Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee

Wednesday 9th September 2026

(began 3 weeks, 6 days ago)

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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Thank you. Robert.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Okay, we had quite a long lead in in Wales, so it went live. Registration went live for young people on the 1st of June in 2020, and their first elections was then the following year, the Senate on the 1st of May in 2021, which allowed a good period of time for registration, raising awareness and just general engagement activity. I think this phased approach led to sort of quite good success. We had a whole canvas annual canvass in which to raise awareness that the franchise or the franchise had changed, and that 1415 year olds could now register to vote, and anyone at the age of 16 or over could, could vote at those elections coming up the following year.

Whilst unfortunately, a lot of the engagement activity was curtailed because of Covid, I think we still managed to get that message across. During the annual canvass, there was a national leaflet that was developed across all of Wales and was used that was followed up. Then the following spring with the household notification letter, which again reinforced the messaging that the franchise had changed and, and new, younger, you know, voter was was in being also I think that second communication helped because it we now know in recent years that voter registration has become more and more event led.

And that messaging in January, February really led into the the, the May Senate elections. So I think that's something that certainly was was useful. We still, unfortunately, because of Covid, the impact of all of that engagement work wasn't as impactful as we would have liked. And further work was done that following canvass. Really good practice, extra funding for an engagement officer in electoral services teams, which perhaps hadn't been the case the previous year.

Actual network working group that was managed with Welsh Government support and involving civic societies as well. That proved to be invaluable. And we saw huge jumps in registration from the elections, the Senate elections in 2021 to the local government elections in 2022. In some cases, the extremes from 35% increase in somewhere like Ernest Maun to Swansea, I think had 75% jump in registrations, and in Powis we had 80%.

So that was a huge impact in that in that second summer of engagement. And I think it was not just about encouraging people to register. It was raising awareness of the importance of of their role, how they could use their voice, methods of voting, what to expect in the polling station. So it was a much more comprehensive programme than just you can now register to vote.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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And Robert Lee.
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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, thanks in Scotland, actually started off with what was known as Young People's Register, which was used for the independence referendum in 2014. The registration landscape was vastly different at that point in time. We hadn't had the Elections Act, we hadn't had the extension of the franchise for within Scotland, for foreign nationals. We hadn't had canvass reform, we hadn't had Eire, which came into force on midnight on the day of the referendum.

So at that point in time, registration was very, very much paper based. There wasn't the same identity checks as there are now. So what happened was the. Act , which came into force, allowed the registration officers to do a slightly delayed canvass from October of 2013. So 11 months before the referendum through to March of 2014. And that involved sending out your at that point in time was a normal annual canvass form, along with a young voter registration form to each household.

Where no form was returned. But the Ero didn't believe there was somebody living there, because we are also education data to check against, then that non-return wasn't a problem. It didn't need to be pursued. But where there was a non-return. But we believed there was an individual there, then reminders , etc. would be sent out from there, and then thereafter, from March of 2014 through to the final date of registration for for the election, there was a manual, the normal monthly updates of that particular register.

In many ways, one of the lessons was, I think that the a major electoral event focused the mind. It got a lot of publicity around about. This will be the first time that under eighteens are able to vote. So there was a build up within media, etcetera around about it, which all helped the electoral Commission along with the E, M, B and electoral registration officers engaged with education authorities, created education programmes and such like.

I went out to schools myself. I had a full head of hair at that point in time, and I didn't have a beard. But so we engaged with the young people around about at that point in time, if you haven't already done so, I would probably direct you to have a look at the EC report into the referendum, where it does actually say that even given that period of time for the canvass, the royal assent of the act was only two months before the start of the canvass, and the EC report suggested that that should have had been at least six months to allow registration officers to plan and direct, etc..

Now there was engagement beforehand with government. So we were we weren't starting from ground zero. And indeed that's happening just now with MH CLG. But I think the lesson out of that is that it does need time to embed it a big bang, if you like, in terms of saying somebody is registered in one day so you can vote on the next immediate election, it's going to be difficult. And in many ways you miss the opportunity of saying, here's where this will start.

