Labour Promises to Grant Voting Rights to 16-Year-Olds and Eliminate the House of Lords
The Lords would be replaced by an assembly of regions and nations, a plan suggested by former PM Gordon Brown in his 2022 commission on the UK’s future.
Labour has proposed changes to the UK’s democratic mechanisms, including lowering the voting age to 16 and replacing the House of Lords with a chamber of “regions and nations.”
Addressing the matter on the campaign trail last month, Sir Keir said that anyone who can pay taxes should “have a say” in how their money is spent.
Most Voters Oppose Lowering Voting Age
Voters responding to a poll on June 3 conducted by More in Common found that most (47 percent) oppose lowering the voting age to 16, with just 27 percent in support.
The think tank found that while the policy “lands well” with 2019 Labour voters—with 53 percent of respondents backing it—it “puts off” swing voters, including those who voted for the Conservatives in the last election but would vote Labour on July 4.
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The poll also showed that the majority of voters (58 percent) believe Labour proposed the changes because the party thinks more young people voting will benefit Labour electorally, not because it would be better for British democracy.
Replacing the House of Lords
Replacing the House of Lords has been Labour policy for some time, with Sir Keir promising to do so when he ran for party leader in 2020, saying one of his endeavours would be to “abolish“ the House of Lords and ”replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations.”
Labour’s 2024 manifesto puts that pledge into print, saying that constitutional reform is “long over-due” and recommends radical changes that would not only see an end to hereditary peers, but replace the House of Lords entirely.
The manifesto calls the concept of hereditary peers—representatives in the Lords who inherit their seat—“indefensible” and that a Labour government would phase out the last of them.
Labour’s strategy of changing the UK’s Parliament would be the result of first shrinking the Upper House, which it says “has become too big,” with the help of a mandatory retirement age of 80.
The party would also would bring about “immediate modernisation” by introducing legislation to “remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords” and a new participation requirement.
There are currently 785 peers in the Lords; by comparison, there are 650 seats in the House of Commons.
The majority of peers are appointed for life—though they can retire—with there being 92 hereditary places reserved in the Lords. The last Labour government got rid of most hereditary peers in 1999.
‘Council of Nations and Regions’
Labour’s long-term plans would see the abolishing of the Lords altogether, replacing it with an “alternative chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations.”
“Greater collaboration” between heads of devolved governments and the prime minister also feature under Labour’s plan for reshaping British democracy, including the establishment of a “Council of Nations and Regions,” which would bring together the head of Westminster’s Parliament with the heads of the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and mayors of combined authorities.
The document called for power to be “truly shared with the devolved legislatures and across England, and give voice explicitly to the different nations and regions of the United Kingdom.”
Neither the Brown Commission nor Labour’s 2024 manifesto propose how elections to the new second chamber would work, or what its composition should be, with both saying it would be a matter of public consultation.
