UK Youth Parliament Funding Cuts

The UK Youth Parliament is at risk of being axed within months, as the government is not committing to funding it any longer.

Some MPs and young people say axing the parliament would be a blow for youth democracy, while others say it is overdue.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is not committing to giving any more grants to the parliament.

A spokesperson for the DCMS praised the youth parliament's 'important legacy. . . giving elected young people a national platform to represent their peers, engage with decision-makers and develop confidence, leadership and skills for life and work'.

It received £453,000 in taxpayer funding in the last year alone with about £2. 4m public money spent on it among other youth initiatives between 2017 and 2024.

While no final decision has been made on funding beyond March 2027, a government source said: 'The government has not committed to continuing the programme in its current form. '

UK Youth Parliament insiders told the BBC that without government funding, it is likely to close.

It follows a government review, external published in October last year, which concluded that while the parliament was delivering on its intended goals, only a quarter of young people know about it - and some schools felt 'excluded from the process'.

The government says it is working with young people and youth organisations to design a new scheme that increases their involvement in democracy and decision-making, with further announcements to be made this autumn.

Any new scheme will have a 'particular focus on under-represented groups', a government source said.

Bobby Forbes, the recently departed chair of the UK Youth Parliament's Youth Select Committee, which works with officials in Westminster, said it gives teenagers 'a direct way to scrutinise government and hold decision-makers to account'.

Bobby Forbes, 18, was a member of the UK Youth Parliament until recently.

The 18-year-old said scrapping it would be a huge mistake and detrimental to youth voice across the UK, and it should be allowed to evolve within its current format.

But Jack Rankin, the Conservative MP for Windsor, said last year it 'should not receive taxpayers' money and should not sit in the Chamber of the House of Commons. '

He has said it should be funded by voluntary donations rather than public money. It is understood the funding is spent on the UK Youth Parliament's annual conference, held in Brighton last year, plus travel, communication and support staff.

The youth parliament is run