Parliamentary debut for Mouat

One of Shetland’s two Scottish Youth Parliament members, Kaylee Mouat, attended the 51st sitting of the parliament. It was her first involvement as an MSYP and she writes about her experience.

This past weekend saw the first Scottish Youth Parliament sitting of the 2013-2015 term take place in South Lanarkshire at the Scottish Fire & Rescue Training Centre. The first day of the sitting was a chance for all the membership to get to know one another, with around 80 per cent of the members of the Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYPs) being new to the organisation.

In the morning, two members’ motions were presented to the par­liament. The first by former Shet­land MSYP and UK youth ambas­sador Emily Shaw, “Parents should not be allowed to smack children”, and the second by Melissa Gorman, former MSYP for Dundee City West, “Family planning services should be increased within edu­cation including free contraception and free child care workshops.”

After some serious and chal­lenging debate, both were passed by the membership.

The second day of the sitting began with the results of the vote as to which short term campaign the parliament would be taking forward over the next three months. The successful campaign was “One Fair Wage”.

The main event of this day was the elections for the board including chairman, vice-chairman and trustees of the organisation.

I was delighted to be part of these elections standing for the position of trustee. Unfortunately, I was not successful but was proud to partici­pate, with each of the candidates presenting a solid speech and high quality answers during the hustings.

The day concluded with the elections of the convener and vice convener for each of the 10 subject committees.

Shetland will be repre­sented in sport & leisure and trans­port, environment and rural affairs.

Overall, the weekend presented a very positive future for the Scot­tish Youth Parliament, with former chairman Grant Costello stating in his outgoing speech that the new membership was “full of passion and desire to succeed”.

Kaylee Mouat