Use of the Chamber (United Kingdom Youth Parliament)

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept the premise of that argument; the basis on which Youth Parliament members are elected is not exactly the same.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech as usual. I had not intended to intervene, but on the last point I should say that the difference between the Youth Parliament and this Parliament is that we are allowed to stand under party labels, whereas Youth Parliament members cannot. It is not the same as this Parliament.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right about that technical difference between the Youth Parliament and this one. I am not sure that that negates the point made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood); any Parliament should be made up as it sees fit. However, I do not particularly accept his premise to start with. He is scrabbling around trying to find what is different about the UK Youth Parliament as opposed to any of these other worthy bodies.

I will tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, what is different about the UK Youth Parliament and its relationship with this Chamber. What is different is that we have, in my opinion, the sight of a lot of very sad people trying pathetically to ingratiate themselves with young people in their constituencies, which is absolutely painful to behold. They think that this is a trendy course to follow. If they want to try to look trendy with their constituents, they will argue that they want to have the UK Youth Parliament sitting here so that they can go back and say, “I’m trendy, I supported you.” It is frankly rather pathetic. That is the only difference between the UK Youth Parliament and all these other bodies, however hard hon. Members scrabble around for differences between it and anything else.