Tories accused of 'talking out' fresh bid to let 16-year-olds vote

Conservative MPs have been accused of deliberately running down the parliamentary clock to thwart plans to give the vote to people aged under 16.



Labour’s Peter Kyle on Friday secured a fresh debate on his Representation of the People (Young People's Enfranchisement) Bill, which cleared its first Commons hurdle last July and aims to lower the voting age from 18 and ensure young people are automatically enrolled on the electoral register.

The bill has the backing of some Conservative MPs, including former ministers Nicky Morgan and Sir Peter Bottomley, as well as Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb and Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas.

But the Bill was given just 28 minutes of Commons time on Friday afternoon after a string of Tory MPs made lengthy interventions in support of an earlier bill on parental bereavement.

That sparked fury from Scottish National Party MPs, who accused the Conservatives of deliberately eating into the time given to the votes-at-16 law.

Glasgow East MP David Linden said: “A number of members have come to the House, unusually on a Friday. because they wished to vote in favour of this Bill, which the government have blocked today by means of filibustering.”

That claim was met with cries of “no” from the Tory benches, but fellow SNP MP Patrick Grady blasted the “corrupt and unfair” system for allocating time to backbench bills.

Mr Linden asked Deputy Commons Speaker Eleanor Laing, who was chairing the debate, how MPs could “change the procedures of this house” to ensure they could “allow votes at 16 to become law, which is the will of the people”.

Eloise Todd of anti-Brexit campaign group Best for Britain also piled in, accusing Conservatives of deliberately cutting the time left to vote on the bill.

“Tory MPs talking over a debate on extending the vote to 16 and 17 year olds to waste time and have the issue thrown out is a disgrace," she said.

“The British people deserve to have a final say on the Brexit terms – and that vote should be extended to 16 and 17 year olds too, the generation who will have to live with the effects the longest."

But while the Deputy Speaker conceded that it was “normal to have very considerably longer than 28 minutes” to deal with the second reading of a Bill, she pushed back at the SNP’s claim of deliberate blocking.

“No filibustering has taken place in this House today because if such a thing had occurred I would have stopped it," she insisted.

Ms Laing added: “It is the case that we had one bill which went through two stages. And it took a long time to do that, and therefore, this bill has only had half an hour. But that is perfectly proper under the rules of the House.”

Only a certain number of Commons days are given over to bills put forward by backbenchers, and the votes-at-16 bill will now not be debated again until October 26 this year. There is no guarantee that it will be allocated enough time to ensure it goes to a vote.

The latest trouble for a backbench bill on votes-for-16 comes after Labour MP Jim McMahon accused ministers of being “scared of having a parliamentary vote” when his own bill seeking to extend the franchise foundered in the Commons last year under similar circumstances.

Pressed on the fresh bid to lower the voting age today, Theresa May's spokesperson said the Government had "no plans" to let those aged 16 and 17 have their say in in elections.

"The House of Commons has debated this issue a number of times and repeatedly voted against it," the spokesperson said. "Eighteen is widely recognised as the age at which people become an adult and full citizenship rights, including voting, should be granted at adulthood."