On the 17th January at Central Bedfordshire Council's (CBC) Full Council Spillover session, Cllr Chloe Alderman's Youth Voice motion was successfully passed!
The motion focused on “empower[ing] Young People (YP) to have a voice at Full Council, see their concerns and ideas taken seriously, enhance their political autonomy and improve their trust in the political process”. It pushed for CBC to “set up a working group to investigate ways to achieve the above aims, and to explore the following points:
a. Facilitate quarterly meetings for YP within the Youth Bank to meet and discuss
issues and concerns important to them, with one such meeting occurring during
Parliament week.
b. Create the role of Youth Champion(s) to attend these quarterly meetings, hear
and discuss YP's concerns and ideas, feeding this information to Full Council
through an appropriate mechanism.
c. Allow and support YP to put forward questions, topics for debate or motions.
d. Ensure YP are provided with a written response to any questions, debates
and motions put forward to Full Council including YP accessible action points
on how the council will tackle this.
e. Embed this within the constitution.”
In her opening speech, Cllr Chloe Alderman stated:
“The only reason I am here today is because someone took the time to teach me about politics. About what it means to be a Tory or an Independent, Lib Dem or Labour. About the reason why the government so often fails to protect those who are most vulnerable. More importantly someone took the time to listen to me, to sit and hear my views and help me grow as a person. Now perhaps I haven't grown in the direction that many of you would like - I'm afraid I'm too much of a lefty snowflake for some of you. But I'm here. And I am important and my voice matters. And today I stand here representing some of the people in central Bedfordshire whose voices are often overlooked because they're too young to speak up for themselves.
During my time as a Teacher and in other roles with young people I have worked with too many children and young adults who reminded me of myself 5, 10, 15 years ago: young, afraid, disengaged, and full of the belief that the government not only doesn't care about them, that it isn't even listening or taking them seriously. That they're invisible. We have to do better. Listen better. Act better. We need to provide them with more opportunities to develop political literacy and the confidence they need to engage meaningfully with politics. It is our duty, each and every one of us here, to make less assumptions, to listen and to act on what our young people are telling us. And I believe this motion can help us achieve this. So please give it your consideration”
Independent Cllr and Executive Member for Children's Services Hayley Whitaker said that she was “delighted to support this motion.” She went on to say that she “couldn't agree with Cllr Alderman more. Our young people are the future of Central Bedfordshire. They are going to be the people to work and create our communities. They think that politics isn't for them. You speak to them and they say, ‘politics, it's got nothing to do with me’. I hear it all the time. And so what we want to say is it's not politics it’s, ‘I want to know what your opinion is on this’, ‘I want to know what your point of view is on this’ to engage with them in a different way that this council has been able to do in the past.”
There was some push back against the motion, with Cllr Blake Stephenson arguing that “I think there is a lot of good in this and certainly I have no objection to the first two clauses. I'm sure none of us would. I think young people should be encouraged, it's critical that they're encouraged when they're young so they're not put off for life…
“But the problem I've got with it, and I do want to encourage this sentiment, is the last 3 clauses, c, d and e because of the constitutional implications… I think for it to be done properly, much like the first motion, perhaps it should go elsewhere before coming to exec[utive] and Council.”
However, the majority of Councillors were supportive, many sharing stories about their first experiences with politics and their hopes to engage the young people of Central Bedfordshire in carving out their future.
Despite resistance from many Conservative councillors, the motion carried. Cllr Chloe Alderman plans to work closely with Cllr Whitaker, Cllr Zerny and CBC Officers to ensure the aims of the motion are fully explored so that sessions can start for young people ASAP.
A full copy of the Full Council agenda can be downloaded here, with Cllr Alderman's motion appearing on page 43 (agenda item 4.7): https://cms-centralbedfordshire-uk.azeusconvene.com/meeti...
You can watch the motion be debated via this link using time stamp 2:05:40: https://centralbedfordshire.public-i.tv/.../webcas.../839342
Do you have an issue you'd like raised at Full Council by your CBC representatives? Comment below!
