What young people expect from their MPs

Dr Christine Huebner, Lecturer in Quantitative Social Sciences at Sheffield Methods Institute

Harriet Andrews, Director at The Politics Project

In light of lower levels of engagement with electoral politics among younger people and ongoing demographic change, it is important that elected politicians work on building trusting relationships with young people.

The government’s plan to lower the voting age to 16 for all UK elections means that an additional one-and-a-half million young people are soon expected to join the electorate.¹

This makes it particularly timely to think about what young people – for the purpose of this essay, broadly viewed as anyone up to the age of 25² – expect from their MPs, and what can be done to build trusting relationships between elected politicians and their youngest constituents.

Perceptions and behaviours

Elected representatives have some influence on shaping citizens’ perceptions and behaviours.

Authentic communication and good relationships with citizens contribute to satisfaction among voters and increased contact with politicians.³ This is particularly true for interactions with young people, where good relationships foster trust, political expression and efficacy, and can even raise young people’s aspirations to stand for office.⁴

In contrast, a gap between citizens’ expectations and the reality of interactions with MPs may affect political behaviour, including turnout in elections, if people feel their vote influences election outcomes but not policymaking.⁵

Interaction and engagement

Establishing meaningful interactions between young people and MPs is a necessary requirement so that all citizens, including the youngest, can feel part of the political process. It is also important to ensure that future policies are fair and reflective of the needs of all generations and marginalised groups.

Young people are systematically underrepresented in political institutions. This underrepresentation risks skewing the political discourse and policymaking towards the interests of older, more numerous voters and can exacerbate intergenerational inequalities, for example in areas such as housing, employment, social security or environmental protection.

Much research has focused on young people’s declining engagement with institutions of electoral politics.

What young people specifically expect of their elected representatives and how political institutions can better meet the needs of their youngest constituents, however, is a largely under-researched area.⁶

Understanding young people's expectations of MPs benefits representatives so they can better meet the needs of their constituents. It also allows to evaluate how far MPs’ actions correspond to and are appropriate for the youngest citizens, to guide practice on what MPs can do to strengthen democracy.⁷

Based on existing research and conversations with practitioners of political youth work, this essay provides an introduction to what is known about young people’s expectations of their elected representatives and points to good practice that can help build meaningful relationships with young constituents.

Understanding the status quo

To date, few young people interact with their elected representatives.

Survey estimates suggest that during 2018-2023, only between 5-7% of under-25-year-olds contacted their MP or other government or local government officials.⁸

This is far fewer than among older constituents, where around one in five say they have contacted their elected representatives in the past 12 months (Figure 1), and also fewer than in other European democracies such as Germany, Ireland or Sweden.

Figure 1: proportion of respondents who state they contacted an elected politician in the past 12 months in the UK versus other European countries, by age, European Social Survey 2018-2023.

Based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS), waves 9-11 (2018–2023), weighted by analysis weight, unweighted sample sizes for the UK N=4,973 (of which N=301 14-24-year-olds), France N=3,976 (422) Germany N=4,761 (577), Ireland N=5,906 (369), Sweden (only 2018) N=1,538 (139).

Places where young people meet – secondary schools, further education colleges or youth groups – are not regularly visited by political representatives. A 2021 survey of secondary schools in England found that less than 5% of schools are visited by an elected politician, whether in person or digitally.⁹

There is also an imbalance in the kinds of young people that get to interact with, and the schools that are visited by, politicians. Independent (fee-paying) secondary schools in England are more likely to offer their pupils contact with politicians compared to maintained (state-funded) schools (around 12% compared to 5%), and particularly schools that serve the most deprived communities often miss out on visits by elected representatives.¹⁰

Practitioners remark that among MPs there is often a false sense of interaction with young people. Contrary to many MPs’ beliefs based on their own best efforts, it is few and often the same among young people whose schools are visited by politicians and who get to interact with elected officials.

The shortage of spaces for interactions, like school visits, is partly driven by the particular role gatekeepers play in facilitating and shaping interactions between young people and MPs.

