3. Will the Commission make a statement on its current engagement with children and young people in Wales? OQ55913

Thank you for that question. The pandemic has made it challenging to engage with children and young people, particularly through schools and youth groups. Regulations make it impossible for us to host schools in the Senedd or to visit those schools. So, for part of the year, the team focused on creating resources that education professionals can use themselves. However, since October, we have seen an increasing demand for virtual schools sessions, and we will be providing more of those over the coming weeks. We have supported the Welsh Youth Parliament in moving its activities online. They published reports on litter and plastic waste, and emotional and mental health support, and I chaired their latest Plenary Zoom meeting on 14 November. As part of our GWLAD series of events, we've held a virtual meeting looking at the future for young people in Wales and their experiences of the pandemic. Commission staff have worked with young people and education professionals to co-produce a range of materials to promote votes at 16 ahead of the Senedd elections in May.

Diolch, Llywydd. You'll be aware that I have raised concerns before about external engagement with our constituents, and indeed our younger members of our community, without the participation and indeed involvement of us as elected Members, and that has continued. However, in light of the pandemic, I do welcome the fact that the Senedd is offering online sessions to help young people to better understand how our democracy works, and some of the sessions sound excellent, such as 'Introduction to your Senedd', 'How to be an active citizen', and 'Our Senedd'. The 'My first vote' sessions, focusing on the upcoming Senedd elections in May, where 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote for the first time in Wales, sound really good sessions, and whilst I acknowledge there is a need for education ahead of this—I think it's overdue, really—I struggle to see how this can be achieved effectively without reference to and inclusion of all our political parties in Wales, and I would like to see Members involved. So, could you clarify to me whether the education officers informing these students participating in the 'My first vote' session—? How are they going to be educated on the different political parties and indeed the political system? Also, what intentions are there of the Senedd to assist already-elected Members to be involved in some of these sessions? Diolch.

Well, I'm sure you'd agree with me, Janet Finch-Saunders, that, in the run-up to the election, a period now after Christmas that we all face, it's important that the sessions that the Commission holds, and that schools and others hold in schools, are politically balanced and include all political representation for that purpose. That's why the Senedd, in designing our and the Welsh Government resources available to young people, working with the Electoral Commission as well, ensure that there is a fair political balance in the debate leading up to elections. We all know as individual Members, leading up to elections, that we're very often invited into schools to hold political hustings, and we hope that that possibility will happen at a local level as well. That's a matter for the schools to initiate their own discussion on, but I do hope that schools will be in a position to do that. That may well be in a virtual context, still, by May of next year, but ensuring that our young people have all the information that they need to be able to be inspired to and practically to cast their vote in May of next year is something I think that unites us all as elected Members, present and future.