00:01Labour's elections bill will lower the voting age from 18 to 16,
00:06bringing around 1.5 million more young people into the electorate by the next general election.
00:13It also includes automatic voter registration, expanded ID options and tighter controls on donations.
00:21There's a view that you can join the army at 16, for example, and you can go and fight and of course die for your country.
00:28Therefore, of course, you should have some sort of right, it's believed and certainly argued,
00:32to exercise the democratic right as to the government and their wishes and whatever else that comes with normal democracy.
00:39So there's been a long standing sort of view that we should lower the voting age.
00:44And more particularly, there is a very good evidence that young people are increasingly disillusioned with politics.
00:51Therefore, of course, bringing them in early into the process might be better.
00:55Whether it will be or not, you know, we're talking about, I believe, something like 1.5 million voters.
00:59So, you know, if they all voted, which of course is unlikely because of course we've got turnout,
01:03then of course it could significantly sort of change the outcome of elections.
01:07There is a view also, and we sort of saw this particularly on the sort of Labour when it was led by a certain Jeremy Corbyn.
01:14He was very good at mobilising young people and talked about issues that sort of meant something for them.
01:19Whether, of course, young people will feel quite as inclined to sort of vote for Starmer's Labour Party is another matter.
01:24But, you know, many people within Labour, I'm sure, are sort of hopeful that sort of being able to sort of do this,
01:29make this change to sort of the law will draw sort of younger people in, which is no bad thing in terms of the overall democracy.
01:35And again, the view is, get people in early, and of course they should then have that sort of pattern, if you like,
01:41that sort of established right, as it were, right throughout their lives.
01:4416 and 17-year-olds already vote in parts of the UK.
01:48Scotland first allowed them to take part in the 2014 independence referendum
01:54before lowering the voting age for Scottish Parliament and local elections in 2015.
02:00Wales introduced this same change in 2020, giving younger voters the right to vote in Senate and local elections from 2021 onwards.
02:10There is a sort of sense that young people, in general terms, tend to be sort of very disillusioned by the sort of the quality of our politicians.
02:17So, yeah, I mean, it has been relatively successful.
02:20So, of course, you know, politicians will make probably greater sort of effort to sort of reach out to that sort of part of the constituency
