A game of few laughs as city youngsters put Speakers to test

Published on Tuesday 22 September 2009 21:39

THE opening gag did not go down well. Alex Fergusson, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament joked that most school pupils, when they heard Alex Fergusson was coming, ended up disappointed, expecting the Manchester United manager.

It prompted adult laughter, but barely raised a smile among the mainly teenage girl audience.

Bravely moving on swiftly, Mr Fergusson introduced English counterpart John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, to the Edinburgh secondary pupils visiting the Scottish Parliament for a question and answer session.

A panel of senior politicians including justice minister Kenny MacAskill, Labour MSP Lord Foulkes, the Conservatives' Gavin Brown and the Green's Robin Harper joined the two political referees, all willing to be grilled by the second-year pupils from Leith Academy.

It is a tough age group to enthuse and teachers will tell of endless struggles to motivate pupils in the "dead stage" after the novelty of "big" school has worn off and subject choices are yet to be made. It is a year when pupil motivation and performance dips – something it is hoped the new school curriculum will solve by doing away with this "dead" year and expanding general education for a further session.

However, despite the tough nature of this year group, and others, the Scottish Parliament has a department dedicated to reaching out to all ages of young people, with a determination to tackle a prevailing attitude that politics is boring.

Now, in the tenth anniversary of the reformation of the parliament, the education unit is stepping its programme up a gear. A bid to increase pupil visits to Holyrood last year by 50 per cent actually saw the number almost double, with 11,320 young people and their teachers touring the building in 2008-9.

And the bid to reach out to schools outside Edinburgh is also increasing – given that 40 per cent of schools are in rural areas. The unit reached 7,749 young people in rural Scotland last year – an increase of 29 per cent.

The latest group of youngsters had a stellar panel to grill and the politicians were clearly aware of the importance of engaging these future voters.

One lad impressed Mr Bercow by asking whether he believed there should be an English parliament.

Describing it as a very clever question Mr Bercow said it was very difficult for him to answer given his need to remain impartial as the Speaker.

"It's a matter of great controversy between members of different parties," he explained: "On the whole Conservative members are much keener on the idea of a separate English parliament. Labour members of parliament tend to take a different view and if I'm to retain my reputation as being a fair umpire, impartial between the parties, it's one of those questions it is better for me not to answer. But it is a very skilled question and you nearly skewered me."

That prompted a devolution debate with Lord Foulkes declaring a controversial non-party line that the House of Lords should be scrapped and the chamber used to create an English parliament, while Mr MacAskill took the opportunity to beat the drum for independence.

In thundering tones Lord Foulkes said: "There is a democratic deficit for England in that Scotland has its own parliament, Northern Ireland, and Wales and English people do not have control over their own affairs.

"I am in favour of a separate English elected parliament that's not Labour policy at the moment but it is my policy. Then we are moving towards a federal system."

At which point Mr Bercow interjected: "There is just one downside and that is that the great George Foulkes would cease to be a member of the Lords."

Kenny MacAskill then took up the cause for independence, saying: "I think we should have what is normal in most countries in the world which is each nation having their own independent parliament. The government of New Zealand has its own parliament and nobody there says 'mercy me, we cannae manage, we should become part of Australia'.

"It's what most other countries have at the moment. If we were sitting in Ireland and somebody said maybe we should go back to the British Empire, people would laugh. If you went to Canada and said maybe you can't manage, maybe you should be the 51st state of the United States, people would say 'what are you talking about?'"

Perhaps a subject easier to relate to for the youngsters, was that of alcohol when the question was posed to the panel whether Scotland was doing enough to tackle the problem of excessive drinking: "Alcohol is not a normal product, it is in fact a licensed drug," declared Mr MacAskill. "It's something that many people enjoy, I participate in it myself but it's not a Mars Bar, it's not a tin of beans. It has an effect on people's behaviour so it's got to be promoted sensibly."

But in his bid to create a case for individual choice, Lord Foulkes created amusement among the pupils with his candour.

He said: "Mars Bars and beans can be very dangerous – look at me now. The result of too many Mars Bars and beans. I'm in the middle of trying to lose weight and had a salad at lunchtime because my doctor told me that unless I lose weight I'm very likely to get diabetes and my life is going to be shorter.

"He really made me think very hard indeed but that's my decision and it's my decision to cut down on alcohol."

On the subject of the rowdiness of parliamentary questions, particularly during Prime Minister's questions, Mr Bercow, whose job it is to manage the often belligerent jousts, paid the group the ultimate compliment.

"Of the schools I've spoken to so far I've found on the whole pupils very much more restrained and better behaved than sometimes is the case in parliament," he said.

A spokeswoman for the parliament's education unit said they were delighted Mr Bercow had agreed to take part. She said: "It was something we know he was keen to do. Educating young people and supporting teaching about the Parliament has been a key service since 1999.

"We reviewed the service in 2007, to ensure we could increase capacity for both the inward and outreach educational programmes and support the new style of personalised education learning under the curriculum of excellence."

Towards the end, the Presiding Officer valiantly asked the assembled teens how many wanted to become politician. Not a hand rose. After an uncomfortable wait for a shy hand to rise, which never came, Lord Foulkes tried to rescue the situation by claiming seven pupils in the last session had raised their hands when asked the same question. The Leith Academy second-year pupils looked nonplussed.