Lord Bishop of Peterborough

DCMS published research in 2024 that found decreased investment in youth provision correlates with rises in shoplifting, bike theft, and reoffending among young offenders aged 15-17.

This Government recognises the vital role youth services play in providing opportunities for young people to live safe and healthy lives. In December 2025, DCMS launched “Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy”. This ten year strategy will ensure every young person across the country has somewhere to go, someone who cares for them and a community they feel part of. It is funded by over £500 million from DCMS. We are currently designing how this funding will be spent, with input from a wide range of stakeholders, and are committed to working with areas of greatest need across England.

Local Authorities have a statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of youth services in their area. We will explore reviewing this duty as part of a wider review of local statutory duties. Through our Local Youth Transformation programme we will continue to support local authorities to rebuild a high-quality offer for young people and transition back to local youth services leadership.

On 2 March, the government published the ‘Growing up in the Online World’ consultation, accompanied by a National Conversation. The consultation received over 116,000 responses, including 14,000 from children. As part of the National Conversation, Ministers and officials also met children and young people, as well as organisations which represent children, to make sure children and young people’s voices were heard.

On 15 June, the government announced a package of measures to support young people to connect and thrive offline. The government is continuing to strengthen wider support for children, including access to youth services and enrichment activities in schools and beyond the classroom, backed by funding through the national youth strategy. Our approach will reduce serious harms while preserving safe, positive online spaces to help address social isolation and improve access to learning resources.

Regular attendance, engagement in learning and educational success can support positive mental health and wellbeing, while poor mental health can act as a barrier to attendance and attainment.

Evidence shows that children and young people with higher levels of wellbeing, on average, achieve better academic outcomes and are more engaged in their education. Conversely, mental health difficulties are associated with lower educational attainment, including poorer GCSE outcomes.

Evidence also indicates that children and young people with a probable mental disorder are around seven times more likely to have missed more than 15 days of school than those unlikely to have a mental disorder.

This is why the government is expanding Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to cover every school and college by 2029, providing early support for children and young people with emerging mental health needs. As of March 2026, 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England are covered by an MHST, up from 52% in March 2025. We are also working with schools, trusts and local authorities to improve attendance, recognising that supporting pupils' wellbeing and mental health is an important part of helping more children attend and succeed in education.

The government is committed to ensuring that all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), can thrive in mainstream education. High standards of behaviour are essential for creating calm, safe and supportive classrooms, and all pupils should be supported to meet those expectations.

That is why we are delivering a comprehensive programme of behaviour and attendance support, including our Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, which will work with schools to help build strong, inclusive school cultures and spread effective practice across the system.

We are also reforming the SEND system to ensure children and young people receive the right support at the earliest opportunity, helping to prevent needs from escalating and supporting more pupils to remain engaged in education. This is backed by an additional £4 billion investment over three years, including funding for specialist expertise in communities, earlier intervention in schools, and workforce training.

Alongside this, we remain committed to reforming the school exclusion system. We will consult on measures including an internal suspension framework, the introduction of Reintegration Support Partnerships, and a requirement for schools to provide schoolwork during the first five days of an exclusion.

The independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism is examining changes in prevalence, need, and demand. Its interim report found that there is no single, simple explanation for rising levels of psychological distress and demand, and identified areas where the evidence remains uncertain.

The review is considering a range of factors that may be contributing to rising prevalence and demand for support. The final report, which will be published shortly, will bring together the full body of evidence and make recommendations on how the health system and wider public services can respond more effectively.

As set out in Protecting What Matters, the Government’s plan setting out steps to improve social cohesion, faith and belief groups, including religious institutions, play an important role in bringing people together, building trust across difference, and supporting communities to respond to local challenges.

We see this contribution in practice through the involvement of faith and belief groups in numerous different programmes. As a part of the Pride in Place Programme, many faith and belief groups are playing an active role in local decision making to improve their area. Through projects being developed under the Common Ground Resilience Fund, local authorities and community organisations – including faith and belief groups – are being supported to strengthen relationships between different communities and build resilience to local tensions. Through long-standing government funded programmes such as Near Neighbours, faith and belief groups are helping to bring people together in religiously and ethnically diverse communities; and through Inter Faith Week they are helping to celebrate and promote the role of faith communities in building understanding and friendship across difference.

All of these examples underscore why the Government made a number of commitments in Protecting What Matters to work with and celebrate faith and belief communities in order to improve societal understanding of different religions and beliefs, support tolerance, and help build a more cohesive and resilient country.