Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords across your Lordship’s House can agree that the youth sector, like the young people whose interests it champions, inspires us all with the energy and dynamism with which it does its work, and that we must do all we can to protect its future. The Conservatives, in government, had a proud record of supporting and listening to young people. Their interests were at the heart of our £500 million funding for the national youth guarantee, which expanded access to clubs and activities for 11 to 18 year-olds. Their interests were also at the centre of the £1.3 billion that we invested in sports programmes and facilities across the United Kingdom.
Although we on these Benches welcome the Government’s vision for a national youth strategy, and look forward to scrutinising the measures once there is more substance to that, we must express some confusion at the content and tone of this announcement. The Government say that they are placing young people front and centre. The Secretary of State said in her Statement in another place that the strategy will give young people more “chances and choices” and will
“put them at the heart of government”,
and yet there is not much in this Statement that improves the chances and choices of young people. I fear that our nation’s youth might share my perplexity at the mixed messages they are getting from their Government.
Scrapping the National Citizen Service, which was started to great acclaim by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, most certainly does not give young people more choices; it restricts them. The National Citizen Service has, over 13 years, given more than 750,000 young people the opportunity to broaden their horizons, engage with their compatriots from a wide variety of backgrounds and different parts of the country, and play their full part in shaping our society. If the Government truly want to put young people at the heart of government, why have they scrapped a scheme based on the premise of putting the needs of young people first?
This human interaction and drawing of people from a diverse range of backgrounds is at the heart of the brilliant work that the National Citizen Service has done for more than a decade. I was confused by the logic as it appeared in the Secretary of State’s Statement; maybe the Minister can shed more light on it. In the section in which the Secretary of State talks about scrapping the National Citizen Service, she talks about the growth in Facebook, X and TikTok users that has happened since its creation. Surely, in an age when there are more social media and young people are spending more of their time online, it is all the more important that they should take part in schemes such as the National Citizen Service, which brings them together in real life to learn about the lives of their fellow country men and women who are drawn from different backgrounds.
UK Youth summarised the views of the sector neatly when it said that the Statement was deeply unsettling. As noble Lords will be aware, the National Citizen Service funded countless projects throughout the country. The specific structure of the programme ensured that funds were widely distributed to grass-roots organisations. These include, among others, London Youth, Children North East, the YMCA, which we talked about in our debate last week on the implications of the Budget for cultural organisations and charities, and the EFL trust, which is a charity that helps drive young people through the football talent pipeline. I find it slightly strange that the Government are taking a Bill through your Lordships’ House that seeks to improve the sustainability of English football and the future of the sport at the same time as they are pulling funding from charities that help support the grass roots of the beautiful game.
Do the Government have any plans to replace lost funding for schemes such as the ones I have mentioned and the many more that could be mentioned? If so, could the Minister or the Government clarify these as soon as possible? The closure of the National Citizen Service, coupled with the reduction in funding for cadets and the lack of replacement for the youth investment fund, all lead to a cut worth millions of pounds to youth organisations. Does the Minister believe that His Majesty’s Government are truly expanding the chances and choices of young people when the evidence we have been provided with today, in the Budget and in the weeks since, indicates the very opposite?
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lord, we come rather belatedly to discuss this Statement. I do not know whether it is the longest wait I have ever had between a Statement taking place in another place and it being discussed here, but it is certainly a contender.
Many of the points I have about youth services are about how we will assess the future of a scheme. One of the problems I have found with youth-focused activity is that it fails to take into account one very important factor about those who use it: they grow up. Things tend to drop off a cliff at the age of 18: you are in a project, which is great, but then it ends. There does not seem to be any coherent strategy for getting people involved in voluntary sector work or any activity as they become adults.
Sport is a classic one for this: a wonderful project gets hundreds of children running around, but what happens when they get to 18? I have asked this on numerous occasions. I will not mention the groups I have done this with, but many of them celebrate their success, but when I ask, “What happens when you get to 18?”, they reply, “What do you mean?”. Some young people become coaches, but an 18 year-old football coach is of no use to an amateur football side; they just will not be able to do it.
How will we start to integrate this into the other sectors of adult society? If we are using it as a tool and a structure that goes with it, I have a little more hope for what is coming next. But I hope we will be told how the Government will assess successful projects, what help they will get in identifying them and how they will integrate them into the voluntary sector of adult life. I would like to hear something about that from this Government. If we invest in this type of work, we must have a flow through. Certain national organisations thrive on this interaction. Are we getting some structure and guidance on how to do it better?
When it comes to pressure on young people, let us face it, all teenagers have a habit of being misunderstood and sitting in darkened rooms. We did in our day, but unfortunately now they are accompanied by the internet and its pressures, so they sit in darkened rooms talking to fictitious people and reinforcing their own often self-imposed misery. If the Government can look at how we break through that, with some positive action and guidance, I would be incredibly impressed.
