Good evening.
I'm delighted to be here this evening for the fourth of this series of speeches. The first was on our programme of constitutional reform. The second was on openness in government, and freedom of information. The third was on human rights. And tonight's is on what is perhaps the most vital issue: the key question of democratic engagement - how people and politics connect, whether those connections are working properly, and - if they are not - how we can improve them.
To begin, can I set out three basic points:
whatever their level of active political engagement, people now want more from their democracy and more from their governments. This is a new and changed reality in politics, and we as politicians have to meet this new and more assertive democratic demand
as politicians, we are genuinely concerned when there is evidence about any decline in political engagement. Engagement in politics is essential if politics is to be healthy, and a healthy politics is essential to a healthy society
but even given those concerns, I don't believe there is a crisis of political engagement in Britain
I do accept that there are problems now with democratic engagement in Britain. But what I want to argue tonight is really three things:
that the extent and the pattern of the problem of democratic engagement in Britain is more complex than any straight-line account based on declining turnout in the most recent general elections
that the overriding concern is with the already least advantaged seeing the loss of their voice in our politics: the risk of a real democratic divide
but that there are things which governments and political parties can do to improve democratic engagement - things in which this government is already engaged
This does add up, though, to a real challenge on the issue of democratic engagement - and it's a challenge to which this government can and will respond.
Of course, this issue of greater democratic engagement has been thrown into particularly sharp relief by the announcement last week by the Prime Minister of the Government's intention to put the issue of the treaty changes in the European Union to the people of this country in a referendum.
I welcome this announcement. I believe strongly that the people of Britain should have their say on this issue. And it's interesting that having made the announcement about the process of how that should take place, through a referendum, the debate over Europe has already started to move towards where it should be. Not a debate about process. But a debate on the real issues of substance: Britain's relationship with the rest of Europe, and our role within Europe. On the real value of Europe to Britain. And the real value of Britain to Europe.
But that debate, and indeed the referendum itself, will rest heavily on the key question of engagement. If people don't take much part in a debate - in this case, a debate over Europe and the rules which govern how the members of the European Community work with each other - then the value of that debate is lessened. We want to see people fully taking part now in that debate on Europe.
Behind the immediate issues like last week's announcement, the big changes driving politics now are profound forces:
globalisation, including the free movement of people as well as capital, which has led in turn to particular problems on issues such as migration, as the Prime Minister was detailing yesterday
the rise of assertiveness, with people looking for more from democracy, more from politics, more from governments
the rise of scepticism, including a decline in trust - and not just in politics and politicians, but very often in specialists and experts more generally - and in the UK in particular, linked to the rise of both assertiveness and scepticism, a decline in deference
and finally, the growth of global communications.
All these are big changes individually, but taken together, they are enormous in their scale and implication. Political disengagement is one response to them. Faced with the global scale of politics and economics, with the scale and relentlessness of the modern media, more and more people are switching away from formal political processes - either into other, alternative, forms of political expression, or - much worse - into political detachment.
Democratic engagement takes many forms: participation in democratic processes like elections; participation in political and campaigning organisations like political parties; participation in causes, like specific - or single-issue subjects often outside the electoral process; and participation in civic-oriented activities, including community-level and voluntary organisations.
Participation levels in each of these areas vary, of course. Membership of political parties, for example, is declining, while membership of cause-related organisations is increasing - so that the combined membership of the two leading environmental organisations in the UK now exceeds either of the leading political parties. Participation in each area can also differ depending on variables like gender, age, socio-economic grouping and so on - take, as one example, the low level of young people's participation in traditional political processes and organisations.
Engagement, as measured by participation in elections, and tracked by levels of turnout, is only one of these areas. But it is a very important indicator, and one which is seized upon by politicians, commentators and the electorate as a significant indicator of the health or otherwise of the body politic - of democratic engagement.
No politician, of any political party, can fail to be concerned when turnout in a general election falls, as it did again in the last general election in 2001, when for the first time ever in Britain, turnout in a general election dipped below the 60 per cent mark.
The pattern of turnout in general elections since 1945 is irregular. There is certainly no pattern - not even any recent pattern - of straight-line decline. The point of concern about the turnout in 2001 was not just its level, at 59 per cent, but the size of the 13-point drop in turnout from 1997.
