ruth brought up right at the beginning of people's

likelihood to vote. As Ruth said, at the moment people, when they're

asked question, 59% say they are absolutely certain to vote were a

general election being called. And that, as Ruth said, is the highest

ever, in common with last year. However, if you look beneath that

headline figure of 59%, there are huge demographic differences there.

There are very big differences when it comes to ethnicity, so 62% of

white respondents said they were certain to vote but only 41% of

black and ethnic minority citizens said they were sure to vote. There

are huge demographic differences and disparities when it comes to

education. 75% of graduates said they were certain to vote but only

49% of people who were not graduates said the same. There are disparities

when it comes to age, and these have already been referred to. Of the

people who are aged 55 and over, 75% said they were certain to vote but

of the 18 to 34-year-olds, only 44% people said they were certain to

vote. And there are also big and linear disparities when it comes to

class, or at least occupational grade, to use the jargon. If you

break voters down into the very familiar marketing categories and

ask them, are you certain to vote, 75% of a bee voters said they were

certain to vote but that was only true of 66% of C one voters, offer

47% of C to voters and only true of 44% of T P voters. Those disparities

really worry me and I think they should worry all of us because they

undermine potentially the representative must of Parliament,

something I've already referred to. They in the long term, perhaps,

undermine the legitimacy of our democracy, and we know from

research, not just here but in other countries, particularly the United

States, that they do skew public policy very noticeably, so that

public policy tends to cater to the interests of the white, the

well-educated, the aged and the well off. That's something I think we do

need to worry about in the long and it's certainly why I, for one,

anyway, and increasingly of the opinion that we need to think about

compulsory voting. But that is a debate for another day, I know. For

now, I'll just leave you with this observation, that although we had a

very impressive turnout in the referendum, of well over 70%, and

although we have 59% of people telling the audit of the beginning

of last year and the beginning of this year that they were absolutely

certain to vote, I would not be at all surprised if this indeed were

quite a low turnout election. From all the research that I know of on

turnout at elections, turnout tends to trend down quite markedly when

the result is seen by the public, correctly or incorrectly, as a

foregone conclusion. That doesn't strike me as giving much optimism

for thinking in June lots of people will go to the polls. We also know

that if you hold elections quite soon after previous sets of

elections or national votes, you get a decline in turnout. We have the

election in 2015, we've had the referendum in 2016, we'll have local

elections in case many of you have forgotten very soon, and then we'll

have the general election. If you put those things together, I think

we will get voter fatigue and I think many voters will feel it is

not worth turning up. If you put those together with some of the

disparities I'm talking about in terms of demographics, when it comes

to turning out, I think that's something that may Theresa May won't

worry about in the short term but I think for all of us, we need to

worry about it going forward. Thank you very much, Tim. We've heard that

people may be increasingly fed up with politics, particularly by the

end of this year. Referendums are inherently divisive because of the

binary nature of them, noticing that most people say they don't want to

be involved, which will come back to in discussion, scepticism about

actual turnout, and concern about the asymmetry in terms of who

actually does vote, ending with the thought that maybe we should

therefore introduce compulsion, so a radical thought there. Alex, what is

the answer? Well, I'm going to resist the temptation of ditching

everything I was going to say and argue against compulsory voting. For

those of you who don't already know, Unlock Democracy is a grassroots

organisation. We have a strong thread of our work which is about

increasing participation in politics and changing the culture of our

politics are so whenever we look at institutional reform, we look both

that whether we think it is going to empower people and whether we think

it is going to encourage them to participate in politics, so I'd just

