5. Will the Commission provide an update on its support for the work of the Welsh Youth Parliament? OQ55904

Thank you. The Welsh Youth Parliament has had a busy autumn, as Members near the end of their term of office. The Commission supported Welsh Youth Parliament Members to produce and publish two reports based on the work of their committees. One looked at emotional and mental health support, and the other at litter and plastic waste.

The final meeting of the Welsh Youth Parliament was held on 14 November, and I chaired that session. And it also included contributions from Welsh Government Ministers, Senedd committee Chairs and the commissioners for future generations and young people. In addition to that, Members of the Youth Parliament have been supported to hold scrutiny sessions with a range of Ministers, including the First Minister and the health Minister to share their experiences of coronavirus during the summer. And more recently, some Members held a session with the Minister for Education to share their views, and the views of other young people, prior to the Minister’s announcement on exams. And there will be a further session where some youth parliamentarians will meet with the First Minister next Monday evening. 

I know that the Welsh Youth Parliament will continue for a few months yet, but I'd like to pay tribute to the hard work of the young Members and to thank parents, schools, partner organisations and our own staff for helping to bring the three strands of their work to a successful conclusion.

I'm very grateful to the Llywydd for that response. 

Thank you so much for that answer. I think we must all be very proud of the young people and what they've achieved in these very difficult circumstances, and I think we'd all want to thank the staff very much who've been able to enable them to continue their work in exactly the same way, of course, that the staff of the Senedd have enabled us to continue our work. 

I have had some concerns, though, about the emotional well-being of the young Members. Their experience of being young Members of the Senedd won't have been what they expected. So can you confirm, Llywydd, that members of staff here have been in touch with those professionals—youth workers and others—supporting those young people just to make sure that they're okay? And further to that, as you said, the first term has come to an end, it's been incredibly productive, they've done a huge amount of work and I'm sure we'd all like to thank them. Can you tell us a bit more about what steps are in place to prepare for the next elections for our next young parliamentarians? That may potentially be done, of course, in a challenging time where schools and youth groups have got an awful lot on their plate that they wouldn't normally be having to deal with. So, I'm hoping that there is thought and planning going into how we can ensure that our next Youth Parliament is as effective as this one has been.

Well, it's been one of the highlights of my time as Llywydd to chair the events and the meetings of the Welsh Youth Parliament. They are inspiring young people who have wanted to represent their fellow young people and to make sure that the views of young people in Wales have an influence on us as a Senedd, and it's been an inspiring journey for them and, most definitely, for me as well. So, in planning for the future of that, we learn from the experience of the first Senedd, and we will put together a legacy report, as we do for many aspects of the work of the Senedd, to take forward into the next Senedd and into preparing to elect the next Youth Parliament in the autumn of next year.

As you say, the young people who are 60 Members of our Youth Parliament have experienced the pandemic, as all have, and they've had their own individual experiences of that. Our Commission staff, who have worked with them on the committees and in the Senedd in the Welsh Youth Parliament itself, have been very conscious of the fact that they come from different circumstances—each and every one of them—and they have been supported, as much as we can, in enabling them to carry on their work in whatever way they could as youth parliamentarians. Therefore, it's been an incredibly positive experience, and I hope it has been for the 60 Members who were elected. They were trailblazers and pioneers, and we will soon be electing our second Youth Parliament, and I think we've done a good job as a Senedd in supporting our young people in allowing them to have a voice, but in particular, as well, in listening to what they had to say.  

And the final question of this session is question 6, Alun Davies.