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Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:30 pm on 15 May 2006.

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Photo of Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart Spokesperson in the Lords (Shadow Lord Chancellor), Constitutional Affairs, Advisory Team On Legal Matters, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities 5:30, 15 May 2006

My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 53 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 128, 130 and 150. I wish to press for an important change in our electoral arrangements, and that is to reduce the voting age to 16. What is the principle behind the choice of the age of 16 rather than 18? In my view, it is that we should make the right to vote as far as possible inclusive and not exclusive. I accept that it would be wrong to give the vote to 10 year-olds who do not yet have the capacity to reach an independent judgment, but I see no magic in the age of 18. By the age of 16, young people are developing a capacity for independent judgment. No longer do they regard their parents as the fount of all wisdom. Maybe they do not know much in the way of political history, but they can and do understand current political issues. Many who have fought general elections will have found, as I did, that young people in what used to be called the sixth forms and are now known as years 12 and 13 were the sharpest audience we were likely to meet.

The law recognises the age of 16 as a watershed in many ways, some much more significant than the right to vote. For example, 16 year-olds can give their consent to sexual intercourse; they can leave school and take a job, on which they will pay tax on their income. I recall here the saying, "No taxation without representation"; my American background is of course very supportive of that. With the consent of their parents or a magistrates' court, 16 year-olds can get married or enter into a civil partnership. They can become company directors and join the Armed Forces.

If young people aged 16 to 17 had the right to vote, it would make the citizenship classes held in their schools or colleges a real rather than an abstract subject. At the same time, citizenship classes would provide an impetus to voting. In a sense, the right to vote would become part of the rite of passage to full adulthood. When young people have voted once, they are more likely to do so again and the current appallingly low voting figures for the 18 to 24 year-old group might improve. That is more likely to happen if people are given a chance to vote when they are aged 16 or 17; indeed, most young people would be able to exercise that right either in a general or a local election at some point in the two years between their 16th and 18th birthdays.

What if it does not increase the voting rate among 18 to 24 year-olds? As the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said in Grand Committee, 16 to 18 year-olds have other things on their minds, as do 18 and 19 year-olds and many people older than that. Is it an argument for not giving 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote if they wish to do so? I believe it is not. Let me ask noble Lords one final question. Think back to what are for most of us the dim and distant days when we were 16 ourselves. If we had had the right to vote, do we think we could and would have exercised it rationally and intelligently? I suspect that many of us think that we could and would have done. If so, why should our grandchildren not have the right to vote at the age of 16? I beg to move.