like to echo what Tim said about the audit and what a useful resource

that is. Obviously, one of the things we've already mentioned, both

Ruth and Joel, is the public attitude to referendums. That's

something I'm going to dig into a little bit more now. So we are still

in a position where the majority of people, according to the audit,

believe that they are an important way of deciding national questions,

particularly constitutional ones, but what we haven't seen is that

lasting impact in terms of engagement and participation. There

are a range of international examples of referendums being used

as a very positive tool for Democratic engagement and while they

can build consensus, they don't always, absolutely, so I want to

explore why we are not seeing that in the UK where as other democracies

do. I'm very aware, as Joel pointed out, that attitudes to referendums

at the moment are skewed somewhat by our feelings about the last one. So

in the interests of full disclosure and transparency, our organisation

did not have a position on whether or not the UK should be a member of

the EU. We were split about 60/40 on Brexit but we did take a decision

and were part of the formal Yes campaign in the AV referendum so we

also experience of campaigning in referendums, which was another

perspective. Our interest in referendums is fundamentally whether

or not they are a way of engaging the electorate and helping them to

build consensus and take national decisions. It is only on about the

last 20 years that referendums have started to become a regular feature

of British politics. Since 1997, we've had referendums on a wide

range of national, regional and local issues, everything from the

Good Friday Agreement, the devolution settlement and elected

mayors. They can be powerful tools for direct democracy. There was

evidence, for example, that shows that people who don't usually vote

in elections were mobilised and motivated to vote in both the

Scottish independence referendum and the Brexit referendum because they

felt that it was big, important questions and their vote would make

a difference. So referendums can empower the public. They can promote

public understanding of important issues, but it's not automatic. I

feel in the UK we have kind of imported a particular democratic

tool without giving much thought about how we should actually use it.

It depends on the extent on which referendums are used to start a

national conversation rather than just have the binary vote that Tim

mentioned. One of the main differences between the UK and other

that we don't have any clear rules that we don't have any clear rules

governing how we use them and what process should be used to implement

a particular vote and I think that if we are going to, from a

democratic point of view, learned one lesson from the recent

referendum on the EU it should be that we need to set up those rules,

even if we collectively decide we never wanted to use referendums over

again, I think we should have a set of rules that state, if they are to

be a feature of our democracy, how we should use them and in what

circumstances. So I think the first question we need to resolve is what

referendums are for. So, in many countries, they use referendums to

ratify constitutional changes and ratify constitutional changes and

this is generally how they have been used in the UK. However, because we

don't have a codified constitution, there are no concrete rules either

about what a constitution change is, so there is no clear set of

circumstances for when a referendum must be held, so, for example, we

did have referendums on directly elected local mayors, we didn't have

local referendums on the creation of the Police and Crime Commissioners,

which was an entirely new tier of government. So it's not clear from

an objective outsider point of view white elected mayors required a

referendum to be fermented but Police and Crime Commissioners

didn't. You could look at the politics of the situation and say,

perhaps it was not elected mayors want being intimate of the

government just wanted to do it, but if you are looking at the criteria

you might set out for when you use a referendum, it is not clear what the

difference between the two microstructures is.

The second set of problems is that there are no criteria that have to

be met before the referendum can be held, so for example what should

happen in the case of either result. Referendums are triggered by the

Government of the day on a subject of their construction with a

that they pick and at a time of that they pick and at a time of

their choosing. This adds a high degree of politicisation to the mix.

