Backbench Business — Voting Age

Part of Bill Presented — Marriage (Same Sex Couples) – in the House of Commons at 12:13 pm on 24 January 2013.

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Photo of Natascha Engel Natascha Engel Chair, Backbench Business Committee, Chair, Backbench Business Committee 12:13, 24 January 2013

My hon. Friend and I have had long discussions about this issue. I do not disagree with him about the preservation of childhood—in fact, I entirely agree with him about it—but I also think that lowering the voting age to 16 will not encroach on people’s childhoods. What it will do is give them responsibility, which is very different from taking their childhood away. My counter-argument is that, although we make decisions here that affect the day-to-day lives of people aged 16, 17 and 18—and, in my view, those aged up to 23, because many people are knocking on 23 before they are able to vote—we have taken away their right to have a say in issues that affect them. That is what I find so deeply offensive and wrong.

The hon. Member for Bristol West made a strong point about the widening of the franchise. I think that this really is a matter of human rights. It is slightly different from the issue of giving the vote to women, but I agree with Sir Peter Bottomley that the sky will not fall in if we give 16-year-olds the vote. The sight of a 16-year-old in a polling station putting a cross on a ballot paper—not one, two, three—should not panic people. This will not mean that the entire polling station is full of 16-year-olds; it will merely mean that younger people too will participate in the decisions that we make in the House. It is a shame that people are so fearful, and worry so much about 16-year-olds taking part in a general election.

The Scottish referendum will give us an opportunity to see how giving 16-year-olds the vote could work. Why should we not view it as a pilot? After 16, 17 and 18-year-olds have had their say in the referendum, we can look at how it went. I agree that the genie is out of the bottle once 16-year-olds are able to vote in a referendum, because after that it will be very difficult to say to them that they are to be denied a vote in the general election that will take place in the following year.

I have some sympathy with the view of Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who has described this as an important constitutional matter. Issues were raised earlier about the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each of them has voted overwhelmingly to lower the voting age to 16, but none of them can do so until we in this Parliament have made the decision for them.

I think it important for us to have this debate, and important for all views to be aired. However, I hope that when we go through the Lobbies, all of us—not just

Labour and the Liberal Democrat Members—will vote in favour of seeing what happens in Scotland, and then lowering the voting age throughout the United Kingdom.