The member of Youth Parliament for Bath and North East Somerset, Ed Joseph, has rallied over 4,500 votes in this years ‘Make your Mark’, the UK’s largest youth led ballot style campaign.
The campaign presents young people with 10 issues – and they are asked to vote for the 5 that should be debated in the House of Commons on November 14th when Members of the Youth Parliament meet for their annual sitting.
All secondary schools in the local authority were sent ballot papers, and every single teenager is asked to make their views known.
Across the country, over 865,000 young people took part which was an 81% increase on last year’s 478,000 votes.
Here in Bath and North East Somerset, the 4,500 young people making their mark was a 2000% increase on last year’s 210 votes.
The five topics that received the most votes in the ballot nationally were 1) Votes at 16, 2) a living wage for all, 3) an improvement to Mental Health services, 4) Work experience schemes in all schools 5) and to bring back exam resits in Maths and English.
Ed Joseph, MYP, said: “I am extremely happy with the number of young people in Bath and North East Somerset who took part in ‘Make your Mark’.
“As many will know, the 18 – 24 demographic has the lowest turnout in general elections. With this year’s campaign achieving over 4,500 in B&NES and 865,000 nationally, here’s hoping to change that.”
Eight schools in Bath and North East Somerset participated in ‘Make your Mark’. Writhlington, St. Marks, Hayesfield, Oldfield and Norton Hill all had Living wage as a top issue.
Somervale had an improvement to mental health services top, as did Chew Valley who had mental health services joint top with Euthanasia.
St. Gregorys Catholic School had Euthanasia as their top issue – with pupils wanting to see assisted dying legal here in the UK.
Ed thanked Bethany Tavener, Don Foster MP, Director of Children Services Ashley Ayre, Cllr. Liz Hardman, Cllr Nathan Hartley and Off the Record for their help promoting the campaign, and looks forward to debating the issues in the House of Commons.
