John Denham was given the job of minister for children and young people after the June election. Here, in his first interview, he speaks to Children's Express, Britain's only news agency for young people aged 8-18.
| My biggest concern at the moment is that so few young people who can vote choose to. It’s substantially less than 50%. |
As well as being youth minister, you’re also minister of state for police and community safety. Do you think you can effectively combine both jobs?
Because my job as the children and young people's minister is a coordinating job, rather than being responsible for every detail of every policy, I think I can do both. The choice is perhaps between having a minister who's got responsibilities in a department, and a dedicated minister who doesn't have any departmental responsibilities. And there's quite a strong argument for saying that if a minister doesn't have any departmental responsibilities, they'll find it more difficult to influence policies.
What qualifications do you think are needed to be youth minister?
I reckon you need the ability to understand policy, to understand the different points of view of government departments, and how you can get Whitehall working more effectively together. I also hope that I am able to listen to people outside of government, including young people themselves, and young people's organisations, so that we are reflecting their concerns and their priorities in government policy.
 The Youth Minister promises he won't string young people along | |
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You mentioned you wanted to find a way to relate to and listen to children. How do you think you’re doing?
The national young people's advisory forum we've set up is one of those mechanisms. And we're going to promote a series of principles for youth participation, which we want to see implemented across government. I think promoting the participation of young people is a very important part of the job. And none of us would pretend that government is particularly good at involving or listening to young people.
Why isn’t there a commissioner for young people in England?
We're looking very carefully at the experience in Wales where they decided to have a commissioner. We've got a children's rights director, and we said in our election manifesto we want to consult on possible extensions to that.
Some might say that setting up government youth forums is just tokenistic. How much power could these forums actually have?
At the end of the day, I'm a government minister in an elected government and I'm accountable for what the government does in the areas of policy I'm responsible for. You can't say to a group of young people, well actually I'm going to invite you in and I'll do just what you say and forget about all my democratic accountability. You should be honest with people, listen to their views and give a response.
Young people have a right to expect an explanation of what I'm doing, to see where I've been guided by them, and to see what I haven't done and why. The worst about youth participation is to pretend to agree with young people, to say "come in and we'll let you change everything," and then tell them you're not. It's often much more honest to say these are the areas where things can be changed. These are the areas where they can't.
What's your view on reducing the voting age to 16?
The view the government has taken, and the view parliament's taken in the last few years, is that 18 is the right age. My biggest concern at the moment is that so few young people who can vote choose to exercise that right. It's substantially less than 50%. That doesn't mean, though, that the door is closed on the voting age ever changing in the future.
So how would you try to engage young people in politics?
We need to talk to young people, particularly those who don't vote, and find out why. Is it the process? Is it too difficult to vote? Or is it that what political parties are saying that doesn't engage them? It's a particular interest of mine. We do need to find ways of addressing the situation.
If you were a young person, would you think that the government was doing enough to meet your needs?
I reckon I'd think this government had done a significant amount to improve the position of children and young people - whether it's the New Deal for the unemployed or the extra investment in education. But I'm sure I'd say there's more that needs to be done. I wouldn't expect young people ever to be totally satisfied with what any government had done. It would be unnatural.
About the team
This article was produced by Akosua Bonsu and Annabel McLeod, 15. It was published in Guardian Unlimited, the Guardian newspaper website.
