2. Will the Commission make a statement on the next steps for the Youth Parliament? OAQ53489

I was privileged to chair the inspiring first meeting of the Welsh Youth Parliament here in the Siambr a little over a week ago. Perhaps Members will be aware that the Youth Parliament formally agreed three priority issues to pursue: emotional and mental health support was one of those; littering and plastic waste is another; and also life skills in the curriculum. Commission staff and the 60 Welsh Youth Parliament Members will meet next in the regions in April to devise a plan to engage with young people across Wales on the priority issues chosen by them.

Thank you, Llywydd. I was very sorry to miss the first meeting. I was intending to be here but a family emergency took me away. I, like I'm sure many other Members, have been looking at some of the speeches online and I'm incredibly impressed by the quality and the depth and also the honesty of the young people's contributions. I'm very pleased to see that the work streams that they've chosen are being taken forward so quickly. What consideration is being given to putting the Youth Parliament together with the Assembly's committees and forming some kind of more formal link? I know that many Members are meeting our individual Youth Parliament representatives, but it seems to me there is an opportunity there potentially for the young people to help us set some of our agendas in our committee work and in our scrutiny of the Welsh Government. 

I am aware that there were discussions during the weekend residential that encompassed the formal meeting of the Welsh Youth Parliament on how the young people wanted to have an impact on the policy priorities that they had voted on. It is for them to decide how they want to make that impact, but certainly there is a very easy way of ensuring that in some of the committee work that's being done in this place, which may well mirror some of the priorities that the young people chose—that we facilitate, as part of our ongoing work with the 60 young parliamentarians, the way that they can make those important links to feed into actual policy making via committees and ultimately Welsh Government and National Assembly.

I think it's difficult for anyone not to be inspired, really, by what we saw that weekend. It was a phenomenal and historic success and I was particularly pleased that two of the areas that have been identified as priorities—the life skills in the curriculum and the emotional and mental health of children and young people—are issues that the Children, Young People and Education Committee are already taking a very keen interest in and are prioritising ourselves. Of course, it's for the young people to decide how they take their work programme forward, and I'm mindful also of your answer to Helen Mary Jones, but in areas where the committees are already working on particular topics, what particular consideration has been given to ensuring that the committees and the Youth Parliament Members can work together if that is what they would like to do?

When I was here chairing the discussion on mental health and young people, in the inspiring contributions from so many of the young parliamentarians on that issue, I was reminded of course of the work that your committee, Lynne, had done on mental health issues. There's a very clear early relationship there so they can feed into the continuation of your work as a committee. So, I think that my officials are already looking to create the relationship between the young parliamentarians, especially those who want to work on this particular issue, and your committee, and that's a very natural relationship. I am absolutely convinced that your committee will benefit from the very real-life experiences that these young champions want to progress.