According to a recent report the UK Youth Parliament is currently canvassing views on the subjects that they should discuss during their debate on the 15th November in the House of Commons. This will build on the good work carried out last year by UKYP who collected a staggering 253,000 votes from young people across the UK in the process of selecting the priority items for their debate. The debate itself was established after several years of resistance from many  MPs who were uncomfortable with the idea of young people sitting in the same benches as they do. Whilst it is great news that a few hundred young people are being allowed to inhabit the Westminster bubble for a few hours, we need to persuade these young people and the many more who are unable to take part in the event on the day, to reach for much higher fruit. The future of our democracy cannot remain limited by the current model, that has shown itself to be so constricted by issues such as financial corruption and access by  people who went to the ‘right’ schools and Universities.

I hope that whilst the plans are being made for this important debate that some of these young minds will also be turning to what a new democratic model might look like. That would really put the wind up those parliamentarians who a few years ago were not willing to even allow such debates to take place and perhaps are even today uncomfortable with this process.