The subject matter of the referendum is always going to be political and

contentious and it should be. But the way we set up referendums in

this process politicises the process as well as the actual subject. I

think that is one of the things that Tim referred to about why people

pool with elections that they have some faith in the process even if

they did not like the result. The process that was used in the

European referendum in particular, and the lack of clarity about how

the outcome would be fermented, created a real conflict between

popular sovereignty and Parliamentary sovereignty. Tim has

already mentioned some reasons why he thinks that the public, despite

the referendum, people were not feeling they had a say on the

policy. I think the other reason is that there were... That they

believed that voting in the referendum would lead to an

the court case happened about the court case happened about

whether or not Parliament should have a vote, when it went back to

Parliament, who -- for many people who voted Leave, they saw any

further stages as an attempt to somehow steal the referendum from

them because it had not been clearly set out at the beginning of the

process would be. -- what the process would be. But fundamentally,

the interesting thing about why I think the process was so poor with

the EU referendum was that a let down both sides. Obviously, people

who voted Leave. It should be just happening at why wasn't going back

to Parliament? By people who had voted to remain felt they wanted

their views to be heard and to be represented, and they were not being

represented either. I think this could have been avoided if there had

been more clarity about the process and how both outcomes would be

implemented. The other issue around whether or not referendums can build

consensus or just division is the extent to which we have a public

education campaign, and I think this is one of the things we have done

very, very badly so far in the UK. If you look at other countries that

have used referendums and done it better, like New Zealand, when they

had referendums on proportional representation, there was a publicly

funded, independent body set up to run a public education campaign.

There were allegations in the EU referendum is that both the

campaigns lied, and there were always good to be contentious claims

in a political campaign, that is the nature of politics. But what voters

need our independent sources of trusted information. If we do go

ahead and continue to use referendums, I think that is a very,

very important area that we need to develop. I think it is interesting

that there was more of that in Scotland with the independence

referendum, in part because of the time frame, they had a much longer

lead-in period so it was easier for civil society as well as other

organisations to run those kinds of deliberative, educative campaigns.

And we did see, although it has dropped back now, the audit shows

there was initially more of a continued public engagement than was

the EU referendum. The other thing I think we need to flag up if we are

going to use referendums is whether or not there should be the use of

fresh rolls. Most other countries do use some kind of super majority

threshold. We did in the 1970s but the devolution referendums and we

have not since. -- with the devolution referendums. This is one

of the biggest, leaving the EU is one of the most significant

constitutional changes since we joined the EU, and it was passed on

the basis of a relatively small majority. Super requirements are

usually used exactly to prevent that scenario so that nor a small

majority in Parliament nor a small majority of the public can make a

significant national decision that is going to affect future

generations. So in Denmark, any proposals for constitutional

amendments must be put to referendum and approved by at least 40% of

registered electorate. The recent EU referendum would not have survived

that test, it was only 37%. Equally in Switzerland, and Australia,

double majorities are required for constitutional menace. So just to

end, briefly, or do we go from here? We have had the referendums that we

have had, what have we learned from this and how do we move forward? One

obvious solution would be for the next Government to pass a Referendum

Act that would create clear rules for governing the use of

referendums. Not only would we recommend that, it would require

setting up an independent public education campaign, but stipulate

the Government must have in place a plan to deliver on the outcome of

the change being proposed. I also wanted to reflect briefly on the

issues that have come to light since the referendum last year of the

finding of the audit has made clear is that we have an electorate that

feels relatively powerless to influence a distant Westminster.

Satisfaction with the system governing Britain holds at a Billy

and changed 31% and the proportion of people feeling they have

influence over national decision making is an abysmal 16%. What is

sorely lacking in our current political arrangement is an embedded

culture of political engagement and deliberation. The Leave campaign

focused heavily on the rallying cry of taking back control but it is not

just Brussels that is the problem, evidently people do not feel they

have control in to influence over politicians at home -- over politics

home. So they have to think about the way in which we do politics and

in particular how we can look at adding other deliberation into our

Parliamentary democracy. Democracy is a process, not just an event,

casting a ballot every few years, whether it is an election

referendum, is not enough, in my view. Doing politics deliberately

creates an engaged electorate that has mechanisms to scrutinise policy

and hold government to account. This is essential for democracy to

function and we need to cultivate a function and we need to cultivate a

society in which public deliberation is the norm. Fantastic, bike very

much, Alex, that was a very helpful international perspective. In your

view referendums can be empowering but we need an independent

publication... Publication campaign, independent and impartial, I think

there is these offer a House of Commons Library diffusion brand!

Calling for thresholds in referendums and thinking about how

we can embed deliberation in our political culture. So thank you very

much.