OXFORD West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran accused the Conservative Party of ‘filibustering’ a debate on whether 16 and 17-year-olds get the vote.

The private members’ bill brought by Labour MP Jim McMahon was debated in Parliament on Friday and proposed bringing down the voting age down from 18 in UK parliamentary elections, local elections and referendums.

Ms Moran, a staunch supporter of the bill said she was ‘disgusted’ by the government, and said it was ‘condescending and out of date’.

She told the Oxford Mail: “The Tories talked it out, the chair felt there wasn’t enough debate for it to go to a vote, which was a deliberate move from the Tories and completely despicable.”

Mr McMahon, also said that MPs on the Government benches had spoken at length during an earlier debate to reduce the amount of time given to the second debate.

The debate saw both sides heckling each other, which caused the Deputy Speaker, Eleanor Laing to intervene.

Ms Laing eventually ruled that not enough time had passed for MPs to have a vote on the Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill as MPs had fewer than 90 minutes to debate.

Ms Moran said: “There’s a broad consensus from five opposition parties to lower the voting age.

“So it could still happen within five years with a change of Parliament, or maybe even before that.

“There are a few backbench Tory MPs who support it and with the hung Parliament, this is exactly the kind of thing that the government could lose, which is why they talked it out and why they didn’t want it to go to vote.”