£10 fine for not voting: the Lords plan most voters have not heard of
Voters who fail to cast a ballot could be fined £10 under a change some peers want written into the Government's Representation of the People Bill, which is now before the House of Lords after clearing its Commons stages. Baroness Jan Royall has confirmed she intends to move an amendment making participation in elections a legal duty.
The push has picked up heavyweight Labour support. Former Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock has backed the idea of a legal obligation to vote, and former Home Secretary Lord David Blunkett is also expected to support it, alongside Lord George Foulkes. Andy Burnham is being urged to throw his weight behind the change as well.
Under the model already floated during the Bill's passage, the penalty for failing to take part without a valid exemption would be £10. Crucially, nobody would be forced to pick a candidate. Voters would be allowed to hand back a blank or spoiled ballot and still meet the requirement, so the duty is to turn up rather than to endorse anyone.
The exemptions put forward so far cover illness or disability, being out of the UK at the time of the vote, and sincerely held religious or conscientious objections. Anyone outside those categories who simply stayed at home on polling day would, on the proposals as drafted, be liable for the charge.
Lord Kinnock said compulsory voting was becoming "increasingly justified and necessary". He argued that when turnout falls "for various negative reasons, election results are consequently distorted, accountability can be diminished and disengagement from community obligations becomes habitual". He said his decade living in Belgium, where voting is compulsory, convinced him that democracy in the UK "would benefit greatly from a comparable system of legal obligation".
The numbers behind the campaign are stark. Turnout at the 2024 general election was around 60 per cent, the lowest at a general election since 2001. Australia, which fines people for not voting, recorded turnout of roughly 91 per cent at its 2025 federal election.
Mr Burnham refused to rule out compulsory voting back in 2012 when he was on Labour's front bench, warning that turnout was "getting too low to ignore". The amendment lands while ministers are already rewriting the rules elsewhere, lowering the voting age to 16 and moving towards automated voter registration.
The Government has not signed up. A spokesman said "different democracies make different choices" and that its focus is on "removing barriers to participation" rather than compelling it. Critics argue that forcing people to the polling station does not make them better informed, and that the freedom not to vote is part of the deal. Charles White of the Campaign for Compulsory Voting called it a "common sense reform", saying waiting for turnout to fix itself is no longer an option.
For most households the sum involved is small, but the principle is not. A £10 charge for staying at home would be the first time voting stopped being a choice and started being something the state can bill you for. Nothing has passed yet, and the amendment still has to survive the Lords, but anyone who has quietly opted out of recent elections has a reason to watch this Bill closely.