How will we go about this? Any youth service has to bear in mind two things: how to get in and assess it, and how to exit it with a positive result. I look forward to hearing from the Government what assessment they have made.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Addington, for their contributions. I hope that my comments can answer some of their questions before we move on to wider questions from your Lordships.
We have an opportunity to rebuild a bright, successful future for this generation, giving them choices and chances, including the chance for them to shape policy that relates to their lives. Coming into government, as the Secretary of State said in the other place, we found that there was no youth strategy and no consistent youth voice across government. It is very difficult to target funding without a strategic approach, and this is what we intend to deliver, working with young people.
I know that all noble Lords would agree that young people are critical to our nation’s success. They have high aspirations—they believe in their power, and so do we, but they also face significant challenges. They have experienced a global pandemic, the rise of new technology and social media, climate anxiety and an increase in mental health issues and loneliness. We desperately need a new path forward for young people. We are committed to having a proper national conversation about how to empower them, ensure that they have trusted adults in their lives and provide them with great opportunities to achieve and thrive. We want to support them in navigating an ever-changing world. We will do so by launching the co-production of a national youth strategy with young people in the driving seat. The strategy will outline a long-term vision for young people, better co-ordinating youth policy and ensuring that we are more than the sum of our parts. We will publish this strategy within a year. It will better co-ordinate youth services as well as moving away from one-size-fits-all approaches from the Government, bringing power back to young people in their communities and rebuilding a thriving and sustainable sector.
We know that this is ambitious, and that is exactly what we want to be. We will start with a series of youth-led engagements in the coming months and will set up a group of young co-producers who will inform key decisions on the design of the strategy, providing expertise and insight from their lived experience.
As the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport observed in the House of Commons last week, change is important to move forward. That can mean making difficult decisions, which is why we will wind down the National Citizen Service programme from the end of the financial year. We will also close the trust when parliamentary time allows, and all necessary processes will be followed, including engagement with Parliament and His Majesty the King. We stand ready to support the NCS during this period of transition and have a team within DCMS supporting this process. I know that this is a difficult decision for many of the people involved and for those who have taken part over the years. I express my gratitude to each and every staff member and young person who has contributed to the NCS trust and its programmes over the years. We are grateful for their commitment to supporting young people, helping them build meaningful connections and pushing themselves out of their comfort zone.
I also thank many noble Lords who have played a role within the trust over the years. We will work closely with the NCS trust to ensure an orderly transition from the end of the NCS programme to what comes next.
The new strategy will enable us to better target funding and services where they are most needed. While we develop the strategy, we will focus on transforming our work and supporting our youth sector through the transition. As a starting point, the Government intend to strengthen the relationship with local government by launching the local youth transformation pilot, which will build back capacity and improve local youth offers with young people at the heart of local services.
In addition, we will allocate over £85 million of capital funding in the places where it is most needed, including launching the new £26 million better youth spaces fund for youth clubs to buy new equipment and do renovations. The Government have also announced the allocation of £100 million of the next tranche of dormant assets funding to youth outcomes, and we can expect further details on the focus and distribution of this funding in due course. By working across government, civil society and business, we will make sure that everyone is focused on the common goal of better supporting and empowering young people in England.
The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, asked about grass-roots sport. The Government are acting to support more people to get access through delivery of the multisport grassroots facilities programme in 2024-25. In the Autumn Budget, the Government confirmed continued support for elite and grass-roots sport by investing in multi-use facilities, and further details will be confirmed in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about what happens at 18. I think that point is slightly outside the scope of this strategy, but I appreciate the need for us to look at how people can transition, be active citizens and be active in sport beyond that. I will speak to Minister Peacock about the point that the noble Lord has raised, as he did during the debate on football governance. It is a useful point for us to explore.
The overall package of support for young people lays the foundations for a transition towards a future in which young people will be empowered to succeed. I welcome views from across the House on the content of the Statement and on the priorities for our youth strategy. I look forward to discussing this issue further in due course.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the announcement that we are creating a new strategy, particularly the fact that young people themselves will be central to its design. Young people today face profound, complex challenges and a world very different from a decade ago, and it is right that they are driving forward the changes that are central to their future. I ask the Minister for more detail on exactly what their involvement will look like and what it will entail.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. It is important to us that the strategy is a co-production. We will set up a youth advisory board as well as running a series of youth-led round tables. There will be a wide consultation, reaching and engaging young people across the country through surveys and focus groups.
On top of that, the UK Youth Parliament is DCMS’s key mechanism for engaging with young people and ensuring that their voices are heard in policy and decision making. I know that a number of noble Lords here are particularly interested in the work of the Youth Parliament, so I will just note that it is Parliament Week.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, the Statement says that young people today
“are at the sharp end of a revolution in social media”
and that there are now one in five young people with a mental health problem. The research shows that everything points to social media and smartphones. At the moment, I understand we are just giving guidance that smartphones should be banned in schools. My question for the Minister is simple: when are we going to legislate so that smartphones are banned? They must be a huge distraction and they should not be in the classroom.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I refer the noble Earl to the debate on precisely this issue in your Lordships’ House next Thursday. I think that question will be explored in a lot of detail in that debate.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, my question follows on from that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and is really about process. I very much welcome from the Green Party perspective the youth involvement, and the people who are most affected by this having a say. However, I must note that it is a pity that the Government are not immediately pushing forward with votes at 16, which would give young people a much stronger say immediately and directly in our democracy.
