Call to lower age of consent to 15 The age of consent for sex should be lowered to 15, a public health expert has said. Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, has called for a debate on the subject. The age of consent is currently 16. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Prof Ashton said society was sending out mixed signals, with up to a third of teenagers already having sex under 16. He claims that lowering the age would make it easier for 15 year-olds to seek contraception and sexual health advice from the NHS and would "draw a line in the sand" against sex at 14 and younger. "My own view is there is an argument for reducing it to 15 but you cannot do it without the public supporting the idea and we need to get a sense of public opinion about this," he said in the interview. I would not personally argue for 14 but I think we should seriously be looking at 15 so that we can draw a line in the sand and really, as society, actibely discourage sexual involvement under 15.