Welcome. I'm really pleased this afternoon to find myself here in the Chamber of the Scottish Parliament with Ellie Craig, who is the chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament. And it takes me back to, I think it was autumn 2024, Ellie, when you and I chaired at a session of the Scottish Youth Parliament here in this very place.

Yeah, it was a really great event and it was our 25th anniversary.

It's also been the Parliament's 25th anniversary that year as well, although the Scottish

Youth Parliament's one day older.

Oh, well there we go. There we go. I, you know, I reflect on it frequently. It was a very lively day. A lot of good questions coming from the floor and a lot of debate, but always courteous and good-natured. I'm just interested in what got you involved in the Scottish Youth Parliament in the first place.

Yeah, I'm thinking back, it was seven years ago now that I was first elected as an MSIP

for Glasgow Keith Carr and it was actually my modern studies teacher who had sort of said

the Scottish Youth Parliament are holding elections. I guess you're pretty confident and outspoken.

Why don't you put yourself forward? And I think I always felt like I should speak out

if I thought there was injustices or that there was something I wanted to change. I think a big

part of it for me at the time was education and making sure that the education system worked for young

people. And so I put my hat in the ring against seven other people. I didn't think I was going

to win. And I guess here I have now the rest is history.

And how do you find that electoral process for the Scottish Youth Parliament?

Yeah, I think it's pretty brutal actually at times.

I think young people can be some of the harshest critics from your peers but it's really great and I think it's one of those examples where young people from 12 to 25 can vote

and they use their young Scott card and it's local authorities all 32 help us to run those elections

and so I think it's really a great show of getting young people to have their voices heard from a

really young age and obviously preparing them to vote at 16 in Scotland so for me it's the first

step in that process.

And it's a really inclusive parliament. I mean that seems to be baked in to the selection procedure.

Yeah, I think so. We don't have like quotas or anything, but it just so happens that our demographics

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