PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS ACT 1695 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 9 July 1975)

§ Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Parliamentary Elections Act 1695. The purpose of the Bill is to permit people under the age of 21 but over the age of 18 to stand for Parliament and, if fortunate enough to be elected, to represent those who have seen fit to elect them.

The Act is now some 300 years old, it does not reflect the current state of the law in other respects, nor the feelings of the vast majority of people, nor, indeed, the views of the majority of the Speaker's Conference which recommended that the law be changed in this respect.

A person who is 18 has now nearly all the rights and responsibilities of any other adult. He may make contracts, he may engage in business, he may be called up for military service and fight and be killed in the service of his country, he may vote, and he may sit on juries. He has full responsibilities, but he may not stand for election to this House.

Where a person takes a full part in the life of the country in which he pays his taxes, works, and is treated as an adult in almost every other respect, it is totally illogical, wrong and out of date that he should be prevented from serving in this House if he is elected thereto.

If this very modest Bill were passed—producing, as it would, a one-sentence amendment to an Act which is printed in such a form that one can scarcely read it—it would not have any disastrous effect. People at the age of 21 have the right to sit in this House, but I see about me very few Members who come within striking distance of that age. We have very few who are under 30. There is possibly only one who is under 25. There is one hon. Member on the Liberal benches who was under 25 when elected but is now ageing, along with his party. Now that there is a right to sit at 21, we are now starting to get people at 25, and more often at 30. If the age is reduced 532 to 18, people will then be able to join in the parliamentary battle at that age, but it does not mean that they will be elected to this House, or that they will find any party likely to put them forward as a candidate for any seat which could be regarded as safe in anyone's wildest dreams.

What is likely to happen is that there will be a greater involvement of younger people. There will be some who will be adopted to fight seats, and there is a possibility that some day one or two, or possibly three, might be elected, which would hardly produce catastrophe for the House. It would certainly introduce an element of youth, and perhaps we could do with that.

Even if this Bill were to succeed in getting through the House in this Session, or a future Bill in a future Session, it would, in effect, do nothing more than what was proposed as a result of the Speaker's Conference. That conference was announced in August 1972, it began work in March 1973, and it reported in July 1973, by the vast majority of 10 to eight, that the minimum age of candidature for parliamentary elections should be lowered from 21 years to 18 years. That recommendation was buried along with that Parliament, and has returned to the archives, along with the incredible Act of 1695 which I am having the temerity to seek to amend.

I believe it is right that young people of 18 should have the entitlement to sit in this House if they are elected, and that it is wrong that they should be prevented from so doing.