Members of Youth Parliament aged 11-18 take part in an annual debate in the House of Commons chamber, chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons Rt Hon Lindsey Hoyle MP. They debate five issues chosen by a ballot of young people from across the UK and then vote to decide which two issues should become the UK Youth Parliament’s priority campaigns for the year ahead.

Members of Youth Parliament sat in the House of Commons for the twelfth time on Friday 17th November 2023.

The event was chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Lindsay Hoyle MP, with statements from John Nicholson MP, SNP, Lillian Greenwood MP Shadow Minister for Arts, Heritage & Civil Society and Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt MP.

These are the topics that were discussed:

Holiday Hunger

Quality of Food

Standardisation

Financing & Funding

Additional Pricing

You can watch the debates unfold:
Morning debates
Afternoon debates

Hansard transcript: Download

Letter from the Prime Minister: Download

We are diverse. 
UK Youth Parliament is representative of the changing face of modern Britain. 45% of Members of Youth Parliament are female, over 22.4% come from Black, Asian, Mixed, or Other ethnic backgrounds and 27% identify as members of the LGBTQI+ community. 19% come from the UK’s most deprived areas.

I’m a journalist how can I find out more? 

Call our press office on 020 4529 5927 and we’ll happily talk through the details. Alternatively, drop us an email press@byc.org.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Members of Youth Parliament sat in the House of Commons for the eleventh time on Friday 4th November 2022, following a vote by Members of Parliament later this year.

The event was chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Lindsay Hoyle MP, with statements from John Nicholson MP, SNP and Paul Scully MP, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy.

These are the topics that were discussed:

Impact of discrimination on health
Environment and health
Education and health
Cost of living and health
Mental health services

You can watch the debates unfold:
Morning debates
Afternoon debates

Read the full transcript of the event:
Download


Letter from the Prime Minister:
Download

We are diverse. 
UK Youth Parliament is representative of the changing face of modern Britain. 45% of Members of Youth Parliament are female, over 22.4% come from Black, Asian, Mixed, or Other ethnic backgrounds and 27% identify as members of the LGBTQI+ community. 19% come from the UK’s most deprived areas.

I’m a journalist how can I find out more? 

Call our press office on 020 4529 5927 and we’ll happily talk through the details. Alternatively, drop us an email press@byc.org.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Members of Youth Parliament sat in the House of Commons for the eleventh time on Friday 4th November 2022, following a vote by Members of Parliament later this year.

The event was chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Lindsay Hoyle MP, with statements from John Nicholson MP, SNP and Paul Scully MP, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy.

These are the topics that were discussed:

Impact of discrimination on health
Environment and health
Education and health
Cost of living and health
Mental health services

You can watch the debates unfold:
Morning debates
Afternoon debates

Read the full transcript of the event:
Download


Letter from the Prime Minister:
Download

We are diverse. 
UK Youth Parliament is representative of the changing face of modern Britain. 45% of Members of Youth Parliament are female, over 22.4% come from Black, Asian, Mixed, or Other ethnic backgrounds and 27% identify as members of the LGBTQI+ community. 19% come from the UK’s most deprived areas.

I’m a journalist how can I find out more? 

Call our press office on 020 4529 5927 and we’ll happily talk through the details. Alternatively, drop us an email press@byc.org.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Members of Youth Parliament gathered in the House of Commons chamber on Friday 8th November 2019. Ending knife crime, mental health, ‘curriculum for life’, tackling hate crime and ‘protect the environment’ were all topics of debate. Each topic was chosen in a ballot of more than 900,000 young people. At the end of the day, they marked the Representation of the People Act 1918 which granted the vote to some women and all men.

Want to catch up on what happened? 

On Friday 9th November 2018, Members of the UK Youth Parliament gathered from across the UK to debate in the House of Commons chamber. Ending knife crime, mental health, ‘equal pay, for equal work’, tackling homelessness and ‘votes at 16’ were all topics of debate. Each topic was chosen in a record-breaking ballot of more than 1.1 million young people. At the end of the day, they marked the Representation of the People Act 1918 which granted the vote to some women and all men.

Want to catch up on what happened? 

Following a unanimous vote by Members of Parliament which enabled Members of Youth Parliament to debate in the Commons chamber for the rest of this Parliament, UK Youth Parliament held its House of Commons debate on Friday 10th November 2017. During the sitting, they debated the five issues chosen by annual Make Your Mark ballot, which saw 954,766 young people take part.  In addition, they marked the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality with a special debate in the afternoon.

Download the official Hansard Report.

Yes, we were diverse. 

Not only were these young people from all areas of the country, they also widely represented the changing face of modern Britain. 52% of the Members of the Youth Parliament are female, whereas only 29% of MPs are women.

Further, 32% of MYPs are from a Black and Minority Ethnic background. This is in comparison to 8% of MPs – and 7.9% of the British population.

 

Members of the UK Youth Parliament aged 11-18 sat in the House of Commons once again, on Friday 11th November 2016, to debate the five issues chosen by annual Make Your Mark ballot. The event coincided with, Armistice Day, marking 98 years since the Armistice which took place during the First World War.

In the absence of the Prime Minister, Theresa May, Lawand Omar, Member of Youth Parliament for Ealing read out a statement from the Prime Minister. Chirs Skidmore, Minister for Constitution was unable to attend the Sitting and submitted a statement in support.

Download the official Hansard Report.

279 Members of the UK Youth Parliament aged 11-18 took part in the House of Commons debate on Friday 13th November 2015. They debated the five issues chosen by annual Make Your Mark ballot, which saw a record-breaking 969,000 young people cast their vote. Download a copy of the full Hansard report.

285 Members of the UK Youth Parliament aged 11-18 took part in the House of Commons debated five issues chosen by annual Make Your Mark ballot, which saw over 875,000 votes.

During the sitting’s fifth anniversary, 296 Members of Youth Parliament aged 11-18 took part in the House of Commons debates, the subjects for which were voted for by 478,632 young people across the UK in the annual Make Your Mark ballot.

A total of 325 Members of Youth Parliament aged 11-18 took part in the House of Commons debates, the subjects for which were voted for by over 250,000 young people across the UK in the annual Make Your Mark ballot.

During the third House of Commons debate, 307 Members of Youth Parliament aged 11-18 took part in the subjects for which were voted for by over 65,000 young people across the UK in the first-ever Make Your Mark ballot.

In 2010 a debate was held by Members of Parliament in the House of Commons to discuss the possibility of the youth parliament returning for a second sitting. This resulted in the decision to allow their return not only for that year but every year for the remainder of the sitting of the current parliament.

On Friday 29th October 2010, Members of Youth Parliament aged 11-18 debated five topics in the chamber. The topics for debate were selected from an online public ballot.

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