And you know, if you end up with a small local election somewhere being the first place with under 16 seconds, you miss out on that like natural free publicity that would happen in the lead up to try and get voters engaged within their. Shortly after that, the referendum, there was a further act to, if you like, embed the franchise change for local government elections from 2015 onwards. But again, whilst that act. Regulations and Act happened in 2015, I think it was from elections from 2016 onwards that that was there.

So there was by elections during that period, under 16 weren't able to vote. It was at that next big election event from there. I think from a registration point of view, the lessons to be learned are each elector as an individual, each elector has their own lifestyle, their own quirks, and we need to have a system which can take into account that. And also it's important to ensure that not only do they get registered, but that they're able to exercise their vote in the manner that they want to with the full range of options that are open to other electors, such as postal proxy, etc..
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Thank you for that.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Lee.
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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In terms of voting, the main or the first barrier is obviously to get registered and votes at 16, I think you need to remember is actually registration from 14 onwards. Many 14 year olds, their parents or guardians play quite a prominent role. And if you like gatekeeping their interactions with government and such like, and that's in many ways the role of a parent, but some of them can do it in a way which is positive in terms of registration.

And some people can do it in a way negative. So you do sometimes come across the positions whereby, for example, a parent may say, I don't think my child is or my young person is a mature enough to be on the register. They're still, they're still too young, etcetera, etcetera. And the information just doesn't get to them via that kind of channel, which is where education such like is important. The registration is voluntary, but I think it's important that everybody who's eligible has the opportunity to make that decision around registration.

So that's certainly one of the barriers some young people themselves don't don't think that they're ready for it. And again, that's where education and engagement comes in. And in many ways, this the solutions to these kinds of problems aren't sitting this side of the desk. It's within our communities. It's within trusted voices and trusted voices who are giving accurate information and, and people want. People want to be part of the process of forgiving something that they feel is meaningful.

And I think we saw that with the likes of the independence referendum, where the it was a binary choice, but there was engagement. And then you look at some of the more recent council elections or local government elections, where turnouts a lot lower, etc.. So it's about the whole process, not just of the barriers within it, but of actually getting engagement within it. I think the keys.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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I think with regards to voter ID, this kind of reinforces the need for an even longer leading, because we need to engage with young people if they don't have readily available access to ID, we need that period to not just reinforce the message they need to be registered. They, you know how methods of voting, as well as just attending the polling station, but that, you know, if they do want to go to the polling station, that they need to have an additional, you know, identification, whether that's a voter authority certificate so that we, you know, it's kind of joined up with their actual registration process, depending on what changes may happen with voter ID in the future, whether that's, you know, may make it easier for them to have access to some suitable forms of ID.

And that may be something that you will want to consider that, you know, are there some forms of ID that young people have that might be, you know, something to extend that that list, but it kind of does reinforce that there's a lot of preparation. You know, people don't just show up at the polling stations to vote because we tell them to because they've been registered. We took part in automatic voter registration pilots in, in Wales. And, you know, whilst that was the easy part possibly of getting identifying people who weren't registered and getting them on the register, it's still about getting them out to vote.

You all have been candidates at one time or another. You know, it's important to build trust. People don't just show up and vote because as I said, we've told them to. You have to engage with them, whether it's your side of the desk or ours. They have to have an understanding of what's required of them, the importance of of their voice and the impact it makes. And I think, you know, by sort of without giving them a sufficient time to administer that process or for schools and civic societies to build that, you know, experience and knowledge for, for the young people, then we might lose them completely.

You know, they'll, they just will turn off the whole process because of lack of trust.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Andrew.
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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There. Young people aren't just a a blob, a single grouping. You have young people of all nationalities, different languages, disabilities, etcetera, etcetera, just like you have throughout the whole range. The way in which we currently register young people is the Eero will get information from within Scotland, the local councils, education records, which will basically be a name, address, date of birth. And we'll write out to them to a request that they submit their application.

That data is reasonably good, but it varies throughout the time of the year. It's better at the start of the term because during term time, sometimes people move, they don't necessarily tell the school, etcetera, etcetera. So it's about using the information which you have and making sure that information is both current and accurate to try and engage in contact them. We do also look at, you know, civil society groups and such like the Electoral Commission run the excellent Welcome to your vote week, which mostly involves empowering educationalists, mainly schools, to engage with their.

