Most progressives will consider the extension of the franchise to 16- & 17-year-olds a step forward. According to Keir Starmer it’s ‘because they are old enough to go out to work, they are old enough to pay taxes’. It’s considered the most significant change since 18-year-olds were given the vote in 1989. 16-year-olds are already able to vote in local elections in Scotland and for the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly. Lowering the voting age will add over a million and a half potential voters. Although this figure is relatively small, it could, it’s been calculated, affect the result in over 100 constituencies.
Right-wing critics will see it as an electoral ploy (or an electoral panic?), as it’s quite clear from recent polling that few young votes support the Tories. Opponents are quick to list inconsistencies. For example, nobody can become an MP till they are 18. Neither can they get married or legally drink alcohol. According to an ITV poll, 49% of 15-16 themselves think they are too young.
but Starmer appears rather ignorant in his comments. Young people are in fact legally required to remain in some form of full-time education until 18 – unless they are starting an apprenticeship ( very few of them can, even if they wanted to) or a similar employment-based training programme. They can of course work part-time while they study, but in this case income won’t be taxable. In fact, data shows three quarters of post-16 students are economically inactive. In other words, they have had no contact with the world of work.
Since the end of the post-war economic boom – when approaching 75% of 16-year-olds left school for employment, many young people have been pushed back into ‘education without jobs’ and with progression to higher education increasingly becoming the norm, millions of young people are now dependent on their parents for much longer – invariably until their early 20s. The post-war trend where every age cohort was better off than the previous has gone into reverse. Current 16-17 year olds will continue to experience this.
This is not to argue the voting age shouldn’t be lowered, but that extending the franchise further down the age range, bestowing new rights of ‘citizenship’, without re-establishing any real economic independence or security, is no more than gesture politics.
With thousands of young people in prolonged state of economic insecurity, it isn’t surprising that turn out rates in elections amongst 18-year-olds that can already vote, are lower than for other groups. We don’t know how many 16 year olds will sign up to electoral rolls in the future. Initial polls show that for those intending to register, 3 to 1 are likely to vote Labour than Tory, but 1 in 5 would vote for more the more radical platforms of Reform or the Greens (maybe even more for a new Jeremy Corbyn left party?) reflecting the increasing polarisation of the electorate generally.
Education, Economy and Society 
The only justification for lowering the voting age to 16 that would persuade me is that it gets people onto the electoral roll before they are likely to become much more mobile after they turn 18.
The strongest justification for lowering the voting age to 16 that I have read is that it would get people onto the electoral roll before they become more mobile after aged 18.