Politically Speaking column with Jade Botterill MP: Let’s give young people more chances

I have written here before about how impressive local young people are. How much they care about their area, their friends and their futures, and how they need opportunities to turn their dreams into reality.

But too often, whether it's getting your dream job or being able to have a real say in the future of your community, those opportunities feel far away, reserved for people born in London and big cities.

I know how it feels. Representing our community means for over half the week I have to be away from it, working in a city that can feel removed from the lives of people in our towns and villages.

But I am proud to be a voice for places like ours in Westminster, and want future generations to have the knowledge and confidence to do the same. That’s why I launched my Summer School, to give local people direct experience in politics, law, media, and making change in their community.

The students visited Downing Street, Parliament, Wakefield Trinity, and the Department for Education, as well as having the chance to meet with an Education Minister, local councillors, charities, and journalists.

But following those meetings, as well as the practical workshops we ran to teach them how to run campaigns and debate important issues, I left with renewed faith in the next generation.

These weren’t young people sitting in silence, being lectured by adults about what they should think and do. They asked insightful, sometimes difficult questions, and presented their points of view passionately.

I hear people write off young people as being individualistic and obsessed with social media, but when they debated the government’s upcoming ban on social media for under-16s with a serving Minister you could hear how articulate and community-minded they were.

Watching them speak, I felt my support for the ban increase. We need our young people off social media and in our communities, and we must work to replace it with genuine opportunity and youth provision locally.

But it is not enough to give young people the chances they need to make change if power remains concentrated in Westminster.

That’s why we have been devolving power to the places and people with actual skin in the game, giving communities more power to raise revenue, control transport services, save community assets and stop the decline of high streets and town centres.

The new Prime Minister understands the need for places like ours to have a voice over our own future, and I will support him wholeheartedly in his efforts to continue and further this work.

I was proud of the Summer School and prouder of its participants, but I know it is not enough on its own. We are in the middle of a crisis of opportunity for young people, and I will continue to fight to change that. From Erasmus+ to the Youth Guarantee, this Labour Government is bringing back opportunity for all young people.

I’ve seen first-hand what happens when young people are given a chance, so let’s give more of them.