Pupils for a particular week of the year, going through the process, trying to educate them around about why it's important, what what actual differences things being registered can make and such like. So I don't know if necessarily any particular groups are harder than the general public. But I do think that we need to be wary about creating a system which works really, really, really well for if you like, linear lifestyles, we we look at.

Again, this can be a bone of contention sometimes where perhaps young people have more than one home and the where they register can become a bone of contention between their parents and guardians and such like as well. So even just that kind of thing can can cause problems and can put people off of, of registering. So there's a wide, wide variety of groups that can be difficult to engage with in general.

And young people are included within that.
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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Okay. Sandra.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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So basically, the automatic registration pilots allowed us to use local authority data sets to register people where we were convinced and, you know, assured that they were accurate. So with regards to young people, education data was deemed of high value confidence secure, and allowed us to basically data mine our education records, identify anyone that was not registered and write out send them a notification of automatic registration. As I said, we sent over just over 3000 to that group.

And you know, the feedback, there was a lot of concern from parents where they did feel strongly. They felt very strongly that, you know, they didn't want their child showing up on the register or registering at such a young age. So because we included the high 14 year olds. Quite a number of parents phoned. They were concerned about their child's name being showing on a public register. Once we alleviated them of that concern, they were okay.

We received quite a few emails also regarding how how was the child going to know how to vote when the time come, which actually showed to me that parents, even where they perhaps are engaged and registered and vote themselves, perhaps lack confidence in in their ability to educate their child about that process. So, you know, that was a, quite an interesting from us to hear from the parents and their concerns that how they could, you know, involve and, and, you know, help and support their child.

I'm not sure with the pilot process, was it completely joined up with other wider engagement work? And I think that was probably a weakness. The engagement work ahead of the Senate was provided by the Senate Commission, really, who visited high schools just ahead of Christmas. So there was a bit of a gap there. But, you know, turnout wasn't unduly affected during the Senate, even though we managed to, you know, register quite a few.

I think it was over 5000 out of an electorate on top of an electorate of 106,000 in Paris. So it was effective. I think timing may have had some impact on on the numbers just because we did it before the normal annual canvass, but it was effective in identifying young people and taking the burden out of registering them and their need to do anything. It does concern me somewhat if they don't if they believe that, that's always going to happen for them.

So, you know, that's something that we need to consider. And it kind of almost reflects a lesson that we learned back in the autumn of, of 2021 ahead of the local elections in 22. One of the engagement projects was to write out to identify any young person that was not registered and directly send them an ETR. And again, as I mentioned earlier, that saw some. Excuse
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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me, an ETR.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Resource. It was it was an interesting process using local data and the amount of work to data cleanse to check the quality and content of other data sources, you know, that we haven't got responsibility for took quite some time. So the preparation work that was needed was a lot higher than I anticipated. Once we actually got into the data matching and mining, that was fairly similar to what we're used to with the canvass.

However, I think it did identify that as a team that we probably do need some better, you know, skills with regards to data cleansing and data. And that's possibly a skill that needs developing further within electoral services teams. With regards to the individuals that we identified and could automatically register because we'd found them on two, three, four different data sets within the council that that we wrote out. We had a flurry of phone calls, a very low opt out, actually, I think it was only 0.0 point 5%.

I think 28 out of just over 5000. However, where the work began was because we'd thrown quite a lot of data into our systems. We identified quite a few people that may not have been registered with one piece of information, and the duty on the Aro to then follow that up, to write out , to find out whether that data was accurate. That's where the work and the cost came. And that was not insignificant.

I think also the term automatic might sound easy from the electors perspective, but I can certainly assure you that from the administrators perspective and even a cost, you know, was sort of not insignificant. So I think, you know, Robert referred to the big bang of, of any sort of project as a pilot area. I'm hoping that the bulk of that work was done last year, that once we go through that process again this year with a much smaller data sets, because we'll only take anything that's happened and changed since last year, that, and once it perhaps embeds into a process that it becomes more business as usual.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Will.
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Okay. Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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I think.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Well.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Teaching.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Yeah, I'm talking to colleagues across borders. I mean, the key thing seems to be the support needs to be provided, but before, during and after. And I think it might be easier with elections out the way, but don't worry about it anymore. But actually, what were young people's experiences? How do we improve citizenship education, how to improve their experience for the next generation and going into their next election? If you have a bad experience first time, you're going to come back in a hurry.