Election analysts suggest that there were a number of causes for the decline in overall turnout in the 2001 election. They include a number of structural reasons:
perceptions that voting has limited practical effect
changes in composition in the electorate
the lower attachment to political parties
the greater attachment to centrist political positions, rather than traditional left and right views
greater apathy, including a reduced sense of civic duty
And there were too a number of more contingent reasons, including:
the perception that the election was a foregone conclusion
some of the issues being debated being felt to be not relevant to people's lives
the relevant status and standing of politicians
the relative contentment, especially economically, of the electorate with the government
the limited appeal, and I say this in a completely non-political way, of the principal opposition
People feel that the decisions they make in the ballot box may have a greater or at least a more immediately direct impact locally than nationally. Yet turnout in local elections is much lower than at general elections - and always has been. Fifty years ago, turnout in local elections in England was 48 per cent. In the last local elections in England, it was 35 per cent - but in each case, both figures were some 25 percentage points lower than national general elections at about the same time. Turnout in European parliamentary elections is lower still, down to 24 per cent in Britain at the time of the last Euro-elections in 1999.
Britain certainly has a problem with turnout. But it's far from the only country which does so. In the USA, for instance, the presidential election in 2000 was the closest for years. Whichever level the vote was sliced, whether it was by the Supreme Court sitting in solemn conclave or by electoral workers sitting on sunny sidewalks in Florida running checks in public on hanging chads, the tightness of the vote was the same, with - eventually - Al Gore actually taking more of the popular vote but George W Bush being elected. Yet the turnout, at 51 per cent, was amongst the lowest ever.
Britain ranks in the top third in the international turnout league tables produced by respected organisations like IDEA, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. In their most recent study of elections in a total of 172 countries since 1945, IDEA says that average turnout in the UK across that period was 75 per cent, ranking it at No 55 in the league table (for interest, the top three - some of them with very few elections to look at - were Italy, Cambodia and the Seychelles, while the worst turnouts were in Djibouti, Egypt and Mali.)
And the national-local pattern in Britain is reflected elsewhere too. In state-wide elections in the US in 1998, for example, turnout was 36 per cent of the voting age population. Turnout in California was 47 per cent, though at local levels it could be lower: in relaxed Monterey, for example, it was 38 per cent.
Yet in Europe, the pattern is different. Average turnout levels in sub-national elections in Austria, for example, were 79 per cent - though in Vienna it was down to 69 per cent. In Ireland, turnout levels in local elections were closer to UK figures - though at 50 per cent, still well above those here. In urban Dublin, though, turnout was much lower, at an average of 37 per cent - pretty close to UK levels.
In the UK, some are already forecasting further problems with turnout. The Electoral Commission and the Hansard Society recently published some important work in the form of an audit of political engagement. Some of the findings make, I'm afraid, for pretty depressing reading, including:
at just 50 per cent, the interest level in politics is the lowest for 30 years
only 51 per cent said they intended to vote at the next election. While these kind of figures tend to rise as an election approaches and campaigning makes an impact, this sort of number looks as though it may be in line with the 59 per cent overall average turnout figure at the last election
Only two in five people can correctly name their local MP - lower figures than a decade ago
Political knowledge in general is low: barely a quarter of those surveyed knew that the statement that general elections have to take place every four years is untrue - and, in what I obviously think is a quite staggering fact, that amazingly only 39 per cent know that not all members of the Cabinet are MPs
The Electoral Commission suggests that the implications of all these figures are clear: people don't much like politics; they think that politics is something which is done by and for others; they show that politics is certainly already a minority activity; and more worryingly still, they show that politics is on the verge of becoming a minority interest.
But it isn't all doom and gloom. Nationally, three quarters feel they have a duty as citizens to vote. And about the same proportion make it very clear that they want to have a say in how the country is run.
I think this is the point: that such findings tend to show that key indicators of democratic engagement, like electoral turnout figures, are complicated. More importantly, people's attitudes towards politics are complex, sometimes even contradictory. Politicians and the media often tend to be drawn - and, mutually, to draw each other - towards simplified explanations of the complexities of politics. But issues like political engagement, like trust, like delivery, are rarely simple.
For instance, the evidence seems to show that trust in politicians to put the national interest first over party interest was never high, is not high now, and has fallen. People are often deeply sceptical about claims put forward by any government, of whatever political stripe. Yet at the same time, satisfaction with democracy has actually increased over recent decades, especially at local level - where, curiously enough, turnout in elections is a good deal lower than turnout at national elections.
