Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>>Mr Speaker: Order! Order!
Good morning and welcome.
This is an historic occasion.
I know, and it's hugely to your credit, that, consistently, fifty per cent of your
members are women.
Something like twenty-two per cent of you are drawn from the ethnic minority communities
that so enrich our country,
and three per cent of you are young people with disabilities.
All of those statistics are better than we have in our Parliament.
Whatever the imperfections of our system of government and representation, and I know,
and all of us as Members of Parliament know that we need greatly to improve, we are, I
think, proud
that we have in this country a democracy.
Politics, whatever you think of it, and whatever you think of individual parties, and whatever
you think of particular leaders, does matter, because it will affect you, your friends,
your family and the future of your country.
The sort of economy we have, the quality of education that we enjoy, the scale of health
service provision that we can offer, the state of our transport infrastructure, the effectiveness
of our fight against crime, the means that we adopt to protect and nurture our environment,
the state of our relations with other countries,
and what we do to help the poorest and most destitute people on the face of the planet,
all depend on the decisions we make, the laws that we pass and the money that we spend,
and that's why politics matters.
I, personally, am thrilled to welcome you here today. I look forward to the proceedings
getting under way.
The Youth Parliament will consider the first motion of the day, relating to university
education.
>>Motion one: Free university education.
>>Male youth 1: At the moment, the tuition fee system benefits either the extremely rich
or the poor.
Last year, in the UK YP survey, one in three students who wanted to go to university could
not do because they did not have the required funds to do so. Now, in context, that is one
in three doctors who cannot go on to cure, one in three teachers who cannot go on to
educate and one in three politicians who cannot go on to change the system that stands today.
Why is the right to education at any level determined by your social background, parental
income or the way you live?
>>Female youth 1: Abolishing tuition fees will not increase accessibility.
Three Scottish universities have the lowest number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds
than any other uni in the UK.
It's free, but less accessible. Is that fair?
>>Male youth 2: Why should people who get up at six o'clock in the morning, to work
as a dustman or my father, who didn't go to university, and works for a builder, pay
for my education?
>>Female youth 2 : Education isn't only out of poverty; when you're educated, if
you've got a degree and you're earning extra money, you're going to be paying the
higher tax rate, and you're going to be making more money, having given people more
jobs, getting this country out of its debt in the first place. I think free education
is one of the only ways we can do this.
>>Female youth 3: Young people, we've heard a variety of passionate arguments for why
university fees should be kept.
For one, the economic crisis we find ourselves in. In a deep recession, do we really need
to burden ourselves any more, adding another 2 or 3.5 billion extra to the taxpayer a year?
Or do we listen to the morality in our consciences, how three-quarters of working young people
at the moment will opt not to go on to further education, because of the fear of future debt
and the fear of not being able to afford the cost of going to university?
>>Motion two: Youth crime
>>Male youth 3: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I'm here today to propose to you
that prison is the most suitable method of not only rehabilitating offenders, but of
providing them with skills for life that are beneficial, not only to them, but to the population
as a whole.
>>Male youth 4: Why shouldn't someone, young or old, who has damaged the community,
[background applause]
who has damaged the community, pay for what they did, by working to improve
it?
It is important that vulnerable young people, who have made a mistake, are not isolated
from society and support, but, instead, receive the help they need, as well as the punishment
they deserve.
>>Male youth 5: Members of the Youth Parliament, I'm a little bit confused on why we're
here, promoting that young people commit crimes.
Surely we're meant to be here, promoting a good image of young people, but the media
is portraying us as yobs. we're here today to promote young people as good citizens,
and that's the way I feel we should be treated.
>>Female youth 4: How can we deny anybody a second chance? These young people, who are
exploited because of their backgrounds and circumstances, they're not criminals, they're
just troubled people that need help and need assistance, so they can be rehabilitated back
into the community and become the law-abiding citizens that we are.
>>Female youth 5: Firstly, I'd like to say that I don't think we should be discussing
prison or community service. The question we should be asking is, why are young people
doing this in the first place? Why, why are they robbing people on the streets? Why are
they doing whatever they're doing and going to prison or getting community service? They
shouldn't be, whether they should be put in prison or community service.
>>Female youth 6: Neither does this sort of justice help young offenders to move on with
their lives after sentencing, and vastly reduce Government spending. It also gives something
back to those who suffer at the hands of youth crime.
>>Motion three: Free transport
>>Female youth 7: The statement is: Free transport for over-60s, but not for young people.