Gatekeepers – parents, teachers or youth workers for example – mediate young people’s interactions with politicians. By facilitating or limiting access to young people, preparing them ahead of a visit or filtering discussion topics, gatekeepers shape the nature of young people’s engagement with MPs to an extent that is not the case for most adults. Consequently, the resources gatekeepers have for facilitating interactions – and the imbalance in their distribution – often determine what young people experience.

In addition to the role of gatekeepers, what is different about young people in contrast to older constituents is their great diversity in lived experience.

Although they share the experience of being younger than others in society, young people are highly diverse: some live with parents, others alone or with friends, some will already have their own family and children, some are in education, others in employment, some will have remained in their local area and others will have moved elsewhere.

It is therefore important to avoid essentialist views of young people as one homogenous group. Rather, MPs who interact with young people need to be sensitive to a wide range of experiences.

Expectations of elected representatives

Even though young people overall display lower levels of engagement with elected officials and electoral politics, many of them are not less interested in political contact or less trusting of elected politicians compared to older citizens (see Figure 2, based on data from the 2019 British Election Study).¹¹

Young people do, however, often report finding it harder to relate to MPs or local councillors and, compared to older people, they have different needs and expectations for relationships with their MPs.

Figure 2: proportion of respondents who state that they contacted a politician, trust in politicians and think politicians, not people, should make decisions, by age, British Election Study 2019.

Based on the British Election Study 2019, Post-Election Random Probability Survey, weighted by self-reported vote, N (unweighted)=3,946 of which n (unweighted)=231 18-24-year-olds, for the third item the proportion shows respondents who (strongly) disagreed with the statement “People, not politicians, should make our most important policy decisions”, N (unweighted)=2,537 of which n (unweighted)=157 18-24-year-olds.

Challenges of interaction

There are three reasons why young people often have a harder time relating to their MPs.

Firstly, young people are more likely to find MPs and other elected officials to be unrepresentative of the wider population.¹²

One plausible explanation for this is the underrepresentation of young people in parliaments and political parties.¹³

Even though young people do not necessarily prefer younger representatives or political candidates,¹⁴ being underrepresented in combination with ongoing social and demographic change means that when young people look at who represents them, they are less likely to see people who reflect a part of their social worlds in terms of age, gender identity, ethnicity or socio-economic status.

Secondly, compared to older citizens, young people tend to be less constituency-focused.¹⁵

For many young people, increased residential mobility – for example during periods of study, when changing employers or moving out of the parental home –can weaken the link to their local constituency, and consequently mean that an MP’s constituency work is less important.

This is in contrast to preferences among the wider electorate, who generally expect MPs to focus on constituency work,¹⁶ as well as trends among British MPs who do increasingly more hours of constituency work¹⁷ and more than parliamentarians in other European democracies.¹⁸

While young people often care about local issues, their focus is frequently on how local issues tie into broader, often global, concerns such as environmental sustainability, human rights, peace and equality.

Many younger voters expect MPs to bridge the gap between local and global challenges, particularly around areas that will affect the future.

Thirdly, young people are also found to have different preferences and needs in terms of the relationships they seek with their MPs.

In contrast to older citizens, younger people are more often in favour of closer relationships and more direct interaction between voters and politicians. This is linked to many young people’s weaker attachment to institutions of electoral politics and to their preferences for individualised and issue-based political action.¹⁹

People who feel more disconnected from political institutions will likely want individual constituents to have greater control over processes and policy, which can be achieved through more direct relationships with elected officials.²⁰

As a consequence, younger voters often expect a more personal and direct relationship with their MPs. Research finds that for many young people, the preferred model of representation is that of a delegate, where MPs are expected to actively listen to and advocate for the views of their constituents.²¹

This stands in contrast to preferences among most older voters for more passive, descriptive representation, where MPs are expected to act according to their own judgement and what they think is in the best interest of voters.²²

Building meaningful interactions

These findings highlight how interactions between young people and MPs need to adapt for two purposes:

to become more frequent and systematic, opening up spaces for more and different kinds of young people to express and discuss their views with elected representatives;
to meet the expectations young people have for closer, more personal and direct relationships with their MPs.

