Marking International Women’s Day in the UK, forty teenage girls from across England will visit parliament – with ten of them given the chance to grill MPs on issues that are important to them.

The 16 and 17 year olds will take over the seats on the Commons women and equalities committee, with the Chair of the Committee, Maria Miller, sharing that the committee wanted to do something different to mark the first International Women’s Day since it was created.

“To celebrate we have invited young women from across the country to come in and take over for an hour,” she said. “They’ll find out more about our committee, and what it’s like being an MP.

We will learn about what equality means for them, and experience the challenge of appearing as witnesses. I hope it will be a great day for everyone involved.”

The girls are expected to us the day to tell the MPs the issues which they think the committee should be investigating.

The session will be a formal proceeding of the committee and the questions and answers will be recorded in Hansard – parliament’s official record.

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