National Youth Strategy

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the idea of asking young people what they want is obviously a great one, and I support the national youth strategy as far as it goes. My problem is that a lot of young people simply do not know the opportunities that should be available to them. Some have a very privileged life and go to great schools where huge numbers of facilities are available to them, and some do not and do not get the opportunities to go to the theatre or play an instrument. If they knew much about them, they would probably find them life-changing. The schools into which Andrew Lloyd Webber has gone, with his mission to give everybody a musical instrument, have benefited hugely from that. But did those young people really know that their lives would be changed by playing in an orchestra? I suspect not. It is that sort of issue that needs addressing, and that is why a children’s Minister in Cabinet might well be a good starting point.

However, the starting point that we have now is a national youth strategy to which the nation’s youth will be asked to contribute. I shall therefore contribute remarks relating particularly to the idea of democracy, which is what this is all about. A survey from the Electoral Commission this year found that a third of 11 to 17 year-olds had not heard any mention of politics in their school in the entire last year. That is a year in which there was an election in this country and in the United States—one of the most important in a long time—and their schools did not even talk about it. So it is not surprising that, when the Electoral Commission asked 11 to 25 year-olds whether they would like to know a little more about how politics and democracy work in the country in which they live, 74% said that they would.

My question to the Minister is: what will she do about enabling those children and young people to understand the democratic process, before going deeply into the national youth strategy and asking them all to opine on any number of things? The Electoral Commission found that the majority do not believe that the Government do anything very much and a third do not understand at all what the British Government do. It is not surprising if they feel completely alienated. My suspicion is that this exercise risks only increasing the cynicism among a large number of youngsters.