What might this look like?

More rigorous research on what young people expect from interactions with MPs is needed. In designing such research and guidance for elected representatives, it is helpful to think about four aims for the engagement of and with young people:

Space – young people must be given the opportunity to express a view.
Voice – young people must be facilitated to express their views.
Audience – the view must be listened to.
Influence – the views must be acted upon as appropriate.²³

In the next section, we point to good practice that can help build meaningful and impactful relationships between young people and MPs regarding each of these four dimensions.

Systematically creating space

To create more opportunities for young people to express and discuss their views, politicians and political parties need to engage in spaces where young people are present.

This can happen in person or virtually, synchronously or asynchronously.

The Politics Project, a non-partisan democratic education organisation²⁴, facilitates a programme of Digital Surgeries, in which groups of 10 to 30 young people have an hour-long discussion with a politician who represents them.

To help with scheduling, these discussions take place via video call. This eliminates travel and supporting staff time and, crucially, allows Westminster MPs to make appointments while away from their constituency.

Rather than just engaging with those schools or youth groups that contact them, parliamentary offices could engage in a systematic approach of scheduling such virtual discussions to give more – and more diverse – young people opportunities to build relationships with their MPs.

If an MP were to give an hour each week to speak to a group of 25 young people in their constituency, over the course of a year they could meaningfully engage with 1,300 young people, or more than half of a cohort of 16- and 17-year-olds in the average constituency.

This would require more dedicated resources for politicians’ offices as it would need help to coordinate, support and facilitate these interactions.

A more systematic approach to scheduling engagements would also allow for greater transparency and help politicians show themselves to be directly accountable to their youngest constituents.

Asynchronous communication online is increasingly important as young people often value more frequent interaction and direct feedback, and a greater degree of accessibility and transparency.

The vast majority of young people use social networks and online media to get information about political issues, and many want their MPs to be active on social media, to engage in online discussions and to promptly respond to concerns. This can take different forms, for example an Instagram Live, WhatsApp voice message channels or reel-type short video responses to questions submitted by constituents.

Given the large number of available platforms and channels, and the constantly changing landscape of platform-specific uses, algorithms and social cues used by online communities, it is important to work with young people to produce relevant content and engage in meaningful dialogue via social media platforms.

A study of online communication between politicians and young people in Germany showed it was helpful for politicians’ offices to work with a young person, for example as part of an internship programme, or be advised directly by young people to ensure that communication and interactions are always appropriate and youth-centred.²⁵

Improving the quality of interactions

Young people’s preferences for closer, more personal and direct relationships with their MPs mean that many want more immediate and informal channels of communication and authentic interactions that allow for dialogue and prompt responses.

Interactions must enable young people to express their views, and these views must be listened to and acted upon.

To achieve authentic dialogue, interactions best take place in small groups. Evaluation data from the Politics Project’s Digital Surgeries shows that addressing a large group of young people, for example in a school assembly, can have a negative impact on relationships between young people and politicians. Young people in groups of fewer than 20 are more likely to trust the politician with whom they are speaking, while those in groups of more than 60 are less likely to develop trust.²⁶

To ensure the time MPs spend with young people is focused on dialogue, it can be helpful for young people to enter interactions prepared.

This is important because time spent on explaining the political system and what MPs are responsible for is bad use of politicians’ time. Instead, MPs should spend their time with youth groups on listening to and speaking with young people about their specific concerns.

The Politics Project provides workshop guides that can be used by teachers or youth workers to prepare young people so they can feel efficacious and able to express their views. They also provide suggested structures for conversations between MPs and young people that centre on dialogue.²⁷

One of the most effective ways for politicians to raise the quality of interactions and build trust is to take action on behalf of the young people they meet and speak with. This can range from making sure more picnic benches are installed in the local area to raising a relevant issue in Parliament.

