Bill to allow 16 year olds to vote to be debated in parliament

I was agin' it at first because I thought that the young should be protected from the responsibility of voting until 18 so allowed to be a carefree in that department just for a little bit longer.
I've been reassured that there'll be an educational programme to produce well-informed, civically responsible voters and that can't be bad. As someone has observed the franchise is wasted on some people who don't use their vote and there are adult voters who won't consider as much as a well informed youngster.*And voting in the UK is not obligatory* so they don't have to bother if they don't want.
An almost more interesting debate is the age at which people can marry , join the army etc. Those arguments are woth an essay or a book. We should decide on an age for adulthood and stick to it and then youngsters can aim at an age at which they stand on their own two feet , not fear it.
Sociey can't decide whether to mollycoddle young people or force them into adulthood at 16 by giving them the vote.
Yours faithfully haven't properley thought it through yet.

I'm another active Lib Dem but disagree with the party about lowering the voting age.
At 21, just graduating, I had no clue. The railroad of school and university shields the young from facing the economic and social realities of life.
18 is quite young enough to be able to vote - if a young person can be bothered. Which, as we know, most can't.

No don’t agree.. Some will deliberate but most will vote the same as their parents as influenced by what they hear. Others will vote based on personality. Then again when young teenagers they might well veer to the extreme right or extreme left just to be “different”. They lack experience and may well be influenced by the Daily Mail. Of course all the above could also apply to the older generation.

16 year olds have far too many other things to deal with, GCSE's, school, friendship groups, online activity, music, socialising, boyfriend/girlfriend issues etc etc. Imo they do not have the time (and probably the inclination) to spend the requisite amount of time to understand and decide which party they should vote for.

Graphite 13.03.

Thank you for the link- I've just finished watching that Nov 25 Youth Parliament. What wonderful, teenage, articulate, values driven, hopeful, diverse parliamentarians they made.

The 11.36 contribution from the Member of Youth Parliament (MYP) for Trafford was apt and topical. He reminded us how the bombing, in the 1941 WW2 blitz, of Old Trafford football stadium, home to Manchester United FC , was rebuilt by its diverse population and created unity in the city.

Current trending news- Jim Radcliffe, Britain's seventh richest man, living in Monaco in order to avoid UK taxes, has the audacity to make inflammatory and divisive comments about UK being "colonised by immigrants". Yet his Manchester Untied football club, as this proud teenage MYP reminded us, was rebuilt by a diverse immigrant population, over 80 years ago, and brought unity to Manchester. Yet Radcliffe promotes division whilst not even paying a penny in UK taxes.

I would take the teenage MYP values over Radcliffe's values any day of the week. UK needs more values and hope in government. 16 year old teenagers are in education, debating political topics that have meaning to society and making choices and decisions that will affect their future and society's future. I support the vote for 16 year olds.

knspol

16 year olds have far too many other things to deal with, GCSE's, school, friendship groups, online activity, music, socialising, boyfriend/girlfriend issues etc etc. Imo they do not have the time (and probably the inclination) to spend the requisite amount of time to understand and decide which party they should vote for.

Whereas their parents have nothing to do but go out to work, raise the children, do the shopping, cook the meals, clean the house, do the washing and ironing, help out friends snd family, organise summer holidays, plan a birthday party, help with the homework, get quotes for house snd car renewal insurance. take thr car for its service … thank goodness they're not too busy

I don't support 16 year olds voting as I don't think most of them have enough knowledge or experience. They haven't yet learned how to pay their way in the world or what policies will affect them in order to do that. I recognise that a lot of people don't understand what they are voting for really but don't see that we should compound that problem especially with Reform in the offing!

Well it was in their manifesto, I doubt it’ll be a hill that the Tories want to die on especially as they believe in 16 year olds being able to vote for their leader so I’m betting it’ll become last. As a pp said, the world won’t end

What exactly are the arguments for allowing 16 year olds to vote? (apart from the fact that Keir Starmer wants it?)

mine cant decide what to wear never mind vote, should be 21

I agree with Casdon, better at 16 when doing "adult" things is a novelty, than 18 when there are so many distractions that are more interesting than politics.
Try to get more into the habit of voting, then hopefully they will go on doing it. most will know from the politics we're beseiged with on news / social media, where their sympathies lie, they're not going to spend hours reading the full manifesto of every party on the local ballot paper, they can easily make time to get to a polling station.
Some young people will be easily influenced by celebs / looks etc, but then most adults have knee jerk reactions to things & believe their designated source of opinion, or get taken in by self-serving maverick demagogues, & that's comparable.
So not a problem in my view.

roxie39

What exactly are the arguments for allowing 16 year olds to vote? (apart from the fact that Keir Starmer wants it?)

