BCP Council

The annual sitting at Warwick University was an incredible experience for us to meet fellow MYPs from the U.K. to find out about their campaigns as well as make connections to hopefully aid our own campaigns. We met with the member for Durham who had expressed an interest in our university tuition campaign which will prove useful in the future after the leaflet has been created and we get to distributing it. Similarly, we met with another MYP who was working on a similar mental health campaign around educating teachers around spotting mental health issues and accommodating said issues before they become a problem. She ended up agreeing to sending over any of her campaign materials as well as asked for us to send over ours once completed to bring out in their constituency. The connections that we made through the annual conference, we believe to be vital to the later stages of our campaigns and we cherish the opportunity to meet with the other members nationally in a way in which we otherwise couldn’t.

Also, the annual sitting proved important as it allowed for me (Elliot) to pass my manifesto point through – “Student loans should be interest free, but inflation matched, and rise with the cost of living regardless of parental income” – which means that it may get the opportunity, if voted upon in the final manifesto process (which seems likely), to become debated at the House of Commons. Ryan also got the opportunity to vote on issues relating to knife crime to get BCP’s views on the issue into the national manifesto.

It was also entertaining, meeting with likeminded Youth Parliament members as well as getting the opportunity for amazing accommodation, good food and an afternoon disco. We thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to go not only due to it being fun and entertaining but vital to our campaigns on a national level. All in all, it was a wonderful experience that I realty would recommend to any Youth Parliament members as it is vital to the future of our campaigns through the opportunities made but also the friends and connections made also.