‘Coalition Must Do Better' says Hansard Society Report Card on Legislative and Parliamentary Reform - July 29, 2010

 ‘Time is the oxygen of Parliament'. So said the now Leader of the House Sir George Young MP in a speech to the Hansard Society in March, setting out his party's agenda for parliamentary and legislative reform and the need for improvements to enable MPs to ‘undertake scrutiny in a measured and considered manner'.

But four months on, the parliamentary session ends with the Academies Bill securing Royal Assent after just one week of debate and consideration by elected members in the House of Commons. The coalition government's approach to the timing of new bills demonstrates that MPs are not being given the time and space to undertake scrutiny in a considered manner.

Don't tweet at me! - HeadsUp forum report, June 21, 2010

Young people want face-to-face contact with politicians and a two-way discussion on social media.

www.headsup.org.uk

Young people on the HeadsUp.org.uk forum Politics and Politicians...what needs to change?  place as much importance on face-to-face contact as they do on digital forms of engagement with politicians. Forum users said that digital engagement is good if used properly, but it is not a replacement for "actually getting out and about and talking".

Users of HeadsUp.org.uk, which came runner up in the Empowering Young People and Citizens category at the 2010 Nominet Internet Awards, insisted that genuine engagement was very important to them, but only if their ideas and suggestions were listened to and taken into account. Although some expressed a preference for face-to-face engagement, most also accepted that if digital engagement was welcome if it was a two way dialogue.