Britain will lower its voting age to 16 in a bid to strengthen democracy
[July 18, 2025]
By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) — Britain will lower the voting age from 18 to 16 by the
next national election as part of measures to increase democratic
participation, the government announced Thursday.
The center-left Labour Party pledged before it was elected in July 2024
to lower the voting age for elections to Britain's Parliament. Scotland
and Wales already let 16- and 17-year-olds vote in local and regional
elections.
Britain will join the short list of countries where the voting age is
16, alongside the likes of Austria, Brazil and Ecuador. A handful of
European Union countries, including Belgium, Germany and Malta, allow
16-year-olds to vote in elections to the European Parliament.
The move comes alongside wider reforms that include tightening campaign
financing rules to stop shell companies with murky ownership from
donating to political parties. Democracy Minister Rushanara Ali said the
change would strengthen safeguards against foreign interference in
British politics.
There will also be tougher sentences for people convicted of
intimidating candidates.
Additionally, the government said it will introduce automatic voter
registration and allow voters to use bank cards as a form of
identification at polling stations.
The previous Conservative government introduced a requirement for voters
to show photo identification in 2022, a measure it said would combat
fraud. Critics argued it could disenfranchise millions of voters,
particularly the young, the poor and members of ethnic minorities.
Elections watchdog the Electoral Commission estimates that about 750,000
people did not vote in last year’s election because they lacked ID.
Turnout in the 2024 election was 59.7%, the lowest level in more than
two decades.
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A woman exits a polling station set up at St. Anne's Church,
Bermondsey, in London, on July 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda,
File)
Harry Quilter-Pinner, head of left-leaning think tank the Institute
for Public Policy Research, said the changes were “the biggest
reform to our electoral system since 1969," when the voting age was
lowered to 18 from 21.
The changes must be approved by Parliament. The next national
election must be held by 2029.
“For too long, public trust in our democracy has been damaged and
faith in our institutions has been allowed to decline,” Deputy Prime
Minister Angela Rayner said. “We are taking action to break down
barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the
opportunity to engage in U.K. democracy.”
Stuart Fox, a politics lecturer at the University of Exeter who has
studied youth voting, said it’s “far from clear” whether lowering
the voting age actually increases youth engagement.
“It is right to help young people be heard,” he said. “But there are
other measures which are more effective at getting young people to
vote — particularly those from the poorest backgrounds who are by
far the least likely to vote — such as beefing up the citizenship
curriculum or expanding the provision of volunteering programs in
schools.”
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