You know, it's certainly one for us to to, to get right. But for us, I think it's experience of the process and understanding what that process is and what you're going to go through. And I remember being 18 and going through that polling booth for the first time and not quite clear what I do and where do I put the thing in the box? And, you know, it's, it's just mock mock examples are really good. We run the UK Youth Parliament programme and millions of young people vote for their local member of youth Parliament by going into a polling booth and putting it in the box.

And having done that, and we know when they've done that, they're really confident to know what they're doing, and they've been to hustings and they've seen what candidates are saying and they're making those positive choices. So by giving young people the experience of it before they go and do it formally, you know, really sets us up for success in that sense. But I think we've also got to focus on access who will struggle to access. And this this is the same for adults as it is for younger people.

I mean, it's no different. Those with special needs or those with additional support needs may feel more excluded. Those that don't feel politics talks to them effectively. How do we get them engaged? How do we keep them part of that process? So, you know, tackling access before, during and after is is really key. Lee.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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I could talk all day. I think about that. Absolutely. The strengthening of citizenship in secondary schools. But that statutory that it comes from primary right through is really a key for us. But alongside that, we want investment really in teacher training. You know, we evidence that if we've got discrete citizenship lessons taught by specialists, no surprise that outcomes are stronger. You know, young people are able to have access to that high quality education.

So real investment in teacher training, not only for new teachers, so teachers into the profession and wanting to be citizenship teachers. So financial, you know, bursary potentially for, for new teachers, but also those teachers existing in schools about the changes to the curriculum and changes in things like pedagogies and new knowledge, potentially from those additions to that national curriculum that we're going to be seeing from what we've seen in the Car Act, obviously, I should say is right in the new national curriculum. So they're under an NDA with with the DfE.

So but obviously we can talk to what the car recommendations knowing that they're accepted. So I think high quality teacher training for existing teachers, but also for new teachers into the profession, more citizenship teachers who are expertise also just to say alongside that, there's the new measures around progress eight as well. So that will have an impact in secondary schools. So moving citizenship into the humanities bucket with with geography, history and re will raise the status in secondary education.

And I think that would help with some of our schools being given an incentive to teach and offer not only course citizenship, but GCSE citizenship as well, which has been de-prioritized over perhaps the last sort of ten years or so. We're starting to see growth in that area. And and I think that's a real opportunity within our secondary education as well. So greater access to a qualification in citizenship for our secondary colleagues would be really helpful, I think, as well.

And just as I say that CPD for teachers and that strengthening of the curriculum and also holding schools to account for teaching that curriculum as well through our Ofsted process. And I know that Polly Hayes, the Ofsted inspector, the lead inspector for citizenship and is doing a lot of work with inspectors about how we inspect citizenship, particularly as a national curriculum subject. So hold an account accountability as well to schools would be really important.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yeah.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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So important.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Yes. I was going to think about that question. The I mean, I think the youth workers are the backbone of that community, that 85% where young people are not in school. So we are connected to young people outside of the home in that space with their peer groups. And we can have those debates and create those spaces for young people to have that, you know, learning as well as to unpick their views and opinions. I think the risk that you talk about is, is genuine, and I think is, is a real concern that that generational, we know many generations who don't engage with the state or and that will just could be perpetuated.

But we also know the key to that is education. We know the key to that is giving young people the experience of doing it differently and understanding what different can look like. And that's where youth workers will run market activities or set things up or workshops, those conversations to challenge that. I think what youth workers are brilliant at doing and often don't get recognised for is we do work intergenerationally. We work with mum and dad and grandma and granddad and, and try and change the their kind of views of these things up and down the line.

