Lib Dem Conference: That’s a wrap!

My time here at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference 2013 has now come to an end. After three days debating, discussing and information sharing there’s a lot to digest on a broad spectrum of subjects from the economy to education to Europe.

From a young person’s perspective it was refreshing to see a lot was discussed that directly relates to us. The fact issues such as youth unemployment, school dinners, and amendments to university financing were all motions at conference shows youth does play a vital role in decision making. It shows even though a lot of young people are turned off by politics, politics does encompass issues that directly affect young people.

In my experience with the other young people in the youth charity Kids Count, if you speak issues rather than party politics to most young people, they’re highly passionate and motivated to discuss and seek change. With that in mind, I think it’s important to involve the youth in decisions that will affect them as much as possible.

Although there’s no doubt there were some important children’s issues on the agenda, it did surprise me that bullying, particularly cyber bullying wasn’t really on the agenda. With high-profile cases in the media recently such as teen Hannah Smith who committed suicide following months of horrific online tormenting, I’m surprised it wasn’t really discussed.

Bullying has always been a problem, but with the huge explosion of social media in more recent years, it’s become clear it’s an issue that needs addressing, particularly by decision makers. We need to make sure we keep up with the issue and put safeguards in place as soon as possible. Kids Count made sure to champion this at the conference by talking to delegates like Tim Farron MP and the Rt Hon David Laws MP about our “I Stand For” anti-bullying empowerment campaign. We asked politicians like them to stand up and tell us what they stand for so young people can see they shouldn’t be ashamed of who they are. These soundbites will be made into a short promotional video for the campaign so watch this space to see what they stand for.

While disappointed bullying wasn’t discussed more, I was happy to see an issue I’m personally interested in was being discussed in a motion: “Preventing and Tackling Sexual and Domestic Violence”.

As the motion says, “1.2 million women and 800,000 men in the UK last year alone suffered domestic abuse”, hence it’s clearly a big issue that needs addressing.

In Kids Count we’ve found this is an issue that effects a lot of youth in their own relationships as well as within their family; often they haven’t been educated to realise that this behaviour is wrong. Thus it was good to see in this motion youth were specifically mentioned as needing more understanding of what domestic abuse is. I definitely think that there needs to be laws and safeguards in place specifically relating to young people because I think in the past domestic abuse hasn’t really been considered in relation to youth.

It’s definitely a good start to have education in schools on youth domestic violence as the Liberal Democrat motion proposes, but I’d like to see further moves from politicians to prevent this kind of behaviour in future.

On that note, reflecting back on the conference there’s been some necessary subjects discussed and moves made for improvement and some issues I would have expected to see discussed that weren’t. You can’t have everything, especially since politics encompasses so much, but it’s been really interesting to witness how engaged in community issues some politicians are.

I would like to thank all the politicians and delegates we met for making us so welcome and the Glaswegians for their warmth and friendliness.

I look forward to hearing what happens at the other party conferences!

Until then,

Natalie

Natalie is blogging on behalf of Kids Count, a think-tank focused on the practical rather than the theoretical. Find out more at www.kidscount.org.uk