Votes at 16: Are You Ready?

What do 16 and 17-year-olds need to be able to vote in UK General Elections?

The Government plans to lower the voting age to 16 before the next General Election. But changing the law is only the beginning.

If 1.8 million young people are voting for the first time, how will they learn about politics? Where can they find trustworthy information? How do they avoid misinformation online? And what can schools, families and politicians do to help?

In this episode of Kids Law, Alma-Constance and Lucinda are joined by Harriet Andrews, Founder and Director of The Politics Project, an organisation that works with thousands of schools and youth organisations across the UK to help young people understand democracy and politics. Together they explore why young people already care deeply about issues that affect their lives, why confidence and good information matter just as much as the right to vote, and why political parties may need to rethink how they communicate with a new generation of voters.

You'll hear about:

• Why lowering the voting age is only the first step
• How young people can prepare for their first vote
• The role of schools, youth groups and political parties
• How elections are organised in the UK
• Why misinformation and AI make finding reliable information harder
• Lessons from Scotland and Wales, where 16 and 17-year-olds already vote
• What politicians need to do differently to engage young people
• Harriet's advice for anyone who hopes to vote for the first time

As always, Alma also asks Hattie our favourite Kids Law question:

What were you like when you were 10 years old?

Hattie says she loved trading gel pens and wanted to be an architect!

We'd love to hear from you!

If the voting age is lowered to 16, would you be excited to vote?

Further Reading

Harriet Andrews

The Politics Project

Electoral Commission

Democracy Classroom

Easy Peasy Politics BBC Bitesize

Childline – 0800 1111

Kids Law

If you've got any questions, ideas about a topic or someone to interview, get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!! You can email us at kidslaw@spark21.org, contact us through the website: www.kidslaw.info  or through social media: Facebook, X and Instagram @KidsLawInfo 

Please subscribe, rate, and share the podcast with your friends. 
See you soon in the next episode!

Transcript

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Votes at 16: Are You Ready? (Unedited)

Alma : Hi, I'm Alma Constance. 

Lucinda: And I'm Lucinda.  

 Alma : And we're here on the Kids Law Podcast to talk about the laws and issues that affect kids and young people as they grow up. Did you know that children as young as 10 can actually be held responsible for crimes and might even have to go to court?

Plus, kids have special rights given by the United Nation. That's why it's super important for young people to know a bit about the law and how it can help protect them and others.

Lucinda: So what are we gonna talk about in this episode, Alma Constance? 

 Alma : Well, today we're gonna talk about how young people may have a huge role in shaping the political landscape in the future of the UK.

This government plans to lower the voting age to 16 for elections across the UK, which sounds exciting and a bit daunting. So I'd like to know how young people will be given [00:01:00] the information about how to vote and make the decisions of who to vote for. 

Lucinda: I think it would be a really positive move for the United Kingdom.

We know that MPs take notice of the views and opinions of voters, particularly at election times. It's the voters who elect them to Parliament to represent them. We've heard in previous episodes about the experience in Scotland and Wales, and I think it would be a really good thing that MPs will have to take the time to engage with the issues that are important to young people.

There's a bill going through Parliament Which aims to reduce the voting age to 16 and 17 before the next general election in a couple of years' time, and within that time, young people are going to need information and support to help them feel confident about making their decision.

Joining us today is Hattie Andrews, founder and director of the Politics Project, an organization that works with schools and young people to help them understand politics and democracy.

 Alma : Hi, Harriet. Welcome to the Kids Do Podcast, and thank you for [00:02:00] joining us. We're really happy to have you here. Could you just, start off by telling us why you set up The Politics Project, and why you think, um, helping young people engage with democracy is so important?

 Hattie : Hi, Alma. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here on your wonderful, wonderful podcast. I set up The Politics Project when I was a, a younger person myself, when I was about, 22, And the reason I set up The Politics Project was because I had- was really, really interested in working with young people and, working on politics and helping young people to explore democracy and all of those sorts of And I was finding every single time I was having conversations with young people, they were really, really interested in issues and ideas and, you know, what was going on in the world.

