Joseph Hayat

Joseph Hayat is an award winning young British entrepreneur, television campaigner and politician. He is the former Member of Youth Parliament for the constituency of Sleaford & North Hykeham within Lincolnshire.

Early life

Hayat was born in Peterborough, UK.^[1] He was educated at Lincoln Minster School where he obtained nine GCSE’s. He is a former pupil of Sleaford Joint Sixth Form where he studied A-levels in Business, Geography and Travel & Tourism.

He is a former Government & Economics student of De Montfort University, currently studying at the London School of Economics.

Personal life

In 2010, Hayat was one of three teenagers in the UK to be nominated for the Teen Entrepreneur Award at the first ever BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards.^[2]

In 2011, Hayat was awarded the young achievers award at the North Kesteven Community Awards for his service to the Lincolnshire Youth Cabinet and UK Youth Parliament.^[3]

Hayat was selected as a case study example in the book 'Who said you can't be young and successful' written to inspire, educate and motivate young people to become successful entrepreneurs published in 2011.

In March 2012 it was revealed that Hayat was selected to be one of the eight thousand people in the UK to be a torchbearer of the Olympic Flame for the London 2012 Olympics.^[4]

Member of Youth Parliament

Hayat served as the Deputy Member of Youth Parliament (DMYP) for Lincolnshire West entailing the constituencies of Sleaford & North Hykeham and Gainsborough from March 2010 until March 2012.[5] His campaign won him the chance to serve the Sleaford & North Hykeham constituency after obtaining 20% (892) of the votes, losing by 3% to Chris Bridgwood (MYP) who obtained 23% (1009) and served the Gainsborough constituency.^[5][6]

Hayat was one of the organisers behind Lincolnshire’s first ever young person’s festival 'LinX’s Festival' hosted in July 2010.^[7]

One significant issue affecting young people during Hayat's term was that of the rise in university tuition fees. Whilst Hayat opposed the rise, he openly condemned the student protests stating 'they were counter-productive, as the hijacking of them gave a horrendous, unfair and unjust misrepresentation of the majority of young people in the UK.'^[8] In response, Hayat later attended the coalition governments first 'Positive for Youth Summit' where Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was present to lobby youth policy and press the issue of positive representation of young people in the UK.

Campaigns

Following UK Youth Parliaments annual sitting in the House of Commons in October 2010, Hayat launched his regional transport campaign pledging for affordable travel for young people after he claimed rising youth unemployment in Lincolnshire was stricken by the expense of local public transport.^[9] This resulted in a transport solutions conference where Stagecoach East Mildands agreed to sandardise their adult fare threshold to sixteen years of age across the county.^[10]

Having campaigned for greater sex and relationship education, Hayat met Tim Loughton, the then Minister for Children and Families in February 2011.^[11] Following the meeting Hayat 'declared war on Britain's pimps', pledging to create awareness of child sexual exploitation amongst young people through social media after the Minister appointed Hayat to his 'Child Sexual Exploitation steering group' as a voluntary adviser.^[12]

In November 2011, Hayat spoke for the last time in the House as MYP at the UK Youth Parliaments annual sitting in the House of Commons where he was introduced to Ed Miliband. Hayat spoke during the Child Poverty debate where he delivered a back bench speech in support of fellow MYP for Leicester South Mu-hamid Pathan who proposed the motion as debate lead.^[13]

International representation

In January 2012, Hayat was invited by fellow MYP Pathan to attended the United States national annual 'Youth Bike Summit!’ in New York, to observe and share practices in youth advocacy and participation and present a keynote guest speech to delegates at the New School University, New York.^[14]

Battlefront

In July 2011 it was revealed that Hayat was to appear, alongside Hafsah Ali, in the third series of the TV series Battlefront, a Channel 4 production which encourages young people to engage with the serious issues that matter to them. Ali and Hayat’s campaign 'Ready for Work' was centred around youth unemployment.^{[15][16][17][18]}

In October 2011, Hayat & Ali took the campaign to Westminster with a group of NEET's alongside Ms Dynamite and Charlie Simpson to raise awareness of the issue. They met with the Employment Minister Chris Grayling to discuss their pledge to get a thousand new businesses to take on young people by 2012. The Minister agreed to support the campaign by getting Jobcentre Plus to work with Joseph and Hafsah to get 1,000 young people back into work.^[19] The proposal helped to shape the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s 'Youth Contract' and the duo's campaign efforts were later praised by Leicester South MP Jon Ashworth^[20] as well as Prime Minister David Cameron.^[21]

Post Battlefront & Youth Parliament

Following Battlefront series three Ali and Hayat continued to promote positive solutions to youth unemployment becoming youth ambassadors of iGen3 Live in February 2012.^[22]

Following his term as an MYP Hayat has provided policy consultancy to the public sector on enterprise policy and in November 2011 launched 'Brilliant Lincolnshire Young Traders' in association with Lincolnshire County Council.^[23]

