Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss this important issue, and I thank you, Mr Chope, for allowing me to open the debate, in which I will call for the voting age to be lowered to 16. It is a pleasure to do so under your chairmanship.

I am grateful to be granted this debate and to initiate discussion about an issue that many people across the country are currently considering. As Members know, the Scottish Government recently announced that, in the upcoming referendum of autumn 2014, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to take part in the ballot. That decision to lower the voting age will enfranchise 8.2% of the UK’s 16 and 17-year-olds. The decision has reignited the issue of votes at 16 at a national level.

With that in mind, it seems the right time to reconsider lowering the voting age to 16 in all elections and referendums held in the UK. It would be wrong to send the message that it is right for some of the UK’s 16 and 17-year-olds to be deemed capable of voting while others are not. In July 2012, the devolved Welsh Assembly, in a debate on the issue, voted on a motion expressing support for lowering the voting age to 16 that had cross-party support.

The Minister will know that constitutional reform, including lowering the voting age, is not devolved and, therefore, the responsibility for making that happen still rests with the UK Government. For the sake of a more equal, inclusive political system across the whole UK, the Government and the Electoral Commission must consider extending the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds across the country. With recent developments, this seems the opportune time to start revisiting the issue.

In our society, we rightly demand respect from young people and often require them to act and behave like adults. At the same time, however, society should respect young people’s views and aspirations.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote would enable engagement with younger people, by allowing the House to hear what they want us to do for them?

[Julie Elliott]

I could not agree more with that valuable point, which I will address.

Some 16 and 17-year-olds hold positions of great responsibility and already contribute much to our society, and they should be given the opportunity to influence key decisions that directly affect their lives and communities. We should ensure that they and their issues are represented.

In law, as a society, we already allow 16 and 17-year-olds to give full consent to medical treatment, to leave school and enter work or training, to pay income tax and national insurance, to obtain tax credits and welfare benefits in their own right, to consent to sexual relationships, to get married or enter a civil partnership, to change their name by deed poll, to become a director of a company, to join the armed forces and to become a member of a trade union or co-operative society. Granting them the vote would align their responsibilities with their rights as citizens. Surely, it cannot be right that we ask a young man or woman to serve their country bravely by joining the armed forces without recognising their contribution or giving them the choice to influence their future in return.

There is an old American saying: no taxation without representation. As a citizen benefiting from this country, 16 and 17-year-olds are expected to pay tax yet, by being excluded from the right to vote, they have no say on how that money is spent. With rights come responsibilities, but it should work both ways: with responsibilities should come rights.

Across the country, 16 and 17-year-olds are demonstrating that they can make such complex decisions and take on wide-ranging responsibilities. They are actively showing, in practice, their willingness to make a positive difference and contribution to our society. We should give them the chance to make a difference by empowering them further through recognising their right to influence decisions that will affect their future. That is also reflected in public opinion. In a recent poll carried out by The Daily Telegraph, 53% of the population said that they are in favour of lowering the voting age to 16.

I pay tribute to the fantastic work of the Votes at 16 coalition on promoting and raising awareness of the issue. The coalition is made up of more than 70 organisations, including the British Youth Council, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the Trades Union Congress, the Co-operative and the National Union of Students.

Lowering the voting age to 16 would further encourage youth democratic engagement. There are more than 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds in this country.

As the Member of Parliament for Sunderland Central, I often visit schools in my constituency to talk to students and young people about my job and what it means to represent them. The 16 and 17-year-olds I have met on such visits have shown that they are knowledgeable and interested in the world around them—from the Arab spring in the middle east and the effects of climate change to youth provisions in their own neighbourhoods. They are also passionate people: passionate to learn more and to participate. They have demonstrated to me that they are more than capable of engaging with the democratic system, as much as any other citizen.