Scottish Youth Parliament

The Scottish Youth Parliament
Pàrlamaid Òigridh na h-Alba
NicknameSYP
Formation30 June 1999
HeadquartersEdinburgh
Location
FieldsYouth Empowerment
Youth Representation
Chair
Ellie Craig
Vice-Chair
Olivia Brown
Beau Johnston, Alannah Louge, Tamsin Gold, Daniela Onyewuenyi, Shafa Waqas, Maya McCrae
Websitehttps://syp.org.uk
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The Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid Òigridh na h-Alba) is a youth-led, democratic organisation which aims to represent the young people of Scotland.

The SYP is made up of around 166 democratically elected representatives aged 14–25 from across Scotland.[1][2] Representatives are known as Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYPs). The SYP uses the Scottish Parliamentary constituency structure to elect its members, with elections generally taking place every two years - every constituency area elects two MSYPs using the Single Transferable Vote electoral system. Over 71,000 votes were cast in the 2019 SYP elections.

Around 22 MSYPs represent Voluntary Organisations such as The Boys Brigade, Scouts Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland and Haggeye instead of constituencies. These MSYPs are directly elected by the Organisations they represent.

The SYP meets three times a year at events called sittings. These usually take place in different Scottish Local Authorities, but were held online between 2020 and 2022 due to COVID-19. SYP returned to in-person sittings in July 2022 with SYP77 being held in Cumbernauld[3]

The four core values of the SYP are rights, democracy, inclusion and political impartiality. SYP is non-party political, which means MSYPs do not organise themselves along party lines within the Youth Parliament. All MSYPs essentially sit as independents to avoid partisan politics interfering with their representation of young people, however allegations of a "cliquey culture" and bias towards certain parties has been levied against the majority of the membership, especially the youth leadership.[4]

  1. ^ "Holyrood welcomes back Scottish Youth Parliament" (Press release). Scottish Parliament. 22 October 2010. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  2. ^ "Home". Scottish Youth Parliament. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  3. ^ "SYP77". Twitter. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  4. ^ "Scottish Daily Express". Scottish Daily Express. Retrieved 9 October 2024.