Communities and young people playing vital role in work of House of Lords Committees says peer

Communities and young people are playing a vital role in holding the Government to account through their engagement with House of Lords committees, a peer has said.  

Baroness Parminter, Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, has been outlining how the public can engage with Lords committees as part of UK Parliament Week, an annual event spreading the word about what Parliament is and how the public can get involved.

Lords’ committees play a significant role in holding the government to account by investigating public policy, proposed laws, and government activity through inquiries, which the public are invited to submit evidence to.  

Baroness Parminter explained;

“The success of any inquiry is reliant on the committee receiving written and spoken evidence from any organisation or member of the public, who is interested in that topic.

In the last year alone, Lords committees have received evidence from hundreds of witnesses including; teachers, students, carers, boiler installers, car dealers, consumers, local government representatives, academics and even an AI robot!”

Baroness Parminter highlights in particular the impact young people have had on her committee, which has recently begun the second year of its youth engagement programme. Six schools and colleges from across the UK have been selected to work with committee members to discuss the current inquiry into Electric Vehicles and advise them what questions to ask Government ministers during evidence sessions.

She said:

“The students we have worked with on the youth engagement programme are so passionate about the environment and have the intuition to press the Government on the key issues facing their community and our planet.”

A list of all the House of Lords committees and their current inquiries is on the House of Lords pages of parliament.uk.

Members of the public can also get involved in the work of the House of Lords by watching committee evidence sessions, questions to government, debates, and the stages of making laws, live or afterwards via parliamentlive.TV, or in person by visiting the Palace of Westminster. Full details can be found at parliament.uk.