Arguments for and against lowering voting age to 16

While much of the election debate is around the personalities of Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, their economic plans or even their proposals to tackle the migration crisis, other serious underlying issues are at stake. One of these is electoral and political reform which is being pushed by Starmer.

- DAVID MADDOX

The Labour leader has previously spoken of his desire to replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber but rowed back on this. The one policy he has made clear he is committed to as this election gets under way is to give the vote to 16-year-olds. He has also discussed giving it to EU citizens who have not taken British nationality.

When Starmer confirmed that 16-year-olds would be given the vote by a Labour government, there was an immediate claim from some Tories that he was trying to rig future elections. But is this true?

Which countries currently have votes at 16 and 17?

Across the world, there are only a handful of countries where the voting age is under 18. Currently, only Nicaragua, Scotland (for devolved Scottish parliament and council elections), Isle of Man, Guernsey, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Cuba, Brazil and Austria have votes at 16. Another seven – Sudan, South Sudan, North Korea, Indonesia, Greece and East Timor – have votes from 17.

The UK brought the voting age down from 21 to 18 under Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the Representation of the People’s Act in 1969 and that is the age for the vast majority of countries. South Korea, though, has votes from 19 and there are three countries with votes at 20 and above – Nauru, Taiwan and Bahrain. The voting age in Oman, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Singapore, Malaysia, Kuwait, Jersey and Cameroon is 21 and above. The United Arab Emirates has the oldest legal voting age in the world with a voting age of 25 or older.