Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:02 pm on 23 May 2018.
Thank you, and I'm pleased that all political parties here have supported the development of electing our first senedd ieuenctid—youth parliament. The children's commissioner, as you've said, has been critical in pursuing and advocating for the role of a youth parliament here, and the children's commissioner has worked with us in developing the detail on this, as have many of her young people's networks and young people themselves who work with the children's commissioner in providing us with advice right along this process.
It's not our intention at this point to give the youth parliament a statutory basis. I'm aware that some are advocating for that, and that's an issue, I think, that we'll look at into the future. But let's start and establish our first youth parliament and not allow the potential of putting it on a statutory basis to delay the establishment of the first youth parliament. We'll keep that under review into the future.
Just to clarify on the 20 additional members to the 40 from constituencies, there will be 10 partner organisations that will elect two each and put forward the names of two members each. It will be for those partner organisations—young people's organisations; they can be national or they can be local—to put their names forward as suggested partner organisations. We will have criteria then to decide who those partner organisations will be for this first youth parliament, and I'm hoping that, between me, the children's commissioner and, hopefully, the Chair of the children's committee here in this Assembly, we can select the 10 most relevant, innovative and representative partner organisations for the first senedd ieuenctid.
Resourced by the National Assembly, by the Commission, a budget has been set aside for that purpose. It is £65,000 for this year and will be £50,000 for non-election years into the future. It is a significant resource for us, but, of course, for young people to take part in an assembly, they will need to be able to travel from the various places throughout Wales where they represent to the Assembly and be properly looked after in that context of being elected members to the very first senedd ieuenctid—youth parliament.