Respect Party

Following the launch of Hayat's 'Sick Campaign' on Sky News in August 2012,^[24] Hayat soon received the backing of the Respect Party MP George Galloway^[25] and featured on Galloway's show The Real Deal broadcast on the Iranian state owned channel Press TV.^[26]

Corby by-election

In late August George Galloway revealed he was 'keen for his party to put up a candidate in the by-election' when discussing the upcoming Corby by-election. The Northamptonshire Telegraph reported that 'the name of former Member of Youth Parliament Joseph Hayat has been linked with the campaign, although there are no confirmed Respect candidates yet.'^[27] It was therefore believed that Hayat was the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for the Corby constituency. However, in late October Galloway confirmed that his party would not be standing in the constituency.^[28]

Rotherham by-election

Following the resignation of Dennis McShane over parliamentary expense abuses, the writ was passed on 5 November 2012 and Hayat appointed as Election agent by George Galloway to direct Yvonne Ridley's campaign.^[29]

During the campaign, controversy arose when Hayat and the party's solicitor Alias Yousaf were verbally abused whilst canvasing by the Deputy Leader of Rotherham Council Clr Jahangir Akhtar in the company of Lord Nazir Ahmed and Maria Eagle MP.^[30]

Respect failed to win in the Labour stronghold, although they obtained the party's third best by-election result with their first being George Galloway's win in Bradford West in March 2012.

Youth Officer

As appointed Youth Officer of the party, Hayat arranged for Galloway to speak at De Montfort University in Leicester to students on 'the importance of more young people getting into politics' in November 2012. This sparked controversy as the university decided to ban Galloway due to his decision to sue the National Union for Students for libel following his remarks about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, resulting in the DMU Student Union president Lynette Williams citing Galloway’s actions as 'an attack on the NUS is an attack on every student, including those at De Montfort University.'^[31]

The Youth Company

In May 2013, it was revealed that Hayat (referred to as 'Yusuf') had been appointed as Deputy Executive Director of the international youth empowerment organisation and consultancy, The Youth Company based in Doha, Qatar.^[32]

Ventures

Zeal Wave

Hayat founded Zeal Wave in February 2009, with business partner Callum Hives. Zeal Wave was an IT company that provided solutions to the homes and businesses of Navenby and the surrounding Cliff Villages. The duo started the company independently with an investment of £180 savings each. Despite the then economic recession, the company was a success, the partners moving into their own premises in December 2009.^[33]

Following Hayat’s win in UK Youth Parliament elections in February 2010, Hives ceased trading as 'Zeal Wave' and re-launched operations under the identity of Calcom Enterprises. Hives continues to trade to this day and has moved into the telecoms and hosting sector.^[34]

Events

In Spring 2010, Hayat briefly invested in the events management industry organising a clubbing event at Rehab night club in Sleaford for young people to enjoy and to showcase local young talent.^[35]

HiAir

Hayat has often been dubbed the 'worlds youngest airline boss' after founding ad hoc air charter brokerage, HiAir.

Originally Hayat had a launch party scheduled for his venture on 28 July 2010 at East Midlands Airport, however it was cancelled the day before due to an administrational error.^[36] It was later reported that the cancellation wasn't caused by administrative issues but was due to the difficulties that Hayat faced with HM Revenue Customs, the UK Border Agency and Special Branch over border control requirements and security concerns that stopped both the operation and his relationship with the airport. This was confirmed by Hayat when he later launched operations in August 2010 operating from no specific airport base, however it was never confirmed by Hayat whether or not the party was planned to occur at East Midlands Airport as reported or in fact Retford Airport as rumoured.^[37][38][39]

In June 2011 it was reported that Hayat had sold an ad hoc flight that operated within Lincolnshire.^[40]

HiAir Ltd

In November 2010 it was revealed that Hayat had received investment from Ben King in exchange for 51% of his company and that HiAir had in fact become incorporated as a limited company.^[41]

In May 2011 it was announced that HiAir would provide a scheduled daily service between Robin Hood Airport and Amsterdam Airport acting as a virtual airline utilising a single nineteen seater aircraft Jetstream 32 aircraft, to be provided on an ACMI basis and operated by a European AOC.^[42][43]

In September 2011, it was announced that HiAir had suspended the flights having not received the delivery of their chosen aircraft due to an issue outlined as 'beyond our control' incurred with their unnamed AOC chosen to operate the flights.^[44]

In November 2011 Hayat resigned as a Director and thus became no longer a shareholder of HiAir Ltd due to concern over the collateral offered by the principal investor, cited by the evident financial liabilities faced by his companies at such time, as confirmed by Hayat on a later Press TV interview.^[45] On 6 March 2012, HiAir Ltd was dissolved whilst under the sole directorship of former colleague Jason Lee King.

References