Young Futures Hubs

Baroness Longfield Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think the noble Baroness would agree that there are many common risk and protective factors that can underlay a range of poor outcomes for young people, including mental health challenges and the potential to go off the rails and into crime. That does not mean there is a causal link between mental ill-health and crime. What we are clear about, with respect to the Young Futures hubs, is that whatever their needs, it is essential that children and young people can access support via the hubs without fear of stigma. They need to be welcoming places where all young people want to go for a positive experience. That is why one of the key principles of the hubs is that they will be open access as well as targeted. In doing that, they will provide a safe space to offer more specialist interventions for those who need it, including evidence-based support for children and young people with mental health needs.

[Baroness Longfield (Lab)]

My Lords, Young Futures has such potential to deliver transformative change for young people, and I am grateful for the support that has been expressed for it. I have to declare an interest; it was an approach that a commission that I chaired put forward in 2022, dubbed “Sure Start for teenagers” at the time—and just as with Sure Start, this is about bringing together services in a community, as my noble friend has said, to really look at the needs across the whole area of the child. We know that so many young people who suffer from exploitation and the risk of getting involved in crime are also those in poverty, struggling in school or in need of mental health support. Just as Sure Start demanded that departments worked together and that different teams and services in an area worked together, Young Futures demands that too. Will my noble friend say something about the work that is going on with other departments to ensure that all those aspects come to fruition?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend deserves very great credit for the work that she has done in leading the way to the model of Young Futures hubs in the way she described. She is also right, of course, that to bring together the services that need to create and contribute to Young Futures hubs, we need cross-government working. That is why colleagues across government, from the Department for Education through DCMS, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, are all involved in thinking about the development of the Young Futures hubs and the Young Futures prevention partnerships as well.