Lucy Powell
Main Page: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)Department Debates - View all Lucy Powell's debates with the Cabinet Office
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am considering this point—a number of points need to be taken into account as we complete an orderly exit from the EU—but the broader point is that if somebody has citizenship in this country they have the right to vote, which we think is correct.
The Government stated in their manifesto a commitment to maintaining the voting age at 18. We therefore have no plans to lower the voting age in elections. We continue to believe that the voting age should remain aligned with the age of majority at 18. This is the point at which many other key rights and obligations are acquired and is in line with international comparators.
With growing support for votes at 16 on the Government’s own Benches, including from two former Education Secretaries, the right hon. Members for Putney (Justine Greening) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), is not the right honourable George Osborne right when he says that the Government do not have a majority to stop this anymore and might as well get on and embrace it and get the credit?
The responsible thing for the Government to do is to stand by not just the policy we stood on in the recent general election but what we believe to be right, and it is right that the age of majority at 18 is the age at which every man and woman in this country acquires the full rights and responsibilities of adult citizenship.