Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill [HL]

Lord Goodhart Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodhart (LD)]

I believe that young people should be allowed to vote at the ages of 16 and 17, a view which I came to some years ago. Elections were on the way and as a candidate I went to school meetings about those elections. Most of those schools were state schools. I went to the constituencies where I had a political interest—first, North Kensington and, later, Oxford West and Abingdon. With the exception of just one of these schools, boys and girls at these meetings were interested, sharp-minded and challenging. In one school, one of the politicians talked as if the boys and girls were 12 years old. The 16 and 17 year-olds simply took that candidate apart.

Very few of the young school people were old enough to vote in the then current election. In later years, when they had left school and were old enough to vote, probably not many of them voted for several years. But if the boys and girls aged 16 and 17 at the meetings at their schools had been allowed to vote in the next few days, a large number of them would have voted. Having voted once, they would have continued to do so in elections which occurred after they had left school.

As it is, most of the young who have reached the age of 18 do not vote for several years to come. I believe that if young people aged 16 and 17 are allowed to vote, most would do so in a justifiable way. They will not vote simply as they are told to vote by their parents. I have a granddaughter aged almost 16. It is very likely that her judgment would be better than mine at the age of 80, although of course I have no power to vote in a parliamentary election.

When I was young, no one could vote until they were 21 years old. It is now unthinkable to go back to that age to start voting. Nowadays, the young of 16 and 17 are independent enough to be voters and should be allowed to vote in order to be so.