In fact, the key concepts of a democracy are closely intertwined:
Engagement is vital: governments communicate with, listen to and respect the voices and votes of their country's citizens
With engagement, comes legitimacy: the permission to act delivered by the democratic process and the democratic decision
That permission to act leads to performance and delivery by a government: the competence or otherwise with which a government enacts its instruction set from the electorate
Competence feeds in turn into satisfaction - whether governments help citizens with what they need and want for themselves, their families and their communities
Satisfaction then feeds into and back from trust: how far governments can be relied upon now, and in the future, which in turn relates back to both legitimacy and to engagement
This is the democratic model: complex, mutual, self-reinforcing. But it isn't important primarily as a piece of political theory. It's important because it matters in practice. It matters in practice because its operation is how people make their voices heard, how they make clear what choices they want for themselves and for their country, and how they want to determine the political outcomes they want to see.
In this balanced equation, individual elements matter hugely. And though some of these concepts are abstractions, when they are disrupted, the effects can be real, and can be large scale. Trust in politics is notoriously hard to define, for example. But the absence of trust is real enough. If people don't trust government advice on safety issues, for example, whether it's BSE or MMR, there is a real risk: of disease, of illness, or worse. Or if people don't trust a government's handling of the economy, such as if confidence in a country's currency falls, the resultant economic collapse is real: real jobs lost, real assets like house purchases hit, real companies closing.
Like trust, democratic engagement is a key part in the process. But again, it is far from straightforward. Most politicians, for example, are concerned - rightly - when problems with democratic engagement appear. But we politicians can sometimes in relation to engagement fall into the trap of a producerist perspective. Engagement, we sometimes think, matters because we need to connect, we need to get our message across, we need to try to secure trust, satisfaction, legitimacy.
Of course that is true. Politicians do need to do all those things. But the real importance of democratic engagement is not from the producerist point of view of the political players. The real importance of democratic engagement is in ensuring that people do have the voice that they want and they voice they deserve.
Tough and unpalatable though it may be for politicians, it may be that falling levels of turnout, for instance, indicate the level of engagement that people actually now want: that, for a variety of reasons, people no longer want the level of engagement they had fifty years ago, when more than four-fifths of people voted, as opposed to three-fifths now. That's reflected in figures suggesting a long-term decline over the last 50 years in seeing voting as a civic duty.
Evidence shows that politics is not particularly important to most people's lives. Over 80 per cent of people think that family is important, followed by work, friends, leisure time. Many of these issues, led by family, are on rising trends - with friends in particular showing sharp rises in salience. By contrast, the importance of religion and of politics is low, and declining: over the last decade, the proportion of people rating politics as very important has fallen now to under 10 per cent.
But then, it was never that high. Not even looking at importance, but at the lower indicator of interest in politics, in 1973 as many as 60 per cent of people across the UK declared themselves to be fairly or even very interested in politics, while 39 per cent said they were not particularly or not at all interested. By 2001, after the supposed rise of apathy and the problems of political engagement exemplified by that year's general election result, the figures were almost exactly the same: 59 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.
Britain, though, may be more disengaged than other countries. Across Europe, for instance, interest in politics is a good deal higher. Asked how often they followed politics in the news on television or radio or the daily papers, over 60 per cent of people in Denmark, in Greece, in Germany say they do so every day. The UK comes bottom of the list, with fewer than a quarter doing so.
That's one of the reasons, of course, why the media downgrade politics (look at the decline in coverage of Parliament, for instance: at the same time as many media organisations pray in aid the primacy of Parliament in attacking so-called government spin, those same organisations barely cover Parliament themselves: even in broadsheet newspapers, coverage of Parliament often amounts to nothing more than the - often highly amusing - sketch pieces by name Parliamentary commentators). And there may be a chicken and egg here, with the media itself playing a key role: if trust in politicians is low, especially compared to the doctors, the nurses, the judges who head the trust league tables, then trust in the media is even lower, and trust in the media in Britain is the lowest across Europe: in Belgium, in Spain, in the Netherlands as many as 60 per cent of people trust their media - in the UK, it's less than 20 per cent.
Leaving the media issue aside, and - whisper it softly of course - but it may be that there's nothing much wrong in the kind of priorities that some of these sort of figures indicate. Politicians making speeches such as this, audiences such as this listening to speeches such as this - for them, indeed for us, politics is highly important. Fortunately, most people take a different view. Politics is important, but not as important - nowhere near as important - as other things, like their families, their jobs, their friends. That seems to me to be both right and healthy.
