HUDDERSFIELD student Jayde Tunnacliffe made history in the House of Commons yesterday.
Jayde, 16, of Birkby, a student at Greenhead College, is a member of the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP).
She joined 300 other members to debate in the House of Commons.
It was the first debate to take place there in 300 years that did not exclusively involve MPs.
Commons Speaker John Bercow hailed the “historic occasion” as he welcomed members of the UK Youth Parliament to the green benches.
Mr Bercow told the massed ranks of elected 12 to 18-year-olds they were the first body of people other than MPs to debate in the Commons chamber.
And he praised the UK Youth Parliament for being “substantially more representative” than the current make-up of the House of Commons.
As well as being an active member of Youth Parliament for Kirklees, Jayde studies English language, history, psychology and politics at the Huddersfield college.
Her original intention was to study law at university, but her involvement in the UKYP has influenced her to carry on with politics.
There are five main issues to be debated at the House of Commons, some of which include solutions to youth crime and free university education.
However the most important issue to Jayde is to lower the voting age to 16.
She said: “Lowering the voting age to 16 is important, but we need to make political education compulsory in schools.
“There is lack of understanding of what politics mean and low voter turnouts in young people.
“If political education becomes compulsory in primary and secondary education and the voting age is lowered, the number of voters will rise”.
The debate was also televised on BBC Parliament.
