Rushcliffe Comprehensive School is entering the National Youth Parliament Competition. For the competition pupils create a mock parliament and debate an issue of their choice. Rushcliffe's young parliamentarians debated the motion "University fees should be abolished."
MPs Paddy Tipping and Vernon Coaker visited the school to see the young parliamentarians show off their debating skills and to offer advice for improvement.
The MPs’ support helped us immensely by teaching us how to be better debaters, which vastly improved our entry to the competition. Not only did it help with the National Youth Parliament Competition, but it ignited interest in politics and showed us that we could make a difference and influence people’s views through politics and the power of debate.
One young debater, Stevie Grieves, said that “the MPs helped me to realise how politics works and shapes the world we live in. I think too many people my age think that politics is boring and unnecessary, but the MPs helped me realise that there is so much more to it than that and it really can change peoples lives, for the better or for the worse.”
Paddy Tipping said of the day that it was “stimulating and refreshing. There was more enthusiasm in the room than there sometimes is in the House of Commons chamber.” He believes it is very important for young people to get their voices heard because “everyone should have a say and influence on important issues. It’s vital young people are involved in discussions on future directions. Young people, with few exceptions, are a force for change, a force for good. We need to focus on the positive rather than negative stereotypes.”
The media’s portrayal of young people is often negative. Events like this show that young people are not apathetic towards politics; they do have, a voice, and many of them are using it.
[I have tried to make the audio recording of the debate as audible as possible, but it is still not great.]