MP tests if young people really are apathetic about politics (From Messenger Newspapers)

Kate Green MP tests if young people really are apathetic about politics

11:00am Thursday 7th March 2013 in News By Kate Banks, Reporter

KATE Green MP met with youngsters in Old Trafford to determine what issues are important to young people and whether teenagers really are as apathetic about politics as people say.

The MP for Stretford and Urmston met with members of the Rathbone training group at their base at Trafford House on March 1 and took questions from the group’s youth forum.

Rathbone is a charitable organisation which aims to get young people, who may need a little extra support or perhaps did nor got the grades they wanted at school, to become ‘work ready’.

Abbey Hutton, 17, from Old Trafford, has only been with Rathbone for three weeks but said she is already feeling the benefits.

“I did an apprenticeship in hairdressing for eight months and it just wasn’t for me, but I’ve settled in really well here and I’m hoping to get a job and better qualifications,” she added.

Eighteen-year-old Jess Lee, from Old Trafford, said: “At school they just sit you down, give you work and just tell you to get on with it and if you get stuck you’ve got the internet, but here they work around you if you’re struggling.”

During the youth forum, Ms Green answered questions about jobs, the voting age and education.

She said: “It was really interesting - great questions from young people about things that really happen in their lives and I was especially impressed with how strongly they felt about having the work at 16.”

Ms Green, who became an MP for the first time in 2010, added that while young people are not apathetic about issues that matter to them, more work needs to be done to show them that politicians and political parties ‘have anything to do with them’.