Early Day Motion 50

Friends and meetings in touch with their MPs are encouraged to ask them to support EDM 50 asking the Government to raise the age of recruitment to 18.

Under current regulations young people who join the armed forces at the age of sixteen commit themselves to a period of four years beyond their 18th birthday. No other European country currently recruits at 16. Early Day Motion 50 raises this issue in the context of proposals to raise the school leaving age.

The change in the law that this presses for would enable the UK to fully recognise our human rights commitments, including the Optional Protocol on the Convention of the Rights of the Child in relation to armed conflict, which prohibits the use of under 18 is in front-line service, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, requiring the best interests of the child to be taken into account.

The Early Day Motion on the Parliament website [offsite link]