UK Youth Parliament  

Last night the House of Commons finally voted to allow the UK Youth Parliament to debate in the Chamber when it meets for its annual session later this year. There was fierce opposition from a small number of MPs who felt that our tradition made this step unacceptable. I didn’t speak in last night’s debate (I was chairing a meeting about the effects of the recession on rural economies at the time) but I had spoken briefly on this subject last Thursday. For me the decision to allow the hallowed Chamber to be used by today’s elected Members of the UK Youth Parliament is a welcome development in the promotion of citizenship teaching and citizenship awareness raising. I was active in the campaign to make citizenship a curriculum subject in its own right, a campaign ably led by the late Bernard Crick. A campaign which was successful when, in 2001, citizenship became a compulsory...