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VOLUME 2 - SPRING 2026 “I'M NOT CONVINCED BY THE ARGUMENT THAT THE VOTING AGE SHOULD BE REDUCED.”
To Vote or not To Vote? : An Interview with Mark Field — Yasmin Elam Nasser
P
olitics in the UK is ever-changing and it’s hard to keep up. It is probable that during your morning scroll or even better your skim of the daily newspaper, headlines regarding the decreased voting age may have popped up on your screen. Before you rushed to swipe away the notification or close the newspaper, you may have caught a mere glimpse of a number: 16.
The G&L Times was able to interview Mark Field, a former member of parliament for Westminster during 2001 to 2019 to understand what he had to say about the matter.
The announcement came last July, while most of us were frolicking and skipping through fields stress-free, it was announced that the voting age for the next general election had been reduced to 16. Therefore, in the near future (2029), current Year 8 Dolphins will be ticking ballot papers, doing their civic duty and having a say in how our country is run. Naturally, people have diverging opinions on the act. Whilst many 16 year olds believe they can decisively cast their vote in the midst of GCSE hysteria, studies show that many teenagers feel unprepared or that they lack the knowledge to make an informed decision in the upcoming vote. But who knows? If we can survive an exam season, I’m sure we can survive past-the-post voting.
What defines the voting age? ‘It is worth remembering that the change to 18 only came in the late 1960s, and was applied for the first time in the 1970 general election. One of the reasons for the change was a feeling that more and more young people were paying tax and weren't being represented’ He argued that one of the ‘key arguments’ for the change in voting age ‘doesn’t really apply in the way it did over 50 years ago’. After all, ‘In the late 1960s, roughly one in 10 people went to university, and the school leaving age at that point was 15. Therefore, young people could have spent as much as six years in employment, earning money, paying taxes and being fully functioning members of adult society and still not having the right to vote.’ On the other hand, in our current society, ‘a significant number of people are still enrolled in full-time education at 21’’.
At this point, the question is why aren’t they increasing the voting age instead of decreasing it? 'I am not convinced by the argument that the voting age should be reduced. If you look at the arbitrary age restriction of 18, in many areas this has been increased from the original 16. For example, 18 is now the age in which you can buy cigarettes, fireworks and the age in which you're allowed to marry, instead of 16. In a way, the argument that the voting age should come down is slightly against the trend in many other areas of public life.’ ‘Turnout for relatively young voters is quite low and it has been for a long time and is significantly lower than for those over the age of 65. Once people start paying tax, having a job, owning property, having children, they generally feel a little more engaged in the entire political process.’ Hence, he and many others, are not won over by the passing of the new voting age, believing that ‘18 strikes the right balance between the rights you have, as a voter, and the responsibilities to have interests and to get involved in politics.’ However, there is still hope, he does recognise that many ‘people in their teens, even younger than 16 are very politically engaged and very politically interested’, but he does not believe there has ‘been a strong enough argument made for why we should reduce the voting age, given that we are raising the age for all the things I’ve just mentioned’.
CHECK THE FOLLOWING: To hear more about what Mark Field had to say about the state of UK politics, check out the online version of this article.