The Electoral Reform Society is to call for the national voting age to be reduced to 16 today, coinciding with a parliamentary debate on the issue.

If a 10-minute rule bill introduced by Lib Dem MP Matthew Green were to be adopted, it would herald the first drop in the voting age since 1970. Now, over three decades later and with citizenship taught in the nation's schools, argue the ERS, is the time for a second change.

Campaign manager for the society, Alex Foulkes, said: "The introduction of citizenship education onto the national curriculum means that we will have a more politically intelligent group of school-leavers. Yet they are denied the right to have their say in a General Election for anything up to seven years."

"We believe that young people are becoming disconnected from the political system because they are denied the right to have a say. This may well be part of the reason why so few young electors actually go and cast a vote in elections."