Reading West MP Martin Salter helped secure a historic change in the House of Commons rules last night to finally allow the young people of the UK Youth Parliament to use the Commons Chamber for their annual meeting. The motion, which originated from a proposal from Mr Salter to the House of Commons Modernisation Committee in 2004, was fiercely resisted by group of right-wing Conservative MPs who attempted to use filibustering tactics and Parliamentary procedure to block the measure.

Mr Salter made a strong speech in favour of allowing the UKYP to use of the Commons Chamber last Thursday in the first part of the three hour debate and had already raised the issue earlier at Business Questions with Commons Leader Harriet Harman where he labelled the Tory opposition as “Cameron’s cavemen”. Due to Government business ending early on Monday evening the motion came up for debate at around at around 6.15pm with sufficient time to complete the debate. Mr Salter organised Labour MPs to remain on the premises in order to force a closure motion at 8.45pm which then allowed the motion to be put to the vote. The Commons voted by 205 to 16 in favour of the motion and rejected a Tory amendment to confine the UKYP to an upstairs committee room by 207 votes to 21.

Mr Salter said:-

“This is a fantastic result for everyone who believes in treating young people with respect and allowing them access to the cockpit of our democracy. It is shameful that in this day and age that there are still dinosaur MPs around who think that only elected bottoms should be allowed to grace the green benches even when Parliament is on its summer recess. I am particularly disappointed that Reading East MP Rob Wilson didn’t turn up to vote on this important issue.”

Kate Parish, Director of Programmes at UKYP said:-

“UKYP is extremely grateful to all those MPs who voted in favour of young people being able to use the Chamber of the House of Commons to debate the issues that matter to them.  This would not have been possible without the perseverance and determination of a few MPs, in particular Martin Salter, who have lobbied their colleagues and the Speaker’s Office, to ensure that young people elected by their peer group, are able to have their voices heard at the heart of Government.”

Anneliese Dodds, Labour candidate for Reading East said:-

“It’s clear from the actions of the Conservative MP for Reading East that, despite supporting the involvement of young people in politics at a rhetorical level, he is ambivalent about it in practice. It’s disappointing that there still are Tory ‘dinosaurs’ who are lagging even behind the Lords when it comes to giving young people a voice.”

Olatunde Seye, Reading Member of the Youth Parliament added:-

“Hearing that the UKYP have been allowed to use the House of Commons to debate in has made my day as the MYP for Reading, and I believe the same can be said for thousands of young people both in and outside of the area. So on behalf of the UKYP and the young people of Reading, am saying thank you to those who had made this happen.”