Should the over-60s have the right to free transport, when young people in full-time
education, with limited resources, and access to paid employment, struggle to secure concessionary
fares? How can we justify taking money away from the health services and the forces, just
so that we can get around for free?
>>Male youth 6: I come from the Scottish Borders, an area which is very rural and young people
rely on public transport heavily, to get from A to B and B to C.
Young people have to pay a fare of up to £12 to get to Edinburgh, the nearest city. Why,
I ask, should these young people be so financially disadvantaged when compared to other young
people who live in more urban areas?
>>Male youth 7: It is easy to say that you can hop into a car for your friends or your
parents, but why isn't the Government making it easy to hop on public transport or making
it affordable for young people?
>>Male youth 8: Mr Speaker, as young people, we seem to live in a world where we want everything
and anything for free. We come here today and say 'We want free university, we want
free transport'.
Members of society who are over 60 might have fought in the war, might have had a good job,
might have been in the armed forces, they've earned their free travel, we've not.
>>Male youth 9: Northern Ireland is pretty much the poorest part of the United Kingdom.
If we can do that for our young people, if we can promote social mobility, get people
to school, encourage them to school, stop truancy, if we can do that in Northern Ireland,
which is also a very rural society, where we have a grammar school system, which means
that people do tend to travel a lot longer than perhaps people do in England, if we can
do that, then surely you can do that here in England and Wales and Scotland, too.
>>Mr Speaker: That was terrific, thank you very much.
>>Motion four: Capitalism, the economy and job opportunities.
>>Female youth 8: The fourth debate is on capitalism, the economy and job opportunities
for young people. Education is slowly becoming just a pathway into a well-educated unemployed
era of young people, so, surely, if the opportunities are there, why has there not been enough to
advertise them, and why are so many talented and bright young people being left with nothing
but their education that won't get them a job? Thank you, Mr Speaker.
>>Mr Speaker: Thank you, Clarissa.
>>Male youth 10: My region, the North-East, has the second highest youth unemployment
in the country, with 22.6% of young people out of work and education, and an important
local industry, on Teesside, is shedding jobs and threatens thousands of families' futures.
So I know that the economic crisis is real.
>>Female youth 9: If we do not have progress, we cannot continue to get out of recession.
People are not being given jobs, as young people, because they do not have the experience.
>>Male youth 11: It's not the employers' fault that they're not employing young people,
it is their fault themselves. I think young people, personally, are not doing enough to
go out there and speak to the employers.
>>Female youth 10: If we're going to reduce our crime rate, then we desperately need to
give children the opportunity to work.
>>Female youth 11: In the future, we'll have high taxes, not the better health care
or better schooling or better policing, not for anything that will benefit us, oh no,
nothing like that. We will be paying for the mistakes of the past. We will, basically,
be paying for the bonuses of the bankers, who got us in this situation in the first
place.
>>Mr Speaker: The fifth, and last, motion of the day, relating to lowering the voting
age to 16, as printed on the Order Paper. I call Mr James Evans to move the motion.
>>Motion five: Lowering the voting age to 16.
>>Male youth 12: At 16, we can marry our MP, we can sleep with our MP and we can have children
with our MP [background applause], we can sign up in preparation to fight for, and then
potentially die for, our MP. And suddenly, we're not mature enough to vote for them.
What an absolute disgrace.
>>Female youth 12: Giving the vote to 16-year-olds is pointless -- we need education to go with
it. A huge percentage of the population, who have the right to vote, don't. Ask yourself
why this is. Surely it's because they don't understand the system, or enough about what
they're voting for. Those who do have had no compulsory education in democracy or politics.
If we, as young people, are to understand democracy, we must have education. The Government
controls the curriculum, they determine our learning and some subjects are compulsory.
Well, let's make politics and democracy compulsory.
>>Male youth 13: Is voting at 16 pointless or not, because some 16-year-olds know about
politics, some don't, and I know about politics.
>>Male youth 14: We live in a time where people have become very cynical and disillusioned
with politics and, as a result, voter turnout is very low. So wouldn't it be a great thing
if we opened up the voting age to a new group of people, and, hopefully, move some real
change in our nation.
>>Mr Speaker: The votes cast were as follows:
University education being free -- 56 votes [background applause]
Youth crime and how to tackle it -- 34 votes [background applause]
Free transport for over-60s but not for young people -- 54 votes [background applause]
Job opportunities for young people -- 62 votes [background applause]
Lowering the voting age to 16 -- 107 votes [Prolonged background applause]
>>Mr Speaker: Members of the Youth Parliament, you have chosen your campaigning priority
for the year. Thank you. That is the end of our proceedings. Order! Order!
[background applause]