To foster experiences of political efficacy among young people, it is important to close the feedback loop and report back to the young people how their views have been listened to and acted upon. This could happen asynchronously, for example in the form of a reel-type short video response, but it can also be in person.

MPs who engaged in Digital Surgeries with The Politics Project report they are much more likely to meet and be approached in the street by students they met online, showing how authentic and personal interactions can break down barriers and enable dialogue between young people and their elected representatives.

Foster trust and strengthening representation

To date, few young people interact with their elected representatives. Building meaningful relationships between young people and MPs is essential to fostering trust and strengthening the representation of younger generations in political decision-making.

As the potential lowering of the voting age to 16 could soon notably expand the electorate to include more and younger people, it is critical for elected representatives to better understand and meet the expectations of their youngest constituents.

This requires more frequent and systematic interactions, tailored to create spaces for more and more diverse groups of young people to express their views, and have them heard and acted upon.

This can happen in person or online, ideally in small groups, where young people can build authentic connections with MPs, and should best be designed in close collaboration with young people to ensure interactions are appropriate and youth-centred.

Beyond this initial advice for good practice, further research is necessary to better understand what exactly young people expect of interactions with their MPs, and to guide MPs in strengthening democratic participation and ensuring that policies reflect the needs of all generations.

Endnotes

Based on population estimates by age for the next decades from the Office for National Statistics (2021), see: Overview of the UK population: January 2021.
For analytical purposes, we deem it helpful to define what we mean by “young people”. However, there are many different and valid definitions of “young people”, often referring to people aged anywhere between 10 and 34 years. It is important to acknowledge that what constitutes youth is a matter of debate, frequently rooted in distinctions between childhood and adulthood and “performative or processual” accounts of behaviours and competences that are different among younger people from those of adults (Valentine, 2003, p 38). For further discussion see: Graham, P (2004), The end of adolescence. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Osler, A & Starkey, H (2003), “Learning for cosmopolitan citizenship: Theoretical debates and young people’s experiences”, Educational Review, 55, 243-254; Valentine, G (2003), “Boundary crossings: Transitions from childhood to adulthood”, Children’s Geographies, 1, 3-52.
Soo, N, Weinberg, J, & Dommett, K (2020), “One moment, please: Can the speed and quality of political contact affect democratic health?” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(3), 460–484.
Weinberg, J (2022), “Civic education as an antidote to inequalities in political participation? New evidence from English secondary education”, British Politics, 17(2), 185-209.
Bengtsson, Å, & Wass, H (2010), “Styles of political representation: What do voters expect?” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 20(1), 55–81.
Though we note that research has been carried out into the participation and representation of young people in parliaments more broadly as well as in party parliamentary groups, see for example: Stockemer, D, & Sundström, A (2022), Youth without Representation: The Absence of Young Adults in Parliaments, Cabinets, and Candidacies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Kurz, K R, Ettensperger, F (2024), “Exploring the conditions for youth representation: a qualitative comparative analysis of party parliamentary groups”, European Political Science, 23, 349–397; or for Scotland specifically: Macleod, I M (2009), Youth participation and the Scottish Parliament: accessibility and participation for children and young people, Aberdeen: Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis.
Carman, C J (2006), “Public preferences for parliamentary representation in the UK: An overlooked link?” Political Studies, 54(1), 103–122.
These estimates are based on the authors’ analysis of responses to the European Social Survey for the UK (waves 9-11, 2018-2023), broken down by age cohorts and weighted to match population characteristics. European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure – ESS ERIC (2024). ESS9-11 integrated file, edition 1.0 [Data set]. Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. They match proportions estimated based on answers to the same question in the British Election Study (2019 Post-Election Random Probability Survey).