But that actually it was really hard to get a, like, entry point into politics. So a lot of young people I was talking to didn't know where to start. They didn't know where to go for good information that was gonna help them as a young person to engage if they hadn't done it before.

So yeah, I just got really interested in how can we help [00:03:00] young people to enter this kind of world of politics and, and all of these discussions, and so I set up The Politics Project

 Alma : So as this government plans to lower the voting age to 16, what has to happen beyond simply changing the law if this reform is going to be successful?

Yeah, so changing the voting age is a great first step, so it's that change from... It's cross out 18 and put in 16, and that's really, really exciting. Um, but we know that just being able to vote, just having the right isn't the only thing we need. People need to be supported to take part in that first vote. So there's practical things that we need to do, so we need to help young people to understand how voting happens, how to register to vote, all of those sorts of things need to happen.

 Hattie : And we think all of that should be happening in schools because that way everybody can have access to all of that information. But also we need to help young people to explore what they think and help them to make a decision about who to vote for, and that's the, fun bit in many ways. The bits that, that's interesting and, and come [00:04:00] up with what issues matter to me, and how can I understand which of the different political parties are gonna be the ones that I should be engaging with. So, we talk about that as like thinking about the, what we call the mechanics of voting, so why voting, how it all works, and then also we talk about why voting matters, so why we should get involved.

And for young people, I think a lot of the time political parties haven't put a lot of energy into thinking about how to engage young people. So it's a really kind of exciting opportunity for us to, potentially reset that relationship between young people and politicians and, help political parties think a lot more about what they can do to support young people.

Lucinda: Would you say a bit more, Hattie, about, how your organization has evolved and the work you do now? 'Cause I know you support thousands of schools and youth groups, 

 Hattie : yeah, definitely. 

So we were set up about 12 years ago. And we started off running a project that we still run today, which is called Digital Dialogue, and that's about helping young people and politicians to have meaningful [00:05:00] conversations. So we do, video calls between a class of young people and a politician that represents them.

 and the reason we think that's really important is that, yes, we need to all understand politics, but actually politics is about relationships. It's about, uh, do I feel listened to? Do I feel like you're listening to me? Do you understand my perspective? All of those sorts of things. And for a lot of young people, political trust is a big, big issue that if they don't feel like politicians are listening to them, then- then that matters.

So we started with those programs. And we now run lots of other programs as well. So we work in youth spaces, and we work in- in schools. Just all of our programs are helping young people to get the kind of, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to, learn about and understand politics.

So, um, we're not just interested in- in pumping lots of facts into young people from a kind of front of the classroom talking perspective. We're helping young people to feel kind of empowered and engaged. So we'll do training sessions for teachers. We'll go into youth spaces and think about how can we make this really interesting and engaging for kind of informal spaces.

and we also [00:06:00] do quite a lot of work with, government now as well to think about what's the right policy, what's the right support that's needed to help young people.

Lucinda: I know on your website you have a, um, I think it's a quote from you saying, you know, "Young people really do care.

They care deeply about the issues that shape their lives." Could you say a bit more about your experience, when you, are engaging with young people? Because I think from what I can see, many adults, seem to think that younger people aren't engaged.

 Hattie : Yeah, definitely. Young people are really, really interested in the world around them and have loads of issues that they care about really, really deeply. So whether it's things that might affect their lives. So at the moment, all the conversations about social media ban, that's a big, big topic. through to lots of conversations about all sorts of different social issues, housing, the environment, , international wars. I think sometimes the link and the connect that can be missing is understanding how that fits into that sometimes quite dry, hard to understand world of kind of Westminster politics particularly, [00:07:00] and how that all connects up with a kind of the, what we would call formal politics, and the voting system .

So a lot of our work is, trying to draw a link, between the conversations and the issues and the things that young people do already care about. We're not having to do any work and helping young people to care about them, but understanding, okay, why was it, how is it that the government was able to, you know, put forward a social media ban?

How does that all work? What do the different parties think about it?

 So much politics affects young people so much, so it makes sense that, that young people would care about politics a lot because , they're thinking about the future.

They're thinking about what am I gonna go on to do? What's my job gonna be? Am I gonna go to university? All of these sorts of questions, and that's all super, super affected by politics. So there's kind of like a natural moment where you kind of get interested in those things as well.

