Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill
Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Alex Chalk
Mr Jenkin
Not at the moment.
Another argument put forward in favour of lowering the voting age is that young people aged 16 to 17 can drive, join the armed forces or marry but cannot vote. Those facts are, at best, only half truths. For example, people can drive from 17, not 16. Although young people can join the armed forces and marry at 16, they can do so only with their parents’ consent, and in the armed forces they cannot be deployed to frontline combat.
There are a great many other things that young people cannot do before 18. For example, they cannot buy alcohol or cigarettes. Are the other side arguing that they should be allowed to do so? Young people are also not treated as adults by the law, for they are dealt with by youth courts if they commit a crime, they are given different sentences from adults and they are sent to special secure centres for young people, rather than to adult prisons.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Voting sits alongside another great civic duty, jury service, and yet young people I speak to overwhelmingly reject the notion of 16-year-olds sitting in judgment over close friends or family. Does my hon. Friend agree that lowering the voting age would create a bizarre and unconscionable discrepancy in that regard?