Youth Voice Heard: Alex Nurton, MYP on Votes at 16

Alex Nurton (17) member of the Youth Parliament and Chair of UKYP’s Votes at 16 campaign committee, makes the case for supporting teachers to be properly resourced in preparing young citizens to vote at the age of 16 and calls on supporters to back and sign UKYP’s e-petition.

Profile: Alex, aged 17, is Student Vice President at his school, and a Member of the UK Youth Parliament. Locally he is a member of the Surrey Youth Council and serves on the Surrey Youth Cabinet, where he leads the finance and jobs campaign group. Alex has written about Votes at 16 and appeared on BBC radio and TV, where first came to the attention of #YouthVoiceNews/ Votesat16Watch when he said “We’re not just adults in waiting – we’re active members of society… for everything you say we can’t do there are arguments for the things we can” July 25, YVN Quote of the year

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Background: In February 2026, the Government followed up its 2024 manifesto pledge to introduce legislation on votes at 16 – the Representation of the People Bill. Together with the Electoral Commission, they have declared their commitment to collaborate with stakeholders to implement the new law. The UK Youth Parliament, established in 1999, adopted Votes at 16 as one of its first campaigns, and following the election of a Government committed to lowering the voting age, joined the call to make political literacy a key priority for delivery. This was highlighted in their debate in the House of Commons in Feb 2025. This led to a Campaign Committee on Votes at 16, chaired by Alex, and the launch of an e-petition this year. It urges the Government to ‘fund high-quality non-partisan political and citizenship teaching resources,’ arguing that ‘it’s vital students are taught the skills for informed and active participation in society – too often teachers don’t have the support, leaving students without consistency.’

Earlier this month, Alex made a presentation to over 100 stakeholders brought together by the Democracy Classroom/Politics Project, including Government officials from DCMS, DfE, MHCLG, the Electoral Commission, partners, campaigners and young leaders. The following is taken from that speech.

Votes at 16 and Education

“Hi, I’m Alex Nurton. I was elected Chair of the Votes at 16 campaign last year, before the announcement that the Government would go ahead with plans to lower the voting age. As a result of the announcement, I was invited to go on BBC News and – not only got to advocate for votes at 16 – but discuss what it means to me and give some insight into being a 17 year old. I got to talk about the conversations I have with friends (who would claim not to be ‘political’) but are constantly complaining about late trains, poor education funding, or the lack of action around climate change. The message I was trying to get across is that 16 and 17-year-olds are affected by every political decision, and although they may not be party political, they care as much as 18-year-olds or 80-year-olds about political issues.

What is political and citizenship education?

This is a question often asked, not only by friends my age, but also by adults I’ve talked to about this campaign. Per the Government guidance for England, this [citizenship education] already includes topics such as: how our democracy works, our Parliament, how to participate in politics, and other crucial skills and topics such as financial literacy, human rights, and (soon to be) media literacy. It’s a similar case [agenda] in the rest of the UK, although the wording and some content is slightly different; however, citizenship is statutory across most of the UK, in one form or another.

It’s well documented that these lessons help young people and that young people want these lessons. A report by the Association of Citizenship Teaching found that students who learnt Citizenship had higher political interest, higher news engagement, more trust in democratic institutions, and (more importantly) greater confidence in political understanding.^[i]

So it’s clearly important, but young people also want to learn about it. A report by the Electoral Commission estimates nearly three-quarters of young people think politics should be taught more in schools^[ii]. I’d challenge you to find something else that unites so many young people as much… besides our love of being chronically online.

On that note, now’s probably a good time to mention that young people are turning to social media, which is (as I’m sure you all know) filled with fake news, only becoming worse with advancements in generative AI.

But if these topics are, for the most part, statutory [already], what’s the problem? Why do only 30% of those aged 18 and under say they have learnt about politics in school or college?^[iii] Why did one report by Ofsted find that Citizenship was ‘inadequate’ in a quarter of secondary schools? ^[iv] Why did a report by Save The Children find that 2 in 5 young people didn’t even know what politicians do?^[v]

Perhaps I should look closer to home. After coming to the realisation that not every young person is as knowledgeable as I am in politics – a very sad realisation – we decided to ask Members of Youth Parliament about their experiences at their schools. We found that teaching for these topics is so poor in so many schools, because the duty of these lessons is very often fragmented between teachers. Not only will this responsibility be given to (already) overburdened teachers, but you’ll also, very often, have different teachers responsible for citizenship education throughout your time at your school.

This results in a system which leads to – not only lessons being poorly designed and planned – but often a complete lack of a comprehensive citizenship curriculum that can develop students’ knowledge and build up their understanding.

This leads to teachers often resorting to old, outdated resources either made by previous teachers or resources found and bought online, which have no oversight and, based on my research, can be inappropriate and even inaccurate. But I don’t want to come across as too critical of teachers; it’s a systematic problem. My mum is a teacher and has found herself teaching these lessons. I’m sure she has some strong words she could use to describe the job of teaching these lessons, but I think Ofsted said it best when they called it ‘an unwelcome burden’ for teachers.

So the result of this research, what we’re calling a ‘postcode lottery’, led us to launch our new e-petition campaign, which I mentioned earlier. With any teacher able to access these well-made unbiased resources, the quality and quantity of these lessons can improve dramatically.

We can give students the political education they not only want, but need, in order to foster the skills and knowledge necessary to engage fully in our democracy. It’s currently a political choice to not act and accept the ongoing poor quality of citizenship education that we currently have … the one that keeps teachers without adequate support, and young people without the tools to engage in politics.

Let’s empower teachers and their students to engage in politics.

If you’re a charity that is interested in our campaign, we’re open to inviting you to become a ‘Signature Sponsor’. This would entail you showing your public support for our campaign on your socials as well as issuing a press release, in order to get the word out there.

If you are a decision maker yourself, I’m more than happy to arrange a meeting to discuss our campaign further. Please contact me via the National Youth Agency, ukyp@nya.org.uk

If I could just end by saying this one thing, it’s that this is such an easy win. The Government could act now and show they care about teachers, that they care about young people, and that they care about our democracy.”

Link to the e-petition

ENDS

[To date, over 1000 have signed. The Association of Citizenship Teaching, ShoutOutUK and Unlocking Democracy back the campaign/ Ed. For more info: on the campaign and on UKYP at NYA. Ed]