 Alma : It's quite difficult to actually put this kind of, project into place, especially with the curriculum that schools have.

It's quite full. So how do you think, schools can actually help 

 Hattie : So the government has just done a curriculum review, and [00:08:00] in that, one of the things they've committed to do is to do some more work on citizenship education, which includes, what we would call democratic education, which is great.

So it's all the way from... making it compulsory in primary, and it will go all the way up to secondary, but I think as you just touched on there, Alma, one of the problems that we've got is that This education doesn't really have a home in a lot of schools.

There isn't, one way that it's delivered. And as a result, a lot of it is sometimes taught alongside things like P- PSHE or those sorts of topics, and that means that they're often being taught by teachers who are not specialized in that subject.

And for teachers they can be really, really nervous to talk about this stuff because they're worried about saying something that is thought to be party political also talking about politics means talking about difficult issues and managing disagreements and all of those sorts of things.

It's, in some ways it's much easier to teach something which is just, "Here are the facts, here's the information." So for some teachers, it's a different style of teaching for them. So there's a problem with where it lives in schools, [00:09:00] but there's also a problem with are teachers feeling up for teaching it and up for teaching it well?

Because, , to do it well, to properly get into talking about these issues," which the stuff that young people want, you have to be prepared to manage some of those differences and manage some of that conflict as well.

 Alma : Could you tell us more about who is responsible for managing elections and organizing public information?

 Hattie : So there's a, a few different people that are responsible for it. So elections are run in the UK in , quite a weird and wonderful way in that every single local authority, so every single council kind of runs their own elections.

There's something called an ERO, an electoral, returning officer in every, electoral services council, every, local authority, and they're responsible for running the election.

. You can kind of think of it as there being 300 little elections offices, across the UK,

and then that work is kind of overseen by, a regulator in the UK called the, Electoral Commission, and they are the people that, that kind of set the rules on the elections. You need to register as a political party with [00:10:00] them. They are in charge of things like political finance. They're the people that oversee all of that, that different work. And I can say actually, elections run pretty well in the UK. We very rarely have kind of issues or problems around them,, which is really positive

 Alma : So who else do you think should also be involved in giving young people information?

 Hattie : Oh, it's a good question. I think it has to be lots and lots of different people.

So actually we know that the people that young people wanna hear from the most are other young people. So just creating spaces for young people to talk to each other about politics and share ideas, and there's, we know there's some young people that are really fantastic at leading some of those conversations.

So for me, that's, really important. School's, really important, but also for some young people, youth spaces are really important because there's a bit more space there to kind of have a conversation with. A trusted adult, in those spaces. So depending on who you are and who you wanna talk to, that's , really important. But I think the, group that really need to pick up and change the way they're [00:11:00] working at the moment is political parties. So thinking about how they are communicating to young people in a really straightforward and clear way. So for example, at the moment, one of the things I get asked all the time by young people is, you know, "How do I, compare what the different parties think?

How do I know what they think? How can I understand that?" And we're completely impartial as an organization, so I can't go saying, "This party thinks this party thinks that . But I need to point young people in the direction of information that's really clear. And at the moment, the way that political parties put out information is through a manifesto, and a manifesto is often like 120-page document with loads and loads of information in it. Every single party has a manifesto. So, and often they only come out kind of two to three weeks before an election. So that's really, voting for the first time. You know, if you're 16, you're voting first time, to try to work through all of that information and work out who it is you want to vote for.

So I think a lot more work can be done in communicating in [00:12:00] places that young people communicate, but also just providing clear, easy-to-access information about what you stand for as a party that isn't a massive document that comes out really late in the day.

Lucinda: Can I just ask Hattie, , what's your knowledge, about what proposals there are? 

 Hattie : To make information more user-friendly.

So, I, I think in some ways there's two ways of thinking about this. So one side is tackling mis- and disinformation, so how do you get rid of, information about politics that's out there and is untrue and is unfactual.

