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The Herald Scotland

Giving young people the vote is an inspired move

I am one of the youth workers who supported young people to campaign for votes at 16 in Scotland 10 years ago, during the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum. The votes at 16-17 went through the Scottish Parliament with support from all MSPs of all political parties. During the debate many MSPs praised the superb contribution that young people had made to the independence debate, saying that they brought new ideas and dared to ask politicians difficult questions, and convinced them that the voice of children and young people had to be listened to. We had already established our Scottish Youth Parliament which is consulted by the Scottish Parliament on all issues affecting children and young people. The UK and Welsh Youth Parliaments were created much later. Many adults do not think that 16-17-year-olds are smart enough, and do not have enough experience of life to be be trusted to vote. Many adults do not even bother to vote and are no more knowledgeable about the many complex political issues our parliaments need to address, so why do they argue that we do not need to listen to our children? Our children are having to live with the horrendous problems of sexual exploitation, homelessness, poverty, drug barons exploiting them and their families, lack of mental health services, bullying and violence in schools, economic decline and climate change. We should be doing everything we can to convince children that democracy can work for them, that they can contribute their idealism, their energy and their solutions to child and youth issues that they have more knowledge of than adults. With fewer children reading newspapers, watching or listening to the news, to inform them on political matters, yes there is a danger that TikTok and other powerful social media could influence how they will use their votes. But this is already a problem for adult voters. Max Cruickshank, Glasgow. Read more letters Change Holyrood voting system With elections for Holyrood taking place next year, I wonder how many of your readers are aware of just how grossly unfair the method of electing our MSPs is compared to the arrangements in place for the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies? Having gained 47.7% of the total votes cast in 2021, the SNP won 62 of the 73 constituency seats. If the flawed system of first past the post had operated for [[Holyrood]], the [[SNP]] would have won a thumping majority, as the Tories won only five constituency seats and Labour just two. However, the 56 regional seats were allocated using the d'Hondt method. It is worth remembering that these MSPs are chosen by their parties; they are not individuals whom we have actually voted for on a ballot paper. This method saw the [[SNP]] gain only two additional seats, leaving it with a total of 64 seats, just one short of an overall majority. Meanwhile the Tories picked up 26 regional seats and Labour 20. It is worth reminding ourselves that at the last UK General Election, Labour won 411 seats out of the total of 650 with just 37.7% of the votes cast. Compare the arrangements here in Scotland with the election procedures operating in the other two devolved assemblies. In Northern Ireland the 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) are all elected by Single Transferable Vote (STV) with each voter able to rank the candidates and vote for however many candidates are on the ballot paper. The d'Hondt system is then used but only to determine the allocation of positions in the country's executive government. It is not used to allocate additional seats in the Assembly. Why do the same voting arrangements not apply to [[Holyrood]]? In Wales, 40 of the Assembly members are voted using the first past the post system with the remaining 20 seats allocated using a form of the d'Hondt system. This is where the arrangements applied here in Scotland are so unfair. Whereas in Wales just 33% of the available regional seats are awarded using the d'Hondt system, here in Scotland it is 49%. Dividing the population of Scotland by the number of regional seats gives us one regional seat per 98,000 of the population. Compare this with Wales, where a similar sum gives us one regional seat per 155,000 of the population. So why do we have so many regional MSPs in Scotland? It is widely believed that the d'Hondt method as applied here in Scotland was insisted on by Tony Blair. It is hard not to believe that it was chosen deliberately to make it almost impossible for the SNP to ever obtain a working majority of MSPs. Surely we should be electing our MSPs using the STV system that we use when electing our local government councillors. Eric Melvin, Edinburgh. Scotland's raw deal The election of 37 Scottish MPs at the last General Election has been a disaster for Scotland, as these MPs have effectively been voiceless in Keir Starmer's UK Government, which won a large majority at Westminster with only 20% of the votes of the electorate. With the commendable exception of Brian Leishman, these Scottish MPs have toed the London-orchestrated party line and remained silent while Scotland has been stitched up. Pensioners, children, Waspi women, the disabled and the poor have been denied the support one would expect of a purportedly socialist party while, contrary to the rhetoric, major deals on industrial infrastructure have been committed to projects in England without comparable investment in Scotland to benefit the workers of this country. The Acorn CCS Project in Scotland was set to go ahead yet £22 billion was committed by the UK Government to nascent projects in England while Acorn and Scottish Cluster partners have been advised they may receive a token amount of around £200 million in development funding. This same relatively paltry amount of around £200m is what may be paid out by the UK Government 'to support the area's economic transition' while the Grangemouth refinery is shut down and hundreds of workers lose their jobs; yet the same Labour UK Government immediately committed to maintaining operations at the loss-making Lindsey Oil Refinery while refusing to reveal the cost to taxpayers. This follows UK Government funding of £2.5bn to keep Scunthorpe's British Steel plant open. As if this continued heavily-distorted UK infrastructure investment wasn't bad enough for Scotland, the Labour Party has rowed back from repealing the Tory's Internal Market Act which further restricts the already limited powers of the Scottish Government. To add insult to injury, we now learn that the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray (aka Starmer's Scottish poodle), has the audacity to claim he has no role in delivering devolution deals for Scottish cities as disingenuous justification for Glasgow and Edinburgh not receiving the funding provided by the [[UK Government]] for City Region deals in England ("Glasgow and [[Edinburgh]] need both of our governments to step up on devolution", [[The Herald]], July 16). In the 2026 Holyrood election it is important that everyone who believes in democracy and cares for the futures of our children to grow up, study, live and prosper in Scotland, gets out and votes for a party that will speak up for the right of the people of Scotland to determine their own future via the directly-elected Scottish Parliament. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry. Scottish Secretary Ian Murray (Image: Tejas Sandhu) A major worry for Ireland Martin Togneri contends 'the evidence of over-reliance on inward investment in Ireland is sparse" (Letters, July 8). Irish government statisticians, the Bank of Ireland, and independent researchers beg to differ. Multinationals (many with global reach) represent less than 3% of the active business base in Ireland. Their economic impact, however, is vastly disproportionate. These corporates account for 80-85% of the value of Irish exports, 50% of employment in Ireland's trading sector, and the major part of the Government's corporate tax take. Repatriated profits alone account for around a quarter of Irish GDP. Ireland also runs a consistently high trade surplus with the US (for example, €50 billion in 2024). Moreover, 70% of the flow of Ireland's inward investment hails from the US. Together these facts make the Irish economy especially vulnerable to Trump tariffs designed to re-balance trade and re-shore US jobs. Ewen Peters, Newton Mearns.