I take the noble Lord’s point, because there are all sorts of polls and this is in the Library briefing, but I can honestly say that I have debated this issue in the past with Labour Ministers who were not for votes at 16 at the time. I think we are getting to a stage in thinking about sophistication and education where we have to coalesce around an arbitrary age. I go back to the criminal responsibility point. The noble Lord speaks very eloquently. He argues “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and that we should not make a radical change without a great deal of consensus. He did not speak like that when he was talking about radically overhauling the refugee convention on another Bill.
Elections Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Chakrabarti
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 23 March 2022.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Elections Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
820 c1029 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2022-05-03 16:28:38 +0100
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Lords/2022-03-23/22032363000023
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