Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Monday 2nd November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 2, a probing amendment suggesting that the voting age perhaps be changed to 17 rather than 16. I did this for a number of reasons, to get a proper debate about this.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, referred to the Welsh Senedd elections and the fact that it did not do any harm. I am sure it did not, but it is not exactly the same as voting for the national Government. Turnout did not even reach 52% across the whole of Wales in the Senedd elections earlier this year, so we are talking about quite a different scale of representation.

There is one sentence in the Labour manifesto on this:

“We will increase the engagement of young people in our vibrant democracy, by giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in all elections”.


We have not seen that outcome really happen in other parts of the United Kingdom that have already adopted voting at a younger age. I am not going to have a row, because I appreciate it was in the manifesto, but it is useful to point out that research the Electoral Commission shared with us from across several countries and states that have lowered their voting ages shows that, when enfranchised, 16 and 17 year-olds tend to vote in greater numbers than those enfranchised at 18. According to the Electoral Commission, you are more likely to vote when you are 16 and 17, but then not when you are 18.

There is something interesting going on here; there is a bit of a transition. One of the reasons why, traditionally, I have opposed changing the vote from the age of adulthood is that there is a significant change in what happens in the rest of your life when you turn 18. There are significant differences between what a 16 year-old and a 17 year-old can do. A 17 year-old can drive a car. They can fly a plane and get a private pilot’s licence. They can become a blood donor—you cannot do that when you are 16. They can join the Armed Forces—or rather, to be precise, they can join the Army as an officer at the age of 17 years and nine months; they cannot do that in any of the other Armed Forces. You cannot become a police constable until you are 18.

There are so many things on which we have changed the law, in the past five years or so, to stop people doing things until they turn the age of adulthood. So I am trying to get a sense of why the Government have chosen 16 in particular, recognising that this can be an age when a lot of young people will not even have taken their GCSEs, beyond the one line in the Labour manifesto. When you turn 18, you can do things such as serve on a jury and get a tattoo—I did not know you had to be 18 to get a tattoo until I looked it up. You cannot make a will until you are 18, which is quite surprising; perhaps we can change that in another Bill. You certainly cannot get a credit card or buy alcohol—well, not legally.

Another thing is that young people’s lives are very much on our minds, as we are talking about the statistical NEETs. The ONS reckons that there are 57,000 NEETs between the ages of 16 and 17. Back in 2008, I think the Labour Government made it a criminal offence for those young people; they had to take full responsibility if they were not in education or training or did not have a job. Before the last Friday in June when they were 16, it was their parents’ responsibility to keep them in school. I understand why the Government never chose to enact the enforcement or penalty sections of that Act, but they had done it to criminalise young people—and yet today, they want to do something quite different. They have no real focus on why those 57,000 young people are knowingly breaking the law, and it is their responsibility. By the way, councils are supposed to know what every young person is doing under their broader statutory duty on safeguarding children; they are supposed to know exactly what every child in their area is up to. Why do we not have more focus on giving young people the potential and the future that they desperately need, rather than choosing 16 as the age at which they can start voting?

I have some sympathy with my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister on the referendum; that is an interesting concept. By the way, to match this amendment, I have tabled a later amendment on reducing the age for candidates to 17. I wanted to go a little further in seeing what the Government say about the ages of 16 and 17. The Government say that they can work, pay tax—you can actually do both of those things below 16—and serve in the military. That is correct, but those things need parental consent; they need both parents to consent if the young people are in different houses or their residence is split between two houses. Then there is their contribution to society more broadly, which already happens with young people; we see that in wonderful examples such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and many other schemes, and young people have won Points of Light awards in the past.

What is it about 16? I feel that the Government think there will be an electoral advantage to this—it is as simple as that. They should be careful what they wish for. Polling not that long ago showed that more people were going to vote Reform and Green than for the Labour Party. Do they really think this is the right thing to focus on at 16?

