‘Let 16-year-olds vote to catch up with modern age’

MPs have called for the voting age to be lowered to 16
PA Wire/PA Images
Kate Proctor4 April 2019
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MPs have called for the voting age to be lowered to 16, warning the Government that it risks being on “wrong side of history” if the franchise is not extended.

The issue was raised in a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament yesterday, with MPs from Labour and the Scottish National Party supporting the move.

Senior Tories Nicky Morgan and Sir Peter Bottomley back cutting the voting age to show the next generation the party has something to offer them.

Scotland allows 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in local and Scottish elections — which let them vote in the 2016 Scottish referendum. Wales is also planning to decrease the voting age for Assembly elections from 2021.

Cat Smith, Labour’s shadow minister for voter engagement and youth affairs, said: “It is our duty as politicians to catch up with the modern age. The Government are finding themselves on the wrong side of history.”

Labour MP Jim McMahon, who called for the debate and in 2017 tabled a Private Members’ Bill on votes at 16, said: “Less than 50 years ago, 18, 19 and 20-year-olds were denied the right to vote.

"Our democracy and our franchise have always been evolving.” He later added that it was “scandalous” MPs have not voted on the issue.

But the minister for the constitution, Chloe Smith, said it would not be given further consideration as lowering the age would break the Conservative Party manifesto.

Tory MP Alex Chalk, who opposes the change, said there must be consistency if it is introduced. “I think the electorate would find it extremely curious if we were to say that a person has the maturity to decide who should be the Government ... yet does not have the maturity to decide to use a tanning booth.”

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