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Use of the Chamber (Youth Parliament)

If the hon. Gentleman feels I have slighted him in any way, I do apologise; I would not ever want to do so. I merely note the fact that we had votes yesterday afternoon that seemed to indicate that a lot of people opposed the measures in question, but only four did so on the first, and only six on the second. The important issue before us is that the UK Youth Parliament has developed a growing sense of self-confidence as an organisation, and many of the young people involved are from a wide variety of backgrounds, which has been significant in itself. It is interesting to note the breadth of backgrounds of the young people who take part. In the last Youth Parliament, 53 per cent. of its members were women, 47 per cent. were male—obviously—2 per cent. had disabilities and 21 per cent. were from black and ethnic minority groups. That is considerably higher than for the nation at large, and considerably higher than in this Chamber. In some senses, it was great to see when those young people were sitting in the House of Lords the breadth and diversity that was shown in that Parliament. Sometimes, I wish that we could mirror that diversity in this Chamber.