The government has set out plans to lower the voting age across the UK to 16 by the next general election.

Ministers argue the move will boost engagement in democracy and give young people a say in their future.

But critics claim it could benefit Labour as young people are more likely to vote for left-wing parties.

The government has rejected the idea this is the motivation behind the change, with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner saying it is about strengthening democracy rather than “trying to rig votes for a particular party”.

While it’s true polls suggest Labour is the most popular party among younger age groups, how this could translate to a real election is not straightforward.

YouGov’s latest voting intention poll puts Labour in the lead amongst 18 to 24-year-olds at 28%, followed by the Greens on 26% and the Liberal Democrats on 20%.

In contrast, the Conservatives were on 9% and Reform UK on 8%.

There’s no reason to think 16 and 17-year-olds would break away from the pattern of young people leaning to the left but some experts say there isn’t enough polling of this age group to say with confidence how they would vote.

Anthony Wells, head of European political and social research at YouGov, also points out we don’t yet know if voting tendencies could change if Labour are an unpopular incumbent at the next election – which is likely to be four years away.

Meanwhile, politics is fracturing and Labour’s vote is at risk of being chipped away by smaller parties.

Although Reform UK opposes lowering the voting age and did better amongst older voters at last year’s general election, it is reaching increasing numbers of young people on social media.

Leader Nigel Farage has a big presence on TikTok, with more than one million followers.

It’s not clear if this would translate into votes but some polling suggests support for Reform is growing among 18 to 24-year-old men.

On the left, a new party led by Jeremy Corbyn, who energised young people during his election campaigns as Labour leader, could potentially pick up votes from newly enfranchised teenagers, along with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

In the few countries where the voting age has already been lowered to 16, research suggests there has been no impact on the overall result.

In the UK, 16 and 17-year-olds make up only around 2.8% of the population aged 16 or above, so researchers say the impact on party vote share is likely to be negligible.

Turnout for elections also tends to be lower for younger age groups and if this is also true for 16 and 17-year-olds they would be an even smaller proportion of the electorate.

Luke Tryl, UK director of political research group More in Common, said he would not expect this age group to have “an outsized impact”.

However, he adds: “Then again we are in an era where small shares of the vote can deliver you lots of seats in multi-party politics.”

The greatest impact would be more likely to be felt in those individual constituencies where the MP has a small majority and a few hundred – or thousand – additional voters on the electoral roll could make the difference.