I am concerned about the level of education that would be deployed to achieve this. There is a lot going on, which I will come on to in later amendments to Schedule 1. Nevertheless, it comes back to why they have picked 16, and this is what I am trying to get from the Government. There are plenty of things we have barred them from doing. They cannot get married—they can in Scotland, but not in the rest of the United Kingdom. There are multiple things for which we have lifted the age gap. This really needs a better description than one sentence—three-quarters of which is about things that can be done by children under the age of 16—to make sure that we can continue to have a credible electorate. I am conscious that this will be in other amendments that are coming up. With that, I will carefully consider the contributions of other noble Lords.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21 in my name. I think it would be useful for noble Lords to remember the vision that lies behind this Bill, which was published in the Government’s paper last July, Restoring Trust in Our Democracy. I just want to quote a couple of little bits from the beginning:

“Our democracy is central to who we are as a country. We can take pride in its evolution and how it has and continues to inspire. As a government, we have a responsibility to protect and strengthen it. The right to participate in our democracy is a defining aspect of our national identity and should not be taken for granted”.


Until recently, democracy moved in one direction, from no democracy to partial democracy to full democracy, but I believe that in the Bill there are elements which will see a major reversal of democracy, and it is happening here in the United Kingdom.

Until 31 December 2020, it did not matter where you lived in the UK. Every adult had the right either to elect representatives, who between them made all the laws to which we were subject, or to stand for election to do it themselves. However, that changed from 1 January 2021, when the United Kingdom was divided into two different classes of citizens. On the one hand there are UK citizens living in England, Wales and Scotland, who continue to enjoy the right either to elect representatives or to stand for election to do so themselves, and on the other hand, there are UK citizens living in Northern Ireland who are subject to a second-class citizenship through which they have the right to elect representatives to make only some of the laws to which they were and are subject, or to stand for election to do so.

Of course, as we all know, in 300 areas of law—not just individual laws—UK citizens living in Northern Ireland have been disenfranchised and are now subjected to a second-class, truncated citizenship. On 21 January 2021, no laws had been imposed on us, but since then we have seen increasing numbers of laws hedging us in, growing and growing, and providing a constantly increasing reminder of our disenfranchisement that will get worse. Your Lordships’ House is well aware that, because of this, every time a law is imposed that requires some form of Westminster implementation, we try to oppose the statutory instrument.

In this context, I have tabled Amendment 21 because the message that the Bill is sending 16 and 17 year-olds across the UK is that it can be celebrated as playing a role in restoring our democracy, when it does no such thing for the whole of the United Kingdom. At the moment, our laws treat 16 and 17 year-olds across the UK in exactly the same way. None of them has the right to elect a fellow citizen or to stand for election. However, if the Bill becomes law, it will create discrimination where none currently exists. It will create for the first time two classes of 16 and 17 year-olds in the UK. On the one hand, there will be 16 and 17 year-olds in England, Wales and Scotland, who will be given the right to participate in elections that contribute to making all the laws to which they are subject. On the other hand, there will be 16 and 17 year-olds in Northern Ireland, who will be given the right to participate in elections that contribute to making only some of the laws to which they are subject.

Noble Lords should understand that that violates the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The very purpose of that agreement was to persuade terrorists to renounce violence and seek to pursue their political goals through the ballot box. The agreement contains a special protection for democracy that is additional to those applying to the UK as a whole. It commits to protecting the right of the people of Northern Ireland to

“pursue democratically national and political aspirations”

in relation to all the laws to which they were subject. This was upheld from 1998 until the end of 2020, when the Belfast agreement was violated by the protocol and the Windsor Framework. Now there are whole swathes of life, in 300 areas of law, in which the people of Northern Ireland can no longer pursue democratically national and political aspirations.

It is part of the broader change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. I know that some noble Lords do not like me saying this, but it has, in effect, made Northern Ireland a colony of the EU in these 300 areas. No one in Northern Ireland can have a say on these laws that are made by a foreign Parliament; we are, in effect, a vassal state of the EU. At a time when everyone is apologising, especially in our schools, for colonialism and slavery, it is quite bizarre that we should be acquiescing in its reintroduction, telling 16 and 17 year-olds that they are going to be different.

Sustainable Farming Incentive

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Baroness Coffey

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and then from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.