Is the process of co-production envisaged to be a deliberative democracy process, and not one where people are asked surveys, with just the usual suspects coming forward? Are we going to see a truly representative group of young people, from around the country, making sure that it is not too focused on the south-east? Will there be people from different social backgrounds and different groups? Will disabled young people be specifically represented? Will they have a chance to deliberate and talk, and to meet perhaps with Ministers? Will this be a long-term iterative process, rather than yet another survey or “consultation”, which really has acquired something of a bad name?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Baroness asked about the precise process, and we will get far more details on this in due course. The co-production model is intended to reach young people and children from across the spectrum. We know that disadvantaged young people are much less likely to access enriching activities, and we want to ensure that we target the consultation and our resources towards making sure that all young people have an opportunity to take part, whether that is in the co-production or the activities once they are subsequently rolled out.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to address the issue of why we are taking this Statement so late in the evening, and the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. My understanding—I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench is too polite to say this—is that this was arranged so that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, could be here to defend what is presumably the jewel in his crown. If that is not the case, I maybe was misinformed.
I am surprised to hear those on the Bench opposite asking questions such as the noble Lord did in his opening remarks, especially since, in 2021, the previous Government made cuts of £135 million after the Evaluation Task Force shared its concern about the impact and value of the NCS. They were a Government who introduced and oversaw huge cuts to local authority youth funding, leading to the closure of huge numbers of youth facilities—in contrast, it has to be said, with the achievements of the previous Labour Government with Sure Start, which transformed the future of a generation of children and was then dumped by the noble Lord’s Government. Given that the noble Lord and his Government oversaw sweeping cuts to this programme, does my noble friend the Minister agree that we do not need to take any lessons from those on the Opposition Benches about supporting the future of young people? Can my noble friend say what the timeline is for publishing and implementing the strategy?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
On the initial point of not taking lessons from His Majesty’s Opposition, I think it is fair to say that, on this side, we have been quite impressed by how quickly they have developed amnesia about the last 14 years.
The National Citizen Service provided 1 million young people with opportunities, and in 2024-25 it received £52 million in government funding. We believe that, if we develop an overarching government strategy on youth, we will allow more young people and children to access activities that will enrich their lives and help them build their future. That is why the report that will emerge from the consultation will be entitled, “Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Nation”. These people are our future and it is really important that we target the funding we have to the absolute maximum.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, could the Minister give her view on the importance of local authorities in this strategy? My experience at local level is that they can be a hugely powerful linchpin in the network of local services and engagement opportunities for young people. They really bring it to where they are, engaging with schools, youth services and sporting opportunities. Can the Minister give us a feel for how local authorities will figure in this strategy, and how they will be consulted in its formation?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
Local authorities are an absolutely key partner in the development of any strategy. From my perspective, one of the key things is to look at how their youth funding has fallen over the previous 14 years. Local authorities’ youth funding in England fell by 73% under the previous Government. This Government have started to help restore that funding, but there is a correlation—I have been told it is not a causation but a correlation—between areas where funding for youth centres has been cut, and rises in anti-social behaviour.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, following on from the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and given the hour and the sparsely occupied Benches, in many areas—I can think of many that I have visited—the closure of a large number of facilities, particularly local authority facilities, has been picked up by local community groups, social enterprises and local organisations. They have, for example, occupied the adventure playground that was closed and set up their own arrangements, often operating with very scarce resources and relying on huge amounts of voluntary effort. Can the Minister assure me that the Government will make sure that the new youth strategy fits in with the voluntary community efforts that are already operating, rather than a whole new broom sweeping in and dumping down on communities, possibly sweeping aside those valiant voluntary efforts that have kept things going in such difficult conditions of austerity?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
For the purposes of brevity, I shall just say yes.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, as there are a few moments left, may I ask the Minister about something that her right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology said which has been reported in the papers today? He said that he was open-minded about a ban on under 16 year-olds being on social media. His statement made a big play about the injurious effects of social media on young people, saying that they are at the sharp end of a revolution in social media. Is that under active consideration by the Government? How does the Minister think that tallies with their commitment to give 16 year-olds the vote? Will they be able to exercise their democratic rights at 16 if they have not had the opportunity to engage with political debate and political discourse on social media, as they presently can?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point, particularly about votes at 16. I neglected to respond to the noble Baroness’s point on that subject. We anticipate, and plan to introduce, votes at 16 before the next election, when parliamentary time allows. We are exploring all the issues in relation to social media and so forth, and I will write to him with a fuller response on that.