And there are different programs. There's different kind of responses going on. I know there's work being funded in schools to, support young people to manage and understand mis- and disinformation. That's a big part of this new curriculum,

so that's all really positive. And I think the Electoral Commission are doing some work specifically on mis- and disinformation, as well, just around elections and that kind of false information coming out. But I think that is putting a huge amount on young people to sift through a lot of information, some of which is true, some of which isn't true.

[00:13:00] So one of the things I'd really like to see is more kind of positive spaces that people could go to where they know that the information is gonna be correct. 'Cause at the moment, the thing we're dealing with is how much do we, ask people to get their information about politics from social media?

That's a, that's a big part of the, the conversation. And obviously in some ways it's loads of benefit to it. It's where a lot of people are, it's where the information is, but at the moment, there's so much mis- and disinformation out there, it can be quite an unreliable space, especially if you're coming in to learn about politics for the first time.

And I think kind of the rise of AI and, all of that adding to all of the kind of mis- and disinformation can just make that a really difficult space. So one of the things we would say is, I don't want all of the pressure to be put on young people to solve the problem, to deal with, wade through this kind of really difficult information space.

But also we need to help everybody with look, here's some places you can go to for information that are accurate, they're up to date, they're kind of like our safe harbors of information as well.

 Alma : , Do you think that these safe spaces should be [00:14:00] actually made by parties or should it just be other, organizations that are specifically made for young people so that they can go there?

 Hattie : Yeah, I think to be honest, both probably. I think parties having a space which is like, "Look, here's a really easy way to digest what we're doing that's, in some way regulated or fact checked," that would be really positive. But we get a lot of I don't understand how the basics parts of politics work.

So just like some, places where there's just that, basic information. So there's things like, you know, BBC Bitesize is great. The Electoral Commission have got some resources and FAQs and things like that, but there isn't loads and loads.

And as part of a network that we run called Democracy Classroom, we run a, a resources platform called democracyclassroom.com and that holds lots and lots of information about politics and elections and lots of teaching resources and lots of stuff for youth groups. But at the moment, if you're an individual young person, we don't really have this is where you could come and get information, and that's the sort of thing that maybe we'd look to do in the future to try and tackle this problem.

 Alma : So we have talked [00:15:00] to people from Scotland and Wales before about their experience of allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in devolved and local elections. So what lessons can England and Northern Ireland take from these experiences?

 Hattie : Do you know what I think the biggest lesson is, is vote at 16 causes absolutely zero harm at all. Which is, which sounds, sounds like a low bar, but a lot of people get quite worried about vote at 16. They're like, "Oh, is something terrible gonna happen to young people if they can vote when they're younger?" That is not the experience at all. Young people have been, you know, excited to vote, keen to vote,, and have really kind of got stuck in.

, I think Scotland and Wales had quite different experiences, 'cause for Scotland it was brought in for the referendums, which was this big kind of exciting moment. For Wales, the first vote at 16 election was in the middle of the pandemic, so . two really, really different, experiences for those two different places.

 I think the thing that actually both of them in quite different ways have shown is that just crossing out the 18 and putting in a 16 just by itself is not enough. So we have to [00:16:00] do all that work around how we're supporting young people, giving them the information, how are we helping young people to do that first vote and, and to engage in that way.

So one of the real benefits people talk about with vote at 16 and kind of there's research to suggest this, that once you start voting, it kind of becomes a habit so obviously if you vote when you're first, when you're first able to at 16, it can turn you into a lifelong voter.

And there's some evidence that, in Scotland that that has been the case, so that young people who voted in that first big election have gone on to vote moving forward.

 Alma : So, um, could you actually tell us more about what practical steps need to happen, before the age of, voting is changed? And are there some key things for young people to understand

 Hattie : So yes, there are some practical things that need to happen.

So again, looking at some of the different spaces. So schools, there's kind of some good noises with, putting, democracy education further up on the classroom, so that schools actually have to do it, and also that we particularly bring in some training and some support for, [00:17:00] teachers because we know that's one of the biggest issues, so helping schools is a big part of it. Helping youth spaces, just exactly the same stuff, training, support, helping people to fit it into what they're doing. So how young people are gonna get information? Once they are able to vote?

So we're working with different government departments to, to get them to, to think about, um, how they can do all of those bits. one thing that's important to think about is that the curriculum review at the earliest isn't coming in until,, September 2028, and vote 16 might come in before that.

