Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend makes a fair point in the sense that the people who proposed using the Chamber last time round argued that the Youth Parliament could not go back to the House of Lords or Westminster Hall because, having already been there, its members were bored of them. The logic of that argument, as my hon. Friend says, is that the more time they stay here, the more bored of it they will become, so they might feel less inspired to want to come here as MPs because they have already done so.

Representing one’s constituency in Parliament is a tremendous privilege. Everyone in the Chamber will have worked incredibly hard to achieve what for many is a lifetime ambition of representing their constituency in Parliament. It is a great privilege finally to take one’s seat. Why would we want to undermine that achievement by allowing people who have not gone through the rigmarole of getting here to take their seats in the Chamber? To come back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), why is the UK Youth Parliament, worthy as it is, so special? If the argument is that young people do not feel that there is sufficient focus on their issues and, therefore, such a debate gives them an opportunity to advance them, I should argue that many of my constituents feel that pensioners’ issues are not particularly well covered in Parliament.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I will in a moment.

Why should the National Pensioners Convention not be allowed to use the Chamber? What is so special about the UK Youth Parliament to the exclusion of any other group?

[Philip Davies]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), because she caught my eye first.

[Alison McGovern]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the privilege and specialness of being a Member is the act of representing our constituents or the act of sitting on these seats?

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Lady seems to advance the argument that these seats are no more than furniture and that they of are no importance. She nods her head, so she clearly agrees that we are sitting on furniture that is neither here nor there. That may be her view, and it is perfectly respectable, but I do not share it. When she shows her constituents around this place, does she say to them, “We’ll not bother going into the main Chamber, because it’s just a row of seats, a few benches, a bit of furniture, to be honest. We’ve got furniture all over, and these seats are no more important than any other, so we’ll miss out the Chamber and go somewhere else because we’re not interested”? I suspect not, because these seats represent a bit more than what she just indicated—furniture.