The Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto included the following four commitments for “Upholding democracy”:
- extend voting rights to 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds
- review voter ID rules
- improve voter registration
- strengthen the rules on donations to political parties
The government has now released a policy paper outlining its proposals for an elections and democracy bill: Restoring trust in our democracy: Our strategy for modern and secure elections.
The government has said it will bring forward such a bill during the current Parliament.
Votes at 16
The policy paper confirms the government’s intention to reduce the voting age to 16 for all elections. The government says the voting age will be reduced in time for the next general election. The next election must be held by 15 August 2029, but the Prime Minster has the power to call one earlier.
The policy paper says that lowering the voting age will lead to more young people engaging with democracy:
Votes at 16 is critical to engaging young people in our democracy, empowering them to participate in society and affecting real change both locally and nationally.
Opponents of lowering the voting age question young people’s maturity and life experience, and some commentators worry about the potential effect on elections. However, research has shown that there has been no effect on election results in the few countries where the voting age has been lowered to 16, and that young people enfranchised at 16 are more likely to vote than young people enfranchised at 18.
The government has said that safeguards would be put in place to protect data of young people. It said that these would be similar to the safeguards already in Scotland and Wales, where 16-year olds and 17-year-olds are eligible to vote in some elections.
In an urgent question about the publication of the strategy paper, the Conservative spokesperson, Paul Holmes, questioned the suitability of 16-year-olds being able to vote and noted that they wouldn’t be able to stand for election until they were 18. The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, told ITV News, “I don’t think you should be able to vote in an election unless you’re also eligible to be a candidate, and I don’t think 16 year olds should stand for Parliament.”
Voter ID
Currently, UK voters need to show photo ID before being issued with a ballot paper in polling stations at general elections, police and crime commissioner elections and all other elections in England and Northern Ireland.
In 2025, the government added the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card to the list of approved voter ID in Great Britain. The government said that work was ongoing to review the approved ID list.
The modern and secure elections policy paper says UK-issued bank cards will be added to the list of approved voter ID in Great Britain, providing the bank card displays the elector’s name. The government says that over 96% of people aged 14 and over in the UK have a bank account. The Conservative Party welcomed the decision to retain voter ID, but asked about security measures for allowing bank cards as acceptable ID.
The government will also expand government-issued digital ID that is available in the gov.uk wallet, and allow these to be used as ID at polling stations.
Voter Authority Certificates (VACs) are a form of free photo ID available from local councils for use in polling stations. They are designed for people with no other acceptable form of ID. Levels of awareness of voter ID requirements generally are high, but VAC awareness is low. The government proposes allowing digital VACs to be issued.
The Electoral Commission has welcomed these proposals but has said “using bank cards as voter ID has risks for security and voter trust.”
Automatic voter registration
The Electoral Commission has estimated that around 8 million people may be missing from the electoral register. It has recommended modernising electoral registration processes, including by using public sector data to register people automatically. The Welsh Government is piloting automatic voter registration in Wales to add more people to the local government registers.
The UK Government wants to reduce the millions of voters who may be missing from electoral registers by moving towards an automated registration system. It says this should initially be done by improving data sharing and in the longer-term by testing “innovative approaches before permanently implementing” automatic voter registration.
Party donations
Donations to political parties must come from registered voters or UK-based organisations. Foreign donations are not permitted in the UK but there have been concerns about the possibility of the rules governing foreign political donations being broken or evaded.
The government proposes:
- strengthening the checks that parties must make on donations
- requiring those donating over £7,500 to declare if they have received (or expect to receive)any benefit over the threshold from another individual or entity in connection with their donation, and making false declarations an offence
- only allowing UK-based companies to donate from income generated in the UK
- tightening the rules on donations to and from unincorporated associations, a particular type of organisation identified as a possible weakness in regulating donations
The rules would also apply to donations to regulated people, such as candidates and elected officials.
Further measures in the policy paper
Further measures are also outlined in the policy paper.
Intimidation
The government proposes several measures to help reduce intimidation during election campaigns. Some of these draw on recommendations from the first report of the Speaker’s Conference on the security of candidates, MPs and elections. Measures include extending election disqualification orders to include offences against election staff and allowing intimidation towards a candidate, elected representative or election staff to be treated as an aggravating factor. This would allow courts to increase sentences.
Postal voting deadlines
Analysis by the Electoral Commission has suggested that postal voting systems are robust, and that most postal voters are satisfied with the system. However, the same analysis also suggested that postal voting systems did not work well enough for some voters. This is partly because ballots cannot be printed and posted until after nominations close, which limits the time for postal votes to be sent and returned.
The government proposes moving the nomination deadline for postal voting to earlier in the election timetable and moving the application deadline for a postal vote from 11 to 14 working days before polling day. This will mean that ballots can be printed earlier and that there will more time for postal ballots requested close to the deadline to be sent and returned.
The powers of the Electoral Commission
In line with recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and others, the government intends to strengthen the enforcement of political finance rules.
The Electoral Commission currently regulates and enforces donations rules for everyone that the rules apply to. It also regulates and enforces spending and financial reporting rules for political parties and other national campaigners. But offences committed by candidates locally can only be investigated by the police as criminal offences. This makes the regulation of finance complicated.
The government proposes that the Electoral Commission start enforcing candidate, local third-party and recall petition campaigner political finance offences using its civil sanctions enforcement regime. Referral to the police and criminal prosecution will still be available for the most serious offences involving intentional breaches, but most breaches will be enforced by the commission.
The maximum fine that the Electoral Commission will be able to set will be increased from £20,000 to £500,000 and it will be given greater power to share data with certain regulators and enforcement authorities.
Digital campaigning
Campaigning material from parties and politicians is required to have an indication of who has published the material and who the publisher supports, known as an ‘imprint’. This includes digital material. The rules and enforcement vary depending on whether the imprint is print or digital. The government proposes bringing the regulation of imprints under one roof, so the Electoral Commission will take responsibility for enforcing all imprint offences in the first instance.
About the author: Neil Johnston is researcher specialising in elections at the House of Commons Library.
Photo by: GeoMancer448 via Wikimedia Commons
