<P> In 2004, the UK Electoral Commission conducted a major consultation on the subject of the voting and candidacy ages, and received a significant response . In its conclusions it recommended that the voting age remain at 18 . On 29 November 2005 the House of Commons voted 136 - 128 (on a free vote) against a Private Member's Bill for a reduction in the voting age to 16 proposed by Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams . Parliament chose not to include a provision reducing the voting age in the Electoral Administration Act during its passage in 2006 . </P> <P> On 27 February 2006, the report of the Power Inquiry called for a reduction of the voting age, and of the candidacy age for the House of Commons, to 16 . On the same day the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, indicated in an article in The Guardian that he favoured a reduction provided it was made concurrently with effective citizenship education . </P> <P> The UK Ministry of Justice published on 3 July 2007 a Green Paper entitled The Governance of Britain, in which it proposed the establishment of a "Youth Citizenship Commission". The Commission would examine the case for lowering the voting age . On launching the Paper in the House of Commons, PM Gordon Brown said: "Although the voting age has been 18 since 1969, it is right, as part of that debate, to examine, and hear from young people themselves, whether lowering that age would increase participation ." </P> <P> The Scottish National Party's conference voted unanimously on 27 October 2007 for a policy of reducing the voting age to 16, as well as in favour of a campaign for the necessary power to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament . </P>

When was the uk voting age lowered to 18