Big Society's Big Mouth Powered by v

The government are very quick to raise the fees of education and take away the EMA, but for some reason they think that young children in low-income households need internet access to do work. I fully believe that everyone should have access to the web but we already have this in our schools and libraries so why do we need to spend £300 Million pounds on providing them with computers, laptops and internet access at home. Surely this wont be used for educational purposes, instead it will be used for social networks by children who are not above 13. Therefore putting the children at more risk.

They have access at schools and many have one computer per kid in many classes, so why do then need it at home at their age? Read less

On Saturday, I attended the ChooseYouth rally in Solihull; this event was brought together because Youth Services seem to have been seen as an easy target reducing public spending and thus the majority of them are being culled.

Near the beginning of the rally, there was a wonderful figure given, the £6billion (£6,000,000,000) that are by being given in banker bonuses could keep youth services going for 20 years. I am not sure how I actually feel about bankers but I just felt that the figure put things in to an interesting context; more interesting as I have just discovered that for the past couple of years, in a period of remorse, these bonuses would have been given to charity and yet they no longer will when they seem to be needed most.

A short while after that, there was a presentation on the figures of tax avoidance concluding in a suggestion that £20billion (£20,000,000,000) could be reclaimed by just targeting the top 20 companies worst for tax avoidance. Assuming that all went in to Youth Services, that is over 60 years that it would be able to continue at its current level.

The most poignant thing for me was to hear young people (some even younger than 16) speaking up for Youth Services, sharing their stories of how it has affected them. A standing ovation was given to one female whom was on the point of tears after telling her story. She has been unemployed for 2 years which is stressful enough and has recently been diagnosed with a serious health condition. She currently volunteers at KICfm and is seeing a counselling service - both of these are to be taken away from her. A very powerful story but it is often the rule rather than the exception to hear these things.

There was also a Question Time panel featuring a couple of MPs (one Liberal Democrat and one Labour). This could have been a great opportunity were it not for the fact that there was a great amount of heckling resulting in the Liberal Democrat threatening to leave the stage. The main thing that came out of this was the insistence that everybody should get in touch with their local MP, telling them about the value of their youth services and inviting them to see for themselves.

UK Youth Parliament have a meeting managed to arrange a meeting to discuss these cuts and they have urged everybody to email them at info@ukyouthparliament.org to share their stories so that they can build up a large bank of evidence and arguments to bring to the meeting. Read less