Once you are 16

Alcohol

You can buy beer or cider with a meal in a restaurant, or with a meal in a pub or hotel. You can also buy liqueur chocolates.

Armed Forces

You can join the armed forces. You must stay for the first 28 days whether you like it or not. Then for the following 6 months you can leave with 14 days notice. After that you have to serve for 4 years.

Driving

You can get a licence to drive an invalid carriage or a moped. If you are disabled you can get a licence to drive a car.

Education and Training

You can leave school on the last Friday of June if you are already 16 or if you will reach 16 by the end of the summer holidays. You are entitled to receive full-time education, so school, sixth form college and city technology college are free.

You also have the right to training if you aren’t in work or full-time education. If you are working you have the right to take time off for study or training until you are 17.

Employment

You can get most full-time jobs. You can’t work in a betting shop or in a bar during opening hours.

Gambling

You are allowed to do the football pools and buy a lottery ticket.

Leaving Home and Housing

You can leave home without the consent of your parents or anyone else with parental responsibility. If you are under 17 Social Services could apply for a care order, but it’s unlikely that you would be forced to go home.

You can rent from a landlord. However until you are 18 you can’t be the actual tenant. You need a guarantor, who is someone that takes responsibility for you.

Legal Issues

If you are convicted of a criminal offence the Youth Court can make the following orders depending how serious the offence was.

• A probation order over you for up to three years
• A community service order requiring you to perform unpaid work in the community for between 40 and 240 hours.
• A combination order where you can have up to three years on probation and have to perform community service up to 100 hours
• A drug treatment and testing order for up to three years

Plus all the punishments you might receive before you are 16.

Marriage

You can marry but you must get permission from your parents first. If they are married you need the consent of both of them. If they are not married you need your mum’s consent, unless your dad has parental responsibility for you. If your parents don’t give you consent you may still be able to get authorisation from a court.

Medical Treatment

You can now consent to surgical, medical or dental treatment and also choose your own doctor.

If you are female you can buy emergency contraception, the morning after pill, over the counter in a pharmacy.

You start paying prescription charges, unless you are

• in full-time education
• pregnant
• in receipt of income support or Working Families’ Tax Credit

You also have to pay for sight tests and glasses unless you are in full-time education.

Sex

A girl can consent to heterosexual intercourse and a boy can consent to a homosexual act, with another male over the age of 16. Anyone who is in a ‘position of trust’ who is over the age of 18 will commit an offence if he or she has sex or engages in sexual activity with a person aged 16 or 17 in their care.

Smoking

You can buy cigarettes, tobacco and cigarette papers

Travel

You can apply for your own passport, but a parent or person caring for you must give written consent, unless you are married or in the armed forces.

You now have to pay full fare on trains, buses and tubes in London.