Vulnerable Teenagers

Lord Bishop of Durham Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McConnell; I associate myself with everything he said, particularly about adopting the recommendations. He also reminded us that this is no new problem. He talked about his experience in the 1980s; I could do the same from when I was doing youth work. You can also quote Greek writers and philosophers about the problems of young people in the era of the Greeks, so this is something we have always lived with.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for securing this debate. It is always lovely to share something with someone else from this part of the north-east of England. I congratulate Anne Longfield on the report, Hidden in Plain Sight. As the Commission on Young Lives’ report demonstrates, young people falling vulnerable to violence and exploitation and entering the criminal justice system is not an issue that is shrinking, nor one that could possibly be ignored. The effects of this problem are widespread, impacting not only the lives and futures of the young people themselves but the prosperity and security of our whole country. Such an issue cannot be resolved through sticking plasters or short-term solutions; it is instead vital that we examine and address the root causes and respond with long-term solutions.

As the report states,

“it is impossible to overestimate how important poverty is as a driver for so many of the social problems ruining and holding back lives.”

Almost 70% of young people receiving custodial sentences have received free school meals at some point, illustrating the connection between those in the criminal justice system and poverty. It is therefore essential that reducing and eliminating child poverty is made one of the priorities. Today, there are approximately 4 million children living in poverty in the UK, and only this week, a report published by the Child of the North All-Party Parliamentary Group revealed that child poverty in the north-east of England is now the highest it has been since 2000-01.

These statistics are staggering, but we must remember that behind these statistics are individual young lives, each with worth and potential. Will the Government look at the recommendations of the reports—both the Young Lives report and the Child of the North report—to reduce child poverty and consequently address this significant cause of young people falling into violence and exploitation, through abolishing the two-child benefit limit, extending free school meals to all families receiving universal credit, and making eliminating child poverty a priority in their levelling-up agenda, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Stroud, and myself are proposing in an amendment to the levelling-up Bill?

In addition to child poverty, reforms to our education system must be made. It was horrible to read that still almost one in five children leaves school with no GCSEs. That is almost one in five children leaving school with no basic qualification, limiting their future opportunities. We must take urgent action to change this, and I believe that this has to start with a change in the curriculum. Having a curriculum that not only provides children with essential knowledge and skills but is also interesting, fulfilling and applicable to those who learn it should be a priority. Literacy and numeracy are utterly essential, but too many young people see them as utterly irrelevant because they do not see the connection with their lives and their skills. We need to change the curriculum to be child focused, so that, in exploring their gifts and their skills, they come to realise why it matters to be literate and why numeracy matters.

I have two very quick stories. Very recently, I met a man now in his 60s who left school with no qualifications and who became the lead adviser on the environment to the last Labour Government. His words to me were, “School was utterly irrelevant. It was only when I could link it with the values of wanting to serve the world better that I realised learning mattered”. The other story is from a recent presentation to the Youth Futures Foundation from a young man in his 20s who came out with no qualifications. He said, “Thankfully, someone recognised that I had skills in building relationships with people, bringing about reconciliation with people who could not get on with each other. They saw that I had done that in school. I got no qualifications, but they recognised my skills and my gifts and said, ‘We’ll work with you on those’”. In his early 20s, he is now a significant supplier of mentoring and support to other young people, because someone realised what education was appropriate for him.

Furthermore, the exclusion culture existing in schools throughout our country, as highlighted by the report, must come to an end. The fact that 59% of children who have been permanently excluded had also been cautioned or sentenced for an offence demonstrates how exclusion can push children towards harm and exploitation, and indicates the need to keep children in education. Exclusion provokes feelings of being cast aside, of being forgotten, and of being unimportant. If children do not feel valued, how will they ever see their own value that they can bring to society? Here we have to note the dreadful statistics that show that those with autism and special educational needs, and those from ethnic-minority backgrounds—particularly young black males—are being disproportionately excluded. That has to be tackled.

Of course, children must learn that we must all face the consequences of our actions, but, whether it be in the context of school exclusions or the criminal justice system, our society is often too quick to forget that they are children who have the rest of their lives ahead of them—lives that each have value, worth and potential. We need to reform our systems to prioritise supporting young people, not punishing them. We must prioritise guidance, investment and education, so that no young person in this country falls vulnerable to violence and exploitation.

Often, this is done best by locally based organisations. I would like to name some specific ones that I have links with. They are not formal links; these are just organisations that I have had the privilege of spending time with and that are utterly wonderful. Spark2Life is based in Walthamstow but now offers services in many places. Power the Fight is led by Ben Lindsay, who was given an award in the New Year Honours List for his work. There is First Class Foundation in Birmingham. Then, there are national ones such as the Children’s Society. The learning from their work is what needs to shape future policy. Will the Minister agree to meet me and some of the leaders of these locally based organisations to explore these matters further?

I want to comment on the Sure Start-plus proposals. This needs to be linked with the rollout of family hubs, which are meant to cover the whole of childhood. Having two systems would, I think, be unhelpful. So, rather than having a separate scheme, we need to link the proposals around Sure Start-plus in this report with the proper development of family hubs, and work with the charity and voluntary sectors on delivery. You cannot deliver some of what this report suggests in exactly the same location, but you can do so from the same hub using a hub-and-spoke model.

I will end with some theology, if I may; I say, “If I may”, but noble Lords are not going to be able to shut me up. Every child is a gift. They are a gift from God to their parents, to their wider family and to society as a whole. They are to be welcomed as one made in God’s image and loved by God, as seen in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ himself welcomed children. He treated them as of great worth and noted that they teach adults things about God’s ways that adults miss or forget. He gave a grave warning to those who damage and harm children. Our response must always be that young lives are precious and valuable. They are to be nurtured for their own sake, not simply for what each person might become in future. They are not economic contributors of the future; they are people of value in their own right now. However, what they might become does have to be held high, because we want them to be the very best human beings that they can be. We want them to reach their full potential and be gifts for the good of all and society as a whole. The heart of this will be to love them and thus nurture them. When young people know they are loved, they really flourish.