Youth Provision: Universal and Targeted Support

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Harpreet Uppal]

The hon. Member is quite right, and I am coming to that point now.

Unfortunately, we are seeing the consequences of reductions in youth service provision across the country, as organised criminal gangs lure children and young people into county lines networks and organised criminality. Too many communities have seen children criminally exploited and, sadly, we have seen the devastating consequences of knife crime. In Huddersfield, 15-year-old Khayri Mclean and 17-year-old Harley Brown sadly lost their lives to knife crime in recent years, and only last week, 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose was fatally stabbed in Sheffield. Knife crime leaves too many parents dealing with consequences that no parent should have to face, communities broken, and too many children and young people left with mental scars.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

Thank you for chairing the debate, Dr Allin-Khan—it is good to see a fellow Khan in the Chair. My hon. Friend is making excellent progress on such an important subject. Across the country, children are being let down by the absence of support tailored to their multi-layered and complex needs. Does she agree that, in order to protect the mental wellbeing of young people, it is necessary to invest in good-quality, trauma-informed youth provision for all, and that the Minister should be looking at the regional inequalities that we can all see?

[Harpreet Uppal]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I will make a bit of progress before taking more interventions.

More than one in five children now have a diagnosable mental health condition, and many wait over a year to access a mental health specialist, with nearly 40,000 children waiting more than two years in 2023-24. Research shows that it is 100 times cheaper to treat a young person in the community than as an in-patient. The Government have taken steps to improve mental health support in schools, but youth services play a critical role in addressing these challenges early on. While I recognise all the work that this Government have already done to address these issues, the challenges facing the sector require more than short-term funding. The youth investment fund, for example, is helping to develop youth facilities, but it largely covers capital investment, leaving critical gaps in operational funding for staffing and programme delivery.