Weinberg, J (2021), The Missing Link: an updated evaluation of the provision, practice and politics of democratic education in English secondary schools, Project Report for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Political Literacy. London: United Kingdom.
Weinberg, J (2022), “Civic education as an antidote to inequalities in political participation? New evidence from English secondary education”, British Politics, 17(2), 185-209. Also: Weinberg, J. (2021). The Missing Link: an updated evaluation of the provision, practice and politics of democratic education in English secondary schools, Project Report for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Political Literacy. London: United Kingdom.
Fieldhouse, E, Green, J, Evans, G, Prosser, C, de Geus, R, Bailey, J, Schmitt, H, van der Eijk, C, Mellon, J (2022). British Election Study, 2019: Post-Election Random Probability Survey, [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8875.
Russell, A, Fieldhouse, E, Purdam, K, & Kalra, V (2002), Voter engagement and young people. Electoral Commission.
Extensive research on the extent and consequences of this underrepresentation has been conducted by Stockemer and Sundström, for example: Stockemer, D, & Sundström, A (2022), Youth without Representation: The Absence of Young Adults in Parliaments, Cabinets, and Candidacies, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Stockemer, D, & Sundström, A (2023). “Age inequalities in political representation: A review article”, Government and Opposition, 1–18.
Research shows that for young and older voters alike the age of political candidates does not majorly impact voting preferences, although it can play a role in intersection with other candidate characteristics such as gender, for example, middle-aged men being preferred over young female candidates. For more information see Belschner, J (2023), “Youth advantage versus gender penalty: Selecting and electing young candidates”, Political Research Quarterly, 76(1), 90-106; Campbell, R & Cowley, P (2014), “What voters want: Reactions to candidate characteristics in a survey experiment”, Political Studies, 62(4), 745-765; Sevi, S (2021), “Do young voters vote for young leaders?” Electoral Studies, 69 (February): 102200; Shen, Y A & Shoda, J (2021), “How candidates’ age and gender predict voter preference in a hypothetical election”, Psychological Science, 32(6), 934-943.
Campbell, R, & Lovenduski, J (2015), “What should MPs do? Public and parliamentarians’ views compared”, Parliamentary Affairs, 68(4), 690–708.
Vivyan, N, & Wagner, M (2015), “What do voters want from their local MP?” The Political Quarterly, 86(1), 33-40.
Rush, M, & Giddings, P J (2011). Parliamentary socialisation: Learning the ropes or determining behaviour? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
André, A, Bradbury, J, & Depauw, S (2013), “Constituency service in multi-level democracies”, Regional & Federal Studies, 24(2), 129–150.
See for example Pickard, S (2019), Politics, protest and young people. Political participation and dissent in Britain in the 21st century. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Huebner, C (2020). Citizenship, young people and political engagement: How young people make sense of their role as citizens in Scotland and the Netherlands [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Edinburgh]. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Research Archive. Young people are also often suggested to prefer elements of direct democracy, such as referenda or forms of public deliberation, see for example Donovan, T, & Karp, J A (2006), “Popular support for direct democracy”, Party Politics, 12(5), 671–688. However, this effect is more likely attributed to effects of education rather than age alone, see for example Collingwood, L (2012), “Levels of education and support for direct democracy”, American Politics Research, 40(4), 571-602. Also: Grotz, F, & Lewandowsky, M (2020), “Promoting or controlling political decisions? Citizen preferences for direct-democratic institutions in Germany”, German Politics, 29(2), 180-200.
Carman, C J (2006), “Public preferences for parliamentary representation in the UK: An overlooked link?”, Political Studies, 54(1),103-122.
Bengtsson, Å, & Wass, H (2010), “Styles of political representation: What do voters expect?”, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 20(1), 55–81. The distinction of different models of representation is based on Pitkin, H F (1967), The Concept of Representation, Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Ibid.
Following Lundy’s (2007) model of child participation. See Lundy, L (2007). “‘Voice’ is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”, British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942.
For more information, visit digital surgeries.
Spöri, T, Wienkoop, N-K, Huebner, C & Eichhorn, J (2022) Jung. Digital. Engagiert? Eine Studie zum politischen Informationsverhalten und Engagement junger Menschen in Deutschland, Hamburg: Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung.
The Politics Project (2022), “Starting powerful conversations. Lessons on political contact from the digital surgeries programme”.
Democracy classroom – The Politics Project.