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03.11.2005

On Wednesday 2 November 2005 at 1400 six members of the UK Youth Parliament, accompanied by Lembit Opik MP, Dr Phyllis Starkey MP and Charles Hendry MP, presented a petition to Downing Street of over 15,000 signatures, demanding that “the Government  introduce a National Concession Card that will entitle all young people under 18 or in full time education to reduced fares on all public transport services including buses, trains, and trams, at all times.” 

The petition was timed to coincide with the end of the consultation period for the Government’s Youth Green Paper “Youth Matters”, which lays out the Government’s ideas for empowering young people, “Things To Do And Places To Go” but does not actually address how young people, particularly those in rural communities, will access any new facilities that might be provided.  Transport is referred to only once in paragraph 140, of the entire 77 page document, and simply states, “We will encourage children’s trusts to think creatively about what can be done within existing resources to support rural young people’s opportunities and access to facilities.”  MYPs feel that this is unacceptable, with the issue of transport having been a UK-wide priority for the last four years for the UK Youth Parliament.  

Alex Farrow, 16, from Stroud, is an MYP for the south-west. He said: "We are asking for a fairer deal. Public transport for young people is not working - it is not efficient and it is not affordable. Something needs to be done now … The Government's green paper on getting young people to go out and do things is okay in theory, but they can't actually get there ... I live in Stroud, but if you travel 20 minutes away from town into the Cotwolds, some young people there are cut off from public transport." 

Ideally, MYPs would like to see Local Authorities in the Regions and Nations across the UK, work together to introduce similar schemes to that recently introduced by Transport for London, which entitles any young person under the age of 16, or in full-time education, to travel free on London’s buses and underground.

The MYPs who delivered the petition to Downing Street were: Claudia Gwinnutt (MYP Hampshire), Alice Swift (MYP Rutland), Shola Shobowale (MYP Warwickshire), Craig Smith (MYP East Sussex), Alex Sachs (MYP Dorset) and Charlotte Collins (DMYP Plymouth).