It goes back to me as long as young people understand what the difference voting would make, they'll do it and they'll lean in on it. So if they want, you know, they are frustrated that their experience of school has not been great, but actually by voting for different things or whatever, that might change in the future for the next generation, you know, people motivated to see that change just like every other adult is. So, you know, we can create that space, but it's got to be consistent and we've got to be giving them the time to do so.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yeah, I was going to use that word as well. Opportunity. It is at risk, but obviously it's a massive opportunity. I think it's a really historic moment we're at where we've got votes at 16 potentially coming in alongside a new national curriculum with reinvigorated citizenship education. It shouldn't be a postcode lottery where students go to go to school, whether they get that high quality citizenship education right from primary school, right through, that's going to prepare them and give them those opportunities.

Working in conjunction with those outside of education settings as well. We run parallel elections in my own trust through acts, resources that they've produced. So when the general election happens, we use our local constituencies. All of our young people then get to look at manifestos, take part in hustings. We we had podcasts of all the different political parties produced. So that is a real buzz around the school.

And we produced our own parallel election results. And then we compared them. We did the statistical analysis analysis alongside the real election results. So it, you know, students really engage with that. It's fantastic. 80 of my students took part in this committee's inquiry in terms of putting forward evidence that is a real opportunity to have their voice heard. And that was 80 students from across the, you know, from disadvantage to my higher priority because that my citizenship , GCSE students are option option students.

They come from the whole gamut of ability range. And they all took part in the request for information and would have loved to be here today sitting there, but unfortunately weren't allowed. But you know, they're really keen to get engaged and those opportunities to have real decision making is so, so important regardless of age key stage three, key stage four, as you said, leading up to that opportunity, when they do get that franchise, that they've had those real life opportunities to discuss and take part and deliberate in those classrooms, in those safe spaces and have those views sometimes challenged but challenged respectfully in a in a classroom situation with us, with skilled teachers who are doing that.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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To test my skills.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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So.
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None Portrait Speaker 4
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I would say that, first of all, I'm really pleased to see media literacy is going to be a core part of citizenship education in the national curriculum. I could talk all day about media literacy. It's one of my real passions with young people. I teach, and it's a core part of our offer across the trust as well. All of our students take part in media literacy education throughout their sort of five years of core citizenship education.

As part of my curriculum that I design, our young people need the knowledge, the skills, the resilience to be able to assess information, recognize trustworthy sources, whether it's reliable, check its accuracy, but also our teachers, our parents need that as well to be able to work with those young people. So Act does already support teachers in this area. We've got in fact, I would urge you all to go onto their website and maybe take part in the Media Matters course that I.

You will see me again because I help them to design and run that course alongside another citizenship teacher. So we already offer that wider programme of CPD for teachers because we recognise how important it is. In fact, one of my year elevens this week, we were talking about some of the news stories over the summer, and we talked about the Clacton by election and she said, I've read this information, but before I tell you what I've read, miss, I just want to let you know.

I read it on Reddit, so and I haven't had a chance to go through and assess the information and, and check its reliability. So we're just, I'm just going to put it out there and maybe we could have a look at whether it's reliable. That's what I want to see my young people do. And my, my students regularly say to me, well, where did you get that from? If I put up a news headline or a and I haven't said where it's from, that's what I want my young people to do.

Sometimes a little annoying because then I have to go back and say, look, it's from here and, and I. But absolutely, I want the young people to be doing that and have the skills and the confidence to be able to do that. I know that my young people are getting their information from Instagram or TikTok. They're not getting it from BBC news often. So just reiterating that message. We use the day newspaper, which is an online newspaper for young people.

We reference kind of a range of sources when I'm teaching, so that we're giving students the opportunity to look at news stories from different viewpoints and recognise fact , opinion , bias across time. Because in media literacy, you can't just look at one article and say, this, this organization or this news outlets biased. We need to look at that over time and critically think about that. I could talk all day, but I apologize for I'm so passionate about, obviously, citizenship, media literacy, particularly within that.

I think it's fundamental part of the work that we need to be doing in schools, with our young people, with our teachers and ultimately with parents to support them as well with that.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I echo most of that. I think media literacy, I would agree with the comment around young people are probably ahead of other generations. They are digital natives. They've grown up with iPads and digital screens. They're pretty much their whole lives. So they are they've learned to kind of read and digest information quite quickly and then drop and dump what's not relevant and kind of focus in and to stretch out your thinking, I think for your kind of wider review, though, I think there are broader challenges in this space.

