Should the UK voting age be lowered to 16?

[Matt N]

I don’t personally agree with the notion of stopping elderly people from voting. Yes, many may not be working, but they are still human beings affected by government policy, and will remain that way until they die. With that in mind, I think that anyone above a certain age (18, 16 or whatever) still deserves a vote, regardless of education level, working status or whatever. Yes, elderly people may have a different vision of the best path forward for Britain to younger people in some cases, but there’s nothing wrong with that, in my view; that is simply their perception of which policies would work for the greater good of the country.

Even putting that ethical issue aside; if you implemented a cutoff age of, say, 80, who knows how long a person would live for after that? Some people might live only 1 or 2 years, some might live 10 years, some might even live another 20-30 years after that cutoff. What do you do about those people? I’m sure people who live to 100+ wouldn’t be very happy about losing the ability to vote for the last 20-30 years of their life or whatever the cutoff was…

 

[Thameslink Rail]

In general children need to be introduced to politics better, occasionally the government will commission a video to be shown in schools but it's not enough. Election candidates should be expected to go round secondary schools discussing politics and the issues that affect children. I would also like to see the Education Secretary and Shadow Education Secretary go head to head on CBBC answering questions sent in by the audience, if they get custard pies in the face it will only keep kids watching!