EDITORIAL: Youth policy gets serious consideration

Four ministers from different departments - John Denham at the Home Office, Ivan Lewis at the Department for Education and Skills, Jacqui Smith at the Department of Health and sports minister Richard Caborn - took questions from MPs for one hour on a wide range of issues relating to young people.

One hour is a large chunk of parliamentary time, and provides further evidence that the Government may finally be starting to take youth policy seriously. A full text of the debate can be found at the Parliament web site (www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk) by following the Hansard link for 23 January.

During the debate, Denham reiterated the Government's view that active citizenship among young people and an encouragement of political and democratic involvement was a priority. As our Hot Issue debate this week shows (see p10), it is virtually impossible to say on the record that young people do not deserve the right to vote when they reach 16 years of age. The cynical will say this is political correctness. The other argument is that if young people are old enough to bear arms in defence of their country and to get married, they should be able to vote on which party they want in government.