So the Online Safety Act is not working for young people. They've all got VPNs on their phones. My nephew is getting his his phone is is in the UK, but his VPN to America. So his phone is filled up with his social media feeds. He's just filled up with American content, you know, which is different to the UK's content. And the context is different. So he comes to me all the time going, well about this and about that, what's going I don't understand this.

And well, that's rubbish because that's that's New York or that's wherever. And actually the the other part of this is the rise of the use of AI bots and AI chat functions, where young people are asking questions and saying, you know, who should I vote for? Or what do I what do you think of this policy? And it's having a conversation with a vault that's filled in by grock or by, you know, other other companies.

So, and again, not necessarily giving them the way that information is presented is so factual and so accurate. You know, it's not accurate, but it is presented in a way that makes them think, oh, that's, that's truth and it's not. And the problem is the technology is moving at such a pace that teachers, youth workers, the system, the state can't keep up with it. But it is a real challenge, I think, to our society and democracy, because it is there are big organisations investing in undermining the narrative that our young people are getting.

But the scale of this is colossal. I mean, please don't think this is just a few young people. It's the majority of young people are getting their social media feeds full of nonsense. The social media ban is another factor which actually, when we when that comes in or whatever version of that comes in and how that's applied will also could also restrict young people's access to certain information and may open up others , or they'll use VPNs and we'll never know about it.

And, and we're pushing them in a further direction. And we don't favour the social media ban for that very reason that it will push young people into darker parts of the internet or other parts of the internet that aren't public and available. And that is a challenge to our democracy as we go forward. So the point of media literacy is it's so important because it's about helping, giving, equipping young people with the tools to, to analyse and understand what they are being presented with and to, to ask questions.

And in fact, my nephew comes to me and asks those questions is amazing. Does every young person have an adult that they can go and do that? And we know the answer to that is no.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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You've asked about teachers, but if I could talk about youth workers first, then we can move on to teachers. But I think youth workers are very well placed to have these conversations with young people, and I think they are trusted within the community to have those conversations. And with. But I would say it's a confidence around. Party politics is an area that needs proper guidelines and structure to make sure that we're not imposing youth workers bias on young people.

And young people are given that critical thinking skills, the opportunity to ask those questions and to go and investigate and learn and bring all that back. And I think we create that. And we're about to publish new guidance to the youth sector around all of this, to an informal democratic education guidance to youth workers in the youth sector, which is to give them that framework in which they can operate effectively and safely, and also, if challenged, be able to say, well, look, I'm using this framework.

This is how I'm you know, I'm not just a rogue operative. I'm doing it in this way. So I think that's really important. There are good examples of how good political education participation can be done. I mean, local youth councils is an amazing opportunity for young people to get involved in. I mentioned UK Youth Parliament, which is fundamental because it's how young people get their first experience of the electoral system in a practical application, and not just standing, but also voting and electing and going to hustings and also interrogating manifestos of candidates and things in a really safe and in sort of more enjoyable way than kind of in big scale politics.

I think there are real challenges for parties. I see very little from the parties of their comms machinery that's aiming at messaging at young people, and is putting it into language that young people use. And I think going back to the previous question, you know, we see the use of influencers quite a lot to influence young people. Those influences may be positive, they may not be positive. It does depend on your politics and your view of the topic or whatever's going on.

But but we see, you know, party machinery is not using the channels or the communication methods to get those messages to young people. They don't know what parties typically stand for. They don't know what your policies are and what you're aiming for, and therefore they're not convinced or understanding what they would be voting for in that sense. So they might not choose not to. I mean, if I was advising parties, it's an open door to kind of engage young people and invite them in and educate them and explain what you're doing.

But you've got to be on their level. It's a horrible phrase, but in the on the platforms they're at at the date, you know, when they're at it and communicating in the visuals and the language, more video content, all those sorts of things are really needed. But young people don't really I don't I sense I've just come from two weeks ago running three, three days at UK Youth Parliament conference, so 250 young people together for three days.