So we're pushing for  the government to provide some specific support and, for, young people in the first couple of cohorts

so - one of the things that we're keen to do - is make voting as easy as possible,

at the moment all young people will need to individually register, so that's a huge task. It's about 1.8 million young people are gonna need to be put in, onto the register, and registration's gonna be possible from 14, because it's possible kind of two years before you can register.

So, that's a huge piece of work that will be done. One of the [00:18:00] things that the government is looking at is something called automatic voter registration, you don't need to register yourself to vote, . So it's kind of like moving from an opt-in option to an opt-out option. So we're really supportive of that because it will make, it will put a lot more people on the register, but because it's quite complicated and involves lots of data, they have said that it will not be in place by the time that the first vote at 16 elections will come in.

 On voter ID, that's obviously something that came in a few years ago. I think the government is looking at changing the rules on that so that things like bank cards will be usable as a voter ID, so that will make voter ID requirements a little bit easier for, for young people.

 Alma : I was wondering, um, how do you think the social media ban will affect, the change of voting age as well? Because children are not gonna be able to access social media to find things out. So how will children have to navigate through this change?

 Hattie : Yeah. It's really, really interesting, and I don't think it's been fully, fully thought through, um, w- in [00:19:00] terms of how it will affect Vote16. I think it's a mix of things. I think either you go down a route of saying, "Okay, let's really help you to engage with things like BBC News," you know, getting information from other spaces.

But we know that that is just not gonna be as engaging as what is going on on social media and, if you want people to engage with it, you've gotta make it fun. You've gotta make it interesting. So it's a bit of a challenge if all of that kind of fun stuff is happening on social media and young people can't access it, then it is gonna be harder to kind of engage young people in,, politics in that way. So we'll just have to adapt to that as it all develops. one of the things that we really try to do in our work is just help people to navigate difficult conversations or political conversations. Most of the time people go, "Oh, that's really scary. I don't wanna have a debate in my class about kind of like migration or something like that.

That sounds really scary." But you shouldn't be starting there. You should be starting with a conversation about, like, which biscuits should we eat for lunch? You should be starting small, and you should be building up the muscles so that you can [00:20:00] then have those more complicated and, and difficult conversations.

 How do we have those conversations and navigate them? How do we kind of navigate our own personal feelings about things and then articulate ourselves well?

So that's something that Democratic Education Committee help, we do a lot of work supporting young people to talk to, politicians,

and for me, the important thing is that a young person feels that they are able and they have the right to have that conversation and that they don't feel like there is a massive gap between them and those people that are representing them.

 Alma : As the age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is still 10, a question we ask all of our guests is what were you like at 10, and what did you think you'd be when you grew up?

 Hattie : Ooh, what was I like at 10?

, I think I was, like, fully in my, like, gel pen era. So I think I was into my sparklies and my colors, and I used to do a lot of trading. So that's, I think that's what I was up to at 10.

But yeah, I think I was having a great time. I think I probably quite enjoyed being 10. And what did I want to be when I was 10? . Oof. I [00:21:00] really can't remember at 10, but maybe a little bit older. For ages, I wanted to be an architect.

I wanted to design houses, and I've done something completely different. But, um, maybe not at, at 10. I can't remember having, like, a big, "This is what I wanna be," when I was about that age. . And finally, what would you encourage young people who hope to vote in a couple of years' time, to start doing now? 

I think the main thing is start having conversations about things that are happening in the world.

That's, that's what politics is, and starting having opinions about those things. So I think there's often this feeling for young people that they think at some point they're gonna get to a certain age, and then they're gonna be like, "Oh, I understand what's going on, and , I can now engage and I can have these opinions and I can talk about these things." I can tell you, that never happens. Everybody is still figuring it out as they go along, 

 I think the main thing is start to feel like your voice is as valuable as anybody else's, you having an opinion is as valid as anyone else's, and helping t- [00:22:00] starting to have those conversations and discussions about what is going on in the world, I think that is the most important thing 'cause I think that's what politics is about, that's what democracy is about. We know that Vote16 is very global. It feels like a idea that its time has come. So there's lots of stuff going on in Canada, and New Zealand, and Australia, and various EU, countries are moving forward with it in, in different ways.

