College welcomes House of Lords environment leader Baroness Parminter

16 May 2022

Birkenhead Sixth Form College welcomed the visit of the House of Lords’ lead on environment and climate change, as the College’s students were chosen as one of an elite few to help advise the government on important environmental issues.

The Baroness Parminter is Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee in the House of Lords, which helps sculpt policy and law within this relevant and vital topic, and the College is just one of six schools chosen from across the country to be involved in a new youth engagement programme.

The programme involves students giving the Lords’ committee insights on approaches to tackling the climate crisis through behaviour change from the perspective of young people, and Baroness Kate Parminter’s visit to the College was a perfect chance for students to engage with a governmental leader with their thoughts and ideas.

After exploring the campus and meeting the Principal, Mike Kilbride, alongside two of the Deputy Head Students, Josh and Rachael, the Baroness held a talk and Q&A session with students studying A Levels in both Politics and Environmental Science. Students were able to put across their thoughts and suggestions on the critical issue of the environment and put pertinent questions across about the inner workings of the House of Lords and the committee’s work.

Just the day before, four chosen students were involved in a virtual committee meeting with all of the members of the House of Lords on the issues, and had the opportunity to field their excellent questions and thought-provoking ideas to the politicians.

Josh, Felicity, Katie and Matthew joined students from the other five schools across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to bring to the attention of the committee such issues as fast fashion, eating habits and the wildlife population of the UK and how they affect climate change.

The four were praised by the Lords on their thoughtful and practical approaches to the matters and took on board their many ideas of how to tackle behaviour changes within society.

The Baroness Parminter said: “It’s been brilliant. The students have been so articulate and so informed. The way they expressed their thoughts to us was just amazing. The committee was dazzled by how clearly they could talk about issues that are so important but so easily get forgotten.

“We’ve got a session coming up with the minister and we’re going to be asking some fairly searching questions which will be informed partly by what the students have told us. I’ll be interested to hear what their views are after that session because I’m sure they’ll be in touch with us if they feel we have done a proper job of asking the right questions!”