And we were talking about these topics. They're like, I don't know what different parties stand for. I don't know what their manifestos are. I don't know what they're trying to achieve. I see them fight at the despatch box at PMQs, but we'll all know because that's not actually how politics works. There's a lot more cohesiveness behind the scenes and engagement. So, you know, there's a job there for MPs and parties to connect and engage young people, and you're not doing it well.
11:24
None Portrait Speaker 11
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On the politician side. And then I'll give Helen the floor for teachers. I absolutely concur with what Lee said. Political parties, political candidates and representatives must do a better job, and they must be held to account to address young voters with relevant information and in ways that are relevant to young people. And there are multiple ways of how that can happen. Important guidelines is that it should be continuous, not just ahead of elections, and it should be with specific measures then sort of around election time, like manifestos in understandable language.

I don't like the word youth manifesto, but, you know, young people in your own inquiry have complained that the language is impenetrable. And these kinds of measures help not just young people. They make your programmes and political issues more accessible to all of the population, also to young people. And young people often would like to feel listened to. I think your own inquiry has shown that, and certainly a lot of my and colleagues research has shown that the key barrier is that they don't feel that it's worth engaging with politics because no one listens anyway.

So key measures would be to actually listen and to then also report back on what kind of measures have been taken based on what has been told. There are ways of doing that. I think it's important to think about scale, and you can think a little bit about candidates or representatives going into schools. If every MP engaged with a school group every other week, that would and engage almost half of 16 and 17 year olds in an average constituency over just one academic year.

So you can really do a lot of work there. You can think about engaging young people in the way that messaging is constructed. We've run pilots in Germany where young people were placed in parliamentary offices and were helping make the reels on Instagram and the kind of communication that goes out to young people. And then closing the feedback loop. One of the most effective ways for politicians to raise the quality of interactions is to take action, and then report back on what has been happening.

And that, again, could be in an asynchronous way with online sources. But it's really important that young people hear what's happened to what they have told politicians.
11:27
None Portrait Speaker 4
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If I pick up on politicians first and then look at education, I'm very fortunate that my local MP is highly engaged with my school. He is a student that does help. So Stephen Morgan, Portsmouth South MP, is regularly in school. He works with my citizenship students. They go down to his office and talk to him about their concerns and things that they're taking action on and would like action on. And he comes in twice a year to do assemblies, but also then comes in at other points during the year.

So meeting with students and listening to them and engaging with them and, and hearing what they've got to say is really important. So I would urge you to get into schools and go and meet those young people and meet them where they're at. We also engage online as well. So we do things like the learn with the Lords, with our young people, so we can engage online. So that means that we've got access to those opportunities.

Even if we can't get up to Parliament or politicians can't get in. We've done online meetings with them and, and had the opportunity to, to do a QA with those peers and also politicians from House of Commons. Also, you've got lots of young people working in local youth council groups, young Parliament, we've got a Council of Portsmouth student. So you could meet with students from across the city who will bring views from those individual schools as well.

So I think those opportunities really important in terms of education, our teachers are equipped. You asked, well, you come to my multi-academy trust and the teachers that I work with, I'd say yes, I'd say because they've got me. I'm in there doing the training, I work with the teachers and I help support them and answer their queries, deliver training around controversial issues, how to. Yes, they're well prepared and they're confident they're engaged. They want to be involved in that.

I don't think that's the same if you visit every school in every multi-academy trust, and I think that's probably something we need to look at. And your work leading up to those votes at 16 as well, to ensure it's part of the training for all of our teachers and with parents as well. I think it's working with our parents and talking to the parents as well. So opening up opportunities for conversations with parents who may be concerned about teachers delivering political education.

We have political impartiality guidelines, quite rightly, to keep ourselves safe, to keep our young people safe. But we absolutely should be talking and teaching about political parties role in democracy. And that's something we recognise, but also would value act maybe leading the way in delivering that political impartiality training for everybody as well.
11:30
11:30
11:30
None Portrait Speaker 3
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Short answer.
11:30
None Portrait Speaker 11
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Yes.
11:30
None Portrait Speaker 4
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Yes yes yes.
11:30
11:36
This debate has concluded
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