 I think most of the Vote16 research is, basically says the same thing, which is about it's not just this top-down will change. You also need to do some of that more bottom-up, how are we supporting young people to vote. And, that's, that's what we found. In Scotland and Wales.

So I think there's, there's definitely more we could do in those school spaces. And, and a like very interesting challenge we have is we work a lot with schools. You know, we like schools. We like engaging with them. but they are some of the least democratic spaces ever. So we've sometimes gotten slightly in trouble where we've gone in and we've done sessions, and as a result, young people have started saying to their schools, " We wanna change X, Y, Z in our school."

And then the school said, "Oh, [00:23:00] hang on. "Why are the students now wanting to kind of change the way things are working?" So yeah. Um, being, being in spaces where young people can have a voice is really, really important, and that's all part of, understanding democracy as well as learning how you can engage in them in school-

Lucinda: I think it is really important for young people to feel they've got a, a say in things, because MPs will take notice of them having votes, they will have to really listen.

But I think it might change the political landscape quite interestingly actually. It obviously won't happen overnight, but when there is information that is made more accessible for young people, I think that will really help older people.

The potential for really improving a meaningful democracy is there

 Hattie : Yeah, definitely. At the moment we're stuck in a little bit of a kind of negative cycle where young people are not engaging, and so politicians are not really designing politics to work for young people.

They're designing it for older people, and therefore young people are not [00:24:00] engaging, and therefore That cycle keeps on going, and you can see that from communications, but you can also see it in terms of like actual policies and laws and stuff that are happening.

And so there, there's a little bit of kind of a need for both sides to, to be better, if that makes sense. So, we do need young people to turn up and to, to vote, and that's what a lot of our work is gonna be, is trying to mobilize and help those young people to engage once they've got the vote at 16.

And then it's also for the politicians and political parties to make it easier for young people to engage and to engage better.

Lucinda: Hattie Andrews, thank you so much for joining us on Kids Law. It's been really, really interesting. 

 Hattie : No, thank you so much for having me. This has been a great conversation. I absolutely love the work you guys are doing, and yeah, thanks for, thanks for the invitation. And lovely to meet you both. 

Lucinda: Thank you. Bye-bye. 

 Hattie : Bye.

Lucinda: Well, Alma, what do you think about what Hattie told us?

 Alma : I think, she had amazing ideas about creating safe spaces for children so that they can actually get more information about voting and about politics in general, which I [00:25:00] think everybody should feel very happy to explore.

She also told us that at the age of 10 she was quite bubbly, she loves colors, but she didn't actually know what she wanted to do yet, which is very interesting 'cause we've been hearing that from a lot of people lately. But obviously she's been creating a lot of an amazing, , projects that help young people today.

Lucinda: Yeah, I, agree, and it's extraordinary that there's going to be 1.8 million young people, which is a significant, voting cohort.  Obviously there are issues that have to be ironed out, I was struck by her comment that one of the most important things was that nothing bad can happen from young people getting the vote, which is quite interesting. 

 Alma : Please don't hesitate to contact us with your ideas suggestions and opinions on 

the voting 

 Alma : age being lowered to 16.

Lucinda:  so in our podcast we've been exploring how laws work and affect young people. We hope that our podcast can help you understand how laws are made, how the legal justice system [00:26:00] works, . And then this knowledge will help you make informed decisions not only about your life but also when you're able to vote, for an MP who will be able to represent you in Parliament and make laws.

It's also important that children know that they should be kept safe and adults must care for them. Remember, if you have any worries, talk to an adult you trust and tell them how you feel. This includes your teachers at school, who are there to look after you too, so do tell them that you need to talk to them.

You can call Childline on 0800-1111 if you're under 18 and want free confidential advice. And you can find more information on kidslaw.info website, and we'll put links to resources that we've been able to find in our show notes. 

 Alma : So please keep your questions coming in, and subscribe, rate, and share the podcast with your friends.

Speaker 3: See you soon in the next episodes. 

Bye. [00:27:00] Bye.