MP: Votes For 16-Year-Olds Raises Sex Abuse Risk

Giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote will make them vulnerable to sexual predators, according to a veteran Labour MP.

Barry Sheerman warned that the voting age for the EU referendum would “destroy” the protections given to children by not allowing teenager the vote until they are 18.

Speaking in a debate in the Commons on the European Union Referendum Bill, Mr Sheerman said lowering the limit would result in children become adults at 16 rather than 18.

He said the policy would "shrink childhood".

He said: "Up and down this country we've had vulnerability to sexual predators and ghastly things happening right through to 18, up and down this country, and this move to have adults at 16 will make a lot of young men and women more vulnerable to sexual predation than happens at the moment."

Shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden said: "I have a huge mutual respect for you but I do not see the connection between extending voting rights to people at 16 and making them more vulnerable to sexual predators."

Mr Sheerman later argued: "What those of us - the small minority of us on these benches, I have to say - worry about, is the truth is, we make becoming an adult 16 and that shrinks childhood.

"At a time when kids in this country are going to live to 100, the amount of time they're going to be children gets smaller as a percentage."

Labour has pledged to give 16-year-olds the vote but they have not been included for the EU referendum, a move which has drawn some criticism.

The Electoral Reform Society has said it was odd to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote on Scottish independence but not on EU membership.