But it isn't without its own problems, either. The real concern about turnout, especially for progressive governments and progressive political parties, is not the awkwardness for politicians that it implies, but the virtual disenfranchisement it indicates for some of the most disadvantaged groups in society.
This differential impact of engagement is the real problem and the major concern facing us as progressive politicians. Within a largely unchanged overall level of political interest in Britain there are some genuinely concerning undercurrents:
though political interest as a whole is both too low and largely unchanged over time, within that there is a widening gap if political interest is disaggregated by social grouping. Amongst the highest socio-economic groups, political interest is relatively high and relatively stable. But in less advantaged socio-economic bands, political interest is both lower and declining - and declining sharply in the most disadvantaged groups of all
involvement with single-issue protest groups is often seen as an indicator that political engagement is high, but that it is no longer mainly focused through traditional means such as voting or political parties. There is a good deal in this argument: whatever your views on Iraq, for instance, there is no doubt that the sheer scale of the number of people taking to the streets in last year's protest marches was both significant and significantly different from the recent pattern of previous protests.
But while such protest activities are rising, they are strongly skewed: whatever the indicator chosen, the evidence shows that by whichever measure - socio-economic groups, say, or educational attainment - such activities are predominantly carried out by the already advantaged
so while there is an increase in people of all social groups claiming not to be engaged in any form of political participation, it is the already least-advantaged groups in our society who are forming a disproportionately large part of this growing politically-disengaged core
So in the last election, though turnout overall was low, it was lowest in areas of real economic and social deprivation. There is a clear and well-established relationship between turnout and the social characteristics of individual constituencies. Electoral academics suggest that a high proportion of lone parent families in a constituency, for instance, tends to be associated with lower turnouts, while large numbers of so-called wealthy suburban achievers tends to be associated with high turnout.
That kind of pattern was reflected clearly in specific constituency results in the 2001 election. Some of the areas where turnout was lowest were amongst the most deprived in Britain: Liverpool Riverside, with turnout at 34 per cent. Central Manchester, and Salford. Central Leeds, Tyne Bridge, a number of Glasgow constituencies, Birmingham Ladywood, Vauxhall. At the other end of the turnout scale are some of the most advantaged areas of Britain: Winchester, for example, with at 72 per cent the highest turnout of the whole election, is regularly named as one of the most attractive and advantaged towns in the UK.
But yet again, the detailed pattern is more variegated: a number of the areas with high turnouts, like North Norfolk, Devon West, Tiverton and so on often have pockets of real poverty and deprivation, often concealed. And one of the areas which by any definition is one of the wealthiest in the country, Kensington and Chelsea, had one of the lowest turnout levels, even with high-profile Michael Portillo as its then-MP.
The challenge for all governments and all political parties in Britain is to work to resolve the central problem of engagement: that the change in turnout and the increase in protest activity is leaving a significant minority without a clear voice in and to government. This is a challenge we simply have to meet if people are not to be in effect disenfranchised and if we want a healthy and vigorous democracy and politics.
I believe we will best solve the problem of increased voter disenfranchisement amongst the least advantaged in our society by political parties putting forward programmes and policies which strongly connect with these people and which offer them hope, ambition and the best route out of their difficulties. That is what policies such as the New Deal have always been about.
In tackling the problems of democratic engagement more widely, we are taking steps to make improvements, in three main areas - constitutional change, new forms of engagement and specific electoral processes.
On constitutional change our programme has been and remains extensive. Devolution in Scotland, Wales and - as far as we've been able - Northern Ireland. New democratic governance in London, and elsewhere. Referendums on regional government. Reform of the House of Lords. Reform of the judicial system, including the appointment of judges and a new supreme court.
I'm not saying that these reforms have a direct or an immediate impact on democratic engagement. The evidence here is cloudier. But our overall constitutional reform programme is based on three key progressive values: enhancing the credibility and effectiveness of our public institutions; strengthening our democracy and public engagement with decision-making; and increasing trust and accountability in public bodies. And I believe it is apparent that, based on these values, we are modernising our key constitutional arrangements in a way that will make them more fit for purpose in the twenty-first century, and more relevant to the new demands of citizens in a democracy.
We have also introduced a number of new forms of engagement with people, in a number of different ways. People can and do now engage, and in many cases engage closely, with what used to be traditional forms of governance in new ways - as members of primary care trust boards, for example, or as governors of foundation hospitals, or by election to New Deal for Communities Boards. In many, many cases these approaches have tapped reservoirs of knowledge, experience, talent and enthusiasm which more traditional methods have failed to secure.
