Maidstone council tells Sir Keir Starmer to bring in voting for 16-year-olds despite suggestion they’d prefer to watch Love Island

When Sir Keir Starmer announced his new Labour government’s priorities in the King’s Speech last week, he did not include reducing the voting age to 16.

But Maidstone council has voted to instruct its leader Cllr Stuart Jeffery to write to the Prime Minister, urging him to bring in legislation to give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds.

The motion, discussed at the Full Council meeting on Wednesday, July 17, was proposed by Cllr Brian Clark (Lib Dem) and seconded by Cllr Paul Wilby (Lib Dem).

Cllr Clark said the move would give the vote to more than 1.5 million teenagers.

He said: “Sixteen-year-olds in England can sign up to join the Armed Forces, marry, have children, pay taxes and set up a business.

“However, unlike their peers in Scotland and Wales, where voting is allowed for 16-year-olds in local elections and in Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections, in England they have no right to vote.

“We often hear how young citizens are unengaged and uninterested in politics. It’s no wonder.

“However, we can send a strong message of support and encouragement to our younger citizens by supporting the lowering of the minimum voting age to 16.

“At 16, before leaving home for university or work, most teenagers have the stability of living at home with their parents where they grew up.

“Here they are much more likely to have views on issues that affect their community and given the opportunity would be more likely to vote.

“Teenagers that vote before leaving home are more likely to vote from that point forward.”

But some councillors had reservations.

Cllr Claudine Russell, leader of the Conservative Group, said: “Being a parent of teenagers, either side of 16, I totally get the importance of their views.

“But having asked both of my teenagers what they thought of votes for 16-year-olds, they were both unequivocally against.

“One said, you are just going to get people voting on random things, and the other was really clear, whoever’s on social media is going to get everyone’s vote.”

Cllr Paul Harper (Fant and Oakwood Ind) said: “Under the current system very few 18 to 21-year-olds actually vote.

“At the local elections, the turnout is very rarely above 30% and at the general election it was only just over 60%. And most of us know from our own telling (of votes) that there were not that many young people actually voting.

“The danger is that if the franchise is extended, we will have 5 million people not voting, so turnout will drop from 20 to 30%, perhaps down to 15 to 20%.

“Unless we can find a way to engage young people, we will not achieve a great deal other than weaken our democracy.”

Cllr Valerie Springett (Con) described the motion as a “cheap publicity stunt”.

She said: “The voting age is not a matter for us. It is a matter for Parliament.

“Encouraging the young to engage in politics is a great idea and I really support it, but I do think I know which channel they will be watching if there’s a political debate on one side and Love Island on the other.”

Cllr Ziggy Trzebinski (Con) said: “Cast your mind back to when you were 16.

“I know that when I was 16, I was busy with exams, busy with sport, and any spare time was spent chasing girls.

“I did not know what I was going to do in the next four or five years. What direction I would take, where I was going. And at 16, not many kids do.

“How you can expect them to work out where they want the country to go in the next five years, I really don’t see at all.”

Cllr Lottie Parfitt-Reid (Con) said: “The drudgery, the tedium and the yoke of adulthood comes soon enough, and if we can give children, because 16-year-olds are children, a couple more years without the responsibility of deciding which direction the country goes, we should.”

Cllr Stan Forecast (Con) is the council’s youngest member. He is 23.

He reminded his colleagues that there were plenty of other things that young people can’t do beside voting.

He said: “If you gave 16-year-olds the responsibility to vote and chose the direction this country takes, then they should be also entitled to do everything else, like smoke, drink alcohol or drive (but not drink and drive).

“Because it makes where adulthood starts become ambiguous, I am against this motion.”

Cllr Sarah Barwick (Lab) argued that if 16-year-olds can join the armed services and fight, then they should also have the vote. She said: “It’s ridiculous to expect 16-years-olds who can fight not to have the vote.”

Here she had to be corrected by the seconder of the motion, Cllr Wilby, himself a former soldier. He said: “Just to clarify, you can join the Army at 16, but you can’t fight until you are 17-and-a-half.”

Cllr Clark said: “Yes, there is talk nationally about allowing voting at 16, but it was not in the King’s Speech. What we are doing here is telling the new government that this borough supports voting at 16.”

Cllr Jeffery (Green) said: “Votes for 16-year-olds is long overdue. Let’s hold the new Prime Minister’s feet to the fire on some of his promises.”

The motion was passed with 28 in favour, seven against and six abstaining.