On Monday 14th July, twenty-three Etone College pupils from Years 8 and 9 attended a School Trip to the UK Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London. The trip included a tour of Parliament and a workshop on petitions and e-petitions, based at Parliament's Education Centre.
Students went on a guided tour of Parliament, including Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament, where King Charles I was put on trial and sentenced to death in 1649. More recently, the hall was used for the lying in state of the late Queen, Elizabeth II. The students also walked through the Members' Lobby, which contains the statues of former UK Prime Ministers, including Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and David Lloyd George. From the Members' Lobby, students were taken to the House of Commons' division lobbies, where MPs vote 'aye' or 'no' on Parliamentary bills. From these lobbies, students entered the House of Commons chamber, which was rebuilt following a bomb attack during the Second World War, with its iconic green leather benches. It was whilst in the House of Commons chamber that students learned from our tour guides that there are only 427 seats for the 650 MPs, and that Winston Churchill had insisted that the Commons chamber be rebuilt with the same confrontational character, with the government benches and opposition benches directly facing each other. Students also went through the iconic Central Lobby, which contains the statues of numerous English and Scottish Kings and Queens all the way from King Edward I.
Following the tour, students returned to the Education Centre and participated in a workshop focusing on the significance of petitions to Parliament. A petition is a list of demands or a call to action, and people sign their names to show support for it. Anyone can start a UK Parliament petition as long as they are a British citizen or UK resident. The pupils firstly split into four groups - based around Education, Health, Science & Innovation, and Transport, and had to come up with ideas/proposals for petitions. Each group then chose their most significant petition proposal, presented it to the whole group, and we then all voted for the petition we thought would be the most successful. In the end, the 'Transport for England' petition, which proposed a public transport system for England to resemble that of London, came second with 8 votes. The winning petition, with 10 votes, called for improved river water quality, tackling pollution and waste in our waterways.
