Chris1

Answered by Jo Swinson

I’ve not been a fan of positive discrimination in terms of women but I’m definitely in favour of positive action – I’m working very hard to get women to come forward and get involved in politics. I don’t know enough about what is stopping young people – is it that not enough young people are coming forward? I suppose an in-built problem with the system is that is fairly unusual to be elected the first time you stand. When I was elected you couldn’t stand until you were 21. I was lucky that I was able to stand 3 months after my birthday – got my first experience of standing and then got elected on my second attempt when I was 25. It was difficult for a lot of people then as by the time the first general election after they were eligible to stand came around, they could already be 23 or 24 which is why, in a sense, you weren’t getting more young MPs. I don’t think positive discrimination would resolve it –lowering the candidacy age to 18 was a step in the right direction and I think that it should actually go further and allow people to vote and stand for parliament at the age of 16. Some people’s argument against that is that you would get lots of teenage MPs, well you might, but if people were to vote for them and choose that person to be their representative then what is the problem? I’m not sure that would happen but what you would certainly get is many more MPs in their 20s who are interested in politics and are able to start their experience of political life earlier and therefore get elected earlier. As long as I’m elected I’m going to be a woman MP helping the gender balance in parliament but I’m not going to be a young MP forever because I’m getting older every day! So it’s a really important thing to keep getting new young people involved in politics.