This is a good article from the House of Lords library

lordslibrary.parliament.uk/votes-at-16/

A tremendous amount of assumption here about how young people behave and how they would vote.

Thank you Tuliptree for the link to the Lords library paper:

David Runciman, honorary professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, argues that “no-one should assume they know how young people are going to vote—the point of any democracy worthy of the name is that it should be unpredictable.

According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, there are around 1.6 million 16 and 17 year-olds in the UK. While this sounds like a big number, it is equivalent to less than 3% of the UK’s entire over 16 population, so it would represent only a small increase to the overall size of the electorate (though not everyone included in the ONS population estimates is entitled to vote—for instance those who do not meet nationality requirements).

In Westminster’s first-past-the-post electoral system, what would matter is not just the total number of potential new voters created by lowering the voting age, but also their voting pattern across individual constituencies. ONS analysis of the 2017 general election results found there were 88 constituencies (around 14% of seats) where the number of 16- and 17-year-olds was greater than the winning margin. House of Lords Library analysis based on the same methodology found this rose to 120 constituencies for the 2024 general election (around 18% of seats). Writing about the 2017 election, the ONS noted that if 16- and 17-year-olds had been able to vote in such seats, it would not necessarily have changed the outcome—it would depend on their rate of turnout and which candidates they decided to vote for. Dr Christine Huebner of the University of Sheffield and Dr Jan Eichhorn of the University of Edinburgh—academics whose work examines the impacts of lowering the voting age—observe that “no voter group participates at 100%, and young people do not vote homogenously, so the actual number of constituencies with potential changes to election outcomes would be much lower.

Grantanow

This is heresy but I think raising the.voting age to 21 or more could be a good idea.

😄
Not heresy just sensible advice.
Going down to 16 is simply too young, and what next, 14?

‘Not heresy just sensible advice.
Going down to 16 is simply too young, and what next, 14? ‘

Oh the good old slippery slope argument

Elections only usually come around every five years so some people now wait until they are nearly 23 for their first opportunity to vote. These years are crucial for people’s futures and they should have a say. I also believe prisoners should be able to vote ( a postal vote for the last constituency they lived in not a taxi to the nearest polling station) . They might be in prison but still have families who are affected by government decisions on things like education.

Tuliptree

‘Not heresy just sensible advice.
Going down to 16 is simply too young, and what next, 14? ‘

Oh the good old slippery slope argument

It’s sometimes what happens isn’t it? From 21 to 18 and now thinking of 16. The ‘old slippery slope’ exists in spite of your sarcasm.

DS54

Elections only usually come around every five years so some people now wait until they are nearly 23 for their first opportunity to vote. These years are crucial for people’s futures and they should have a say. I also believe prisoners should be able to vote ( a postal vote for the last constituency they lived in not a taxi to the nearest polling station) . They might be in prison but still have families who are affected by government decisions on things like education.

They lose the right to vote by their crimes.

‘It’s sometimes what happens isn’t it? From 21 to 18 and now thinking of 16. The ‘old slippery slope’ exists in spite of your sarcasm.’

In order for your point not to be a slippery slope fallacy you would have to produce evidence that votes at 18 has proved to be undesirable and that there is a body of opinion advocating for votes at 24.

Oops 14😂

It doesn’t work like that…21 used to be considered the right age, then 18 was considered the right age, and now 16 is going to be considered.In the future 14 may then be advocated for.

I really do wish that people would engage with the evidence and not just speak their personal prejudiced views based on no evidence.

electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/votes-at-16/

Where people see votes at 16 in action, they don’t want to go back. In Scotland around a third of adults supported votes at 16 before its introduction, now they have experienced it,60 per cent back the idea.

Sir Keir Starmer said that “if you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your armed forces, then you ought to be able to vote”. Some of Labour’s political opponents—the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru—supported lowering the voting age to 16 in their manifestos.

www.sps.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/assets/doc/Votes%20at%2016%20in%20Scotland.pdf

It’s only regressive parties, the Tories and Reform who oppose.

It may be those political parties Graphite but we here on the forum are talking of our own opinions on the matter.

Labour wants to ban under 16s from social media but the minute they reach 16 they want them to vote!

There will surely be yet another U turn when the penny drops.

There is ample of scientific evidence that there is a lack of consequences linked to actions in young people caused by the way the brain is maturing. The Prefrontal Cortex which is responsible for complex, rational, and long-term thinking is the last part to fully mature. Politically the parties might have their ideas but you can't just trounce science. That is what I base my argument against voting at 16.