Voting Age

Debate between Lucy Powell and Stephen Williams

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

Tempted as I may be to go into that, this debate is about the franchise. I am trying to be as collegiate as possible, and I hope colleagues will do the same.

The teaching of citizenship, to whatever extent, has transformed the ability of young people to understand and engage with the political system. Indeed, the Hansard Society’s latest audit of political engagement—which I am sure we have all studied in great detail—offers the teaching of citizenship as an explanation for why, over the nine years in which it has studied public engagement in Parliament and politics, the only growth in an understanding of Parliament among the population was in the youngest cohort. When the society started its audit, only 17% of young people aged 18 to 24 felt that they had some knowledge about the workings of Parliament, but that has now grown to 31%. Some improvement is still needed, but that cohort is now broadly in line with the rest of the population.

Extra-curricular activities have also changed enormously over the past decade. The UK Youth Parliament debated in this Chamber and in the other place, as has been mentioned, and I should also mention Parliament’s own education outreach service, of which I am sure we have all had good experience. It has transformed the ability of school visiting parties, and the outreach programme in our constituencies helps schools that are not able to come to Westminster to understand how we make law and run elections.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I fully support the motion and hope to vote on it in the Division. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most offensive argument against this motion is that only some—not all—16 to 18-year-olds would want to vote in elections. Does not that holds true for all ages and demographics across the country? I find that the most offensive of all the arguments, and I know that all 16, 17 and 18-year-olds in my constituency fully support the measure under debate.

[Stephen Williams]

It is interesting how colleagues across the Chamber are neatly anticipating in their interventions the next points I will be making. We have never had an electoral competence test in this country, although I have heard people advocate one. We have all, I am sure, been canvassing and been outside the shopping centre or even the school gate, and rolled our eyes or walked down the path in despair after hearing opinions that may not have been that well informed from people in their 40s, 50s and 60s. We would never say that the franchise should be withheld from people just because they are stubborn in their opinions or have got a fact completely wrong. We do not have an electoral competence test for people aged 18 and over, so we should not apply it to those aged 16 and 17. Were we to have such a test, I think 16 and 17-year-olds would pass it with flying colours, but I could not have the same confidence for people who are much older than them.