And we are taking steps to increase engagement by reducing the barriers to political participation, including making elections easier to take part in. That means trying out new forms of electoral processes, including rolling registration and postal voting on demand, and remote voting methods to make voting easier.
At local government level, these pilots have, I believe, been successful, leading on average to increases in turnout of around 15 percentage points. And in the combined European and local elections in June, more than 14million people in four electoral regions will now be taking part in all-postal voting pilots, which could lead to further increases in turnout. We will also, in the autumn, be holding referendums in three areas of the UK on new regional assemblies.
And I'd like, in passing, to pay tribute here to all the electoral administrators who have helped us deliver the reforms we've already undertaken. Putting political changes into practice is very much down to their terrific work.
There is more - much more - to do. We have an overall target for some time after 2006 of a multi-channel general election - that is, choices in the way people can vote: in person, by post, on the net, perhaps even by text messaging. There are real issues to be resolved here - issues about confidence, issues about security - but we are working to achieve that.
In this work, the Electoral Commission is a key partner, and I'd like to thank the Commission for all the work they do, including the work on engagement. That very much includes their report, Voting For Change, which was published within the last year, and which sets out a range of proposals designed to improve our electoral systems - centring on a proposal to introduce individual registration. We are costing the proposals, and considering their effects. But I can say that they are important and valuable ideas, and I expect to be in a position to respond to them in more detail later this year.
Political parties themselves have a real role to play here. Some talk about the hollowing-out of political parties. Others talk near-apocalyptically about political parties being all but memberless in some years' time. The future of political parties is largely a matter for the parties themselves, with the electorate. But the Government can play a part. The energy being channelled at present into single-issue politics is palpable. But we believe that we do need strong political parties to assimilate a wide range of issues, and to provide people with choice across the issue spectrum.
Some argue that means more state funding of political parties, and the Electoral Commission is due to report on this issue this summer. We will be considering their proposals on this issue very carefully.
Some of the solutions canvassed to tackle problems with democratic engagement look too extreme for British politics. Voting in some countries, for example, is compulsory. Voting was made compulsory in Belgium as long ago as 1892, in Australia in 1924. Turnout levels are correspondingly high -according to IDEA, 85 per cent and 84 per cent respectively, though some countries such as the Netherlands have practised compulsory voting but have since abolished it. Even so, evidence suggests that on average, making voting compulsory only increases turnout on average by less than 10 per cent. I doubt that any political party in Britain would advocate such a step here.
There is also discussion about issues such as whether younger people are excluded from formal political processes for too long, and whether the franchise should be extended to people under the age of 18. I've said, as have others in the Government and in my political party, that there needs to be a proper debate on this issue - and I welcome the recent report from the Electoral Commission on this as an important contribution to that debate.
Beyond this, there are key issues on engagement. People are engaged in democracy and in politics when there is real choice. In the UK, that means real differentiation between political parties, and I believe we are now seeing that kind of choice, those kind of dividing lines, much more clearly.
We also need to think through much more radically how we put those choices to people - not just in mechanisms such as a referendum, but in elections more widely, including general elections. Some have argued that the way we have done general elections in the UK for the last dozen years or so now itself needs to be modified, and that general elections now need to be much more localised, much more participatory, much more personal - moving from top-down processes by political parties to bottom-up involvement, based on greater engagement. My own political party thinks there is a great deal of value in this changed approach for the future.
Some time over the next period, we will as a Government be going to the country in a general election. I don't know when the next election will be. But I do know on what basis we as a government will be putting our programme and our priorities to the people, centring on a number of key elements: building prosperity for all, providing the kind of public services people want, and creating the kind of safe, fair and decent society we all want to see.
I want to see people respond to that programme, and indeed to programmes put forward by the opposition, in an engaged, active way. For all the concern about engagement, about participation, about turnout levels, I believe that the people of this country will want the opportunity to make their voice heard. They will want to have their say.
I think we as politicians do have a clear responsibility to improve political engagement, to address the democratic deficit, to make sure that politics and we as politicians are connecting with people: that we are pursuing their priorities, that we are delivering what people want from politics, from politicians and from the political system.
I know those are difficult objectives. But they are objectives no democratic politician should avoid, or should want to avoid having placed upon them. That is what democracy requires. That is what people want. It is our job to deliver that. And it is a job this government is dedicated to doing.