Schools and Young People

Many young people write asking me for information about my job, parliament or politics generally. There's lots of information on the site, as you may have seen, but a lot of information is taken for granted. So in this section I step back and start from the basics.

First some quiz questions, to see if I can catch you out:

1. How often can people vote in England?
2. Who appoints the Government?
3. At what age can you vote?
4. At what age can you become an MP?
5. When can you join a Party?

The answers are at the end.

I was elected to parliament in 1997 as one of the youngest MPs. Labour had a landslide victory in that year, replacing a small Conservative majority of seats in the House of Commons by a very large Labour majority. There are just over 600 MPs elected to the Commons. In that year, we also elected a record number of women to Parliament and its Labour's policy to increase this.

I was elected again in the General Election of June 2001 when we were given a similar majority in the House of Commons.

As a monarchy, in the United Kingdom it is actually the Queen who appoints the Government. She does this by calling on the Leader of the largest party in the Commons to form a government. So, in practice, it's the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who decides who his ministers are.

I've talked about the House of Commons, rather than Parliament because Parliament also includes the House of Lords. This is not elected but has an important role of revising and delaying laws they don't like. Until recently the House of Lords was largely composed of aristrocrats who had inherited a dukedom, or peerage from their fathers. We changed this by removing the right of almost all the inherited places, leaving mostly appointed Life Peers. We want to go further by either electing all, part or appointing Lords through an independent commission.

We vote for Members of Parliament (MPs) in House of Commons about every four years. The Prime Minister has to ask the Queen to 'disolve' parliament within 5 years of every General Election. It's always a difficult decision for a Prime Minister because he or she tries to choose the most advantageous time.

So, as the majority Party in Parliament Labour is reposible for a programme of new laws. We want to finish the reform of the House of Lords, ban fox hunting, help the authorities combat crime and anti-social behaviour, and modernise several laws including that on asylum seekers. We can't do everything in one go, because laws take time to scrutinise and get right.

In order to give new laws, like those on Higher Education Funding for example, we publish Green or White Papers outlining the proposals so everyone can have a say - usually by writing to their MP or the Government office concerned.

Party Politics

So much for the structure of parliament. Many people say "why don't you stop arguing and all agree?" Although you could say that discussing and even arguing over important issues helps us clarify issues and come to a common view, there are deeper reasons for disagreeing. People have different values. I joined the Labour Party because I believed their values were closest to mine; and whatever your beliefs you have to work with others who share your outlook in order to get things done.

The Labour Party generally represents the least advantaged in our society. You only have to look at the constituencies where we are most popular. The Conservative Party represent those who have most in our society. The Liberal Democrats are sometimes regarded as a centre party between Labour and Conservative, but also have some distinctive views. Since they have never tested their views as a Government it is difficult to know how they would modify them given the chance.

I also hear people say "You never do what you say". This is understandable, given the nature of our system in which it's the opposition's job to run down the government's achievements. The truth is also that circumstances change and the Party in Government has to take account of all sorts of factors. For example, we may want to cut street crime, but aren't able to control the sudden rise in mobile phone theft. We may want to ban fox hunting, but find there are complexities.

At the moment there are MPs from Labour, Conservative and LibDem in Parliament representing English Constituencies. There are also Nationalist and other parties representing Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In particular see:

http://www.labour.org.uk/
http://www.tory.org.uk/
http://www.libdems.org.uk/

There are also smaller Parties such as the Greens, anti-European Union Parties like UKIP, other left wing parties and extreme right parties. Because our electoral system elects one person from each constituency area with the highest votes (first-past-the-post system) smaller parties have more difficulty in being elected.

Besides General Elections to the House of Commons, there are also local elections. Your County Councillor is elected on the first Thursday in May every four years (from 2001) and your Borough Councillors on the first Thursday in May every four years (from 2003). If you live in a village you may also elect Town or Parish Councillors with your Borough Councillors.

Now those questions answered:

1. How often can people vote in England? - Almost every year, besides General Elections every four or five years, there are also local elections, European Elections every five years and occasional referendums.
2. Who appoints the Government? - The Queen - we are her subjects!
3. At what age can you vote? - Immediately you are 18, provided you have been registered the previous December or have registered since.
4. At what age can you become an MP? - 21, some of the youngest MPs are now Ministers, Chris Leslie (Shipley) and David Lammy (Tottenham) are both 30.
5. At what age can you join a Political Party. You can join Labour if you are 16 or over. See: http://www.younglabour.org/.

If you have any further questions then you can visit the Young People section of UK Online at http://younggov.ukonline.gov.uk/ or Explore Parliament at http://explore.parliament.uk/. Under 12s might be interested in visiting the Junior Parliament at http://explore.parliament.uk/junior/.