National Youth Strategy

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, for initiating this debate and for her ongoing commitment to this subject. It is clear from the debate that, although there may be a difference in our views on how to deliver youth services, there is a collective understanding across your Lordships’ Committee that this is a really important issue and potentially that something needs to change. I thank noble Lords from all sides of the Committee on their interesting and considered contributions. This feels very timely, given recent announcements by Youth Minister Stephanie Peacock, mentioned by a number of noble Lords.

Like many noble Lords here, I have witnessed the crucial and transformative role that youth services play in young people’s lives. Our Government strive to support this sector so that young people are able to be part of a supportive community and have access to positive and enriching activities. This work on the youth sector will help to deliver on the Government’s missions, spreading opportunities, making our streets safer and taking pressure off health services. I was pleased to hear young people’s mental health referenced.

This work will be in partnership with the development of the young future hubs, the curriculum review and further work that our Government have committed to in order to improve young people’s lives. That is why, in November, we announced a co-production of a new national youth strategy. This aims to set out an ambitious long-term vision for young people for the next 10 years and put them at the centre of decision-making on policies that affect them. As noble Lords will be aware, we are co-producing this strategy with young people and the youth sector. This approach will be key to making sure that this strategy supports and recognises the real experience of young people across this country.

Since we last spoke on this topic, we have made excellent progress in our engagement with young people. We have identified how we can work better at reaching those whose voices may not generally be heard and at establishing our way forward. Ministers have met with iWill ambassadors and young people in Bristol. Alongside this, a variety of focus groups have been held across the country, thanks to our regional youth work units. So far, we have heard from young people that they want to see clear solutions, to have access to safe spaces and to feel like the Government are listening to them. This strategy aims to achieve that, and more.

To ensure that young people’s voices are at the heart of the process throughout, we have appointed 13 young people to form a youth advisory group. They have been selected for their impressive contributions in the public space. These members have experience across key areas, including advocacy, violence prevention, social mobility and mental health. An expert advisory group will work alongside the youth advisory group to help to guide the national conversation with young people, providing expertise and challenging our thinking throughout the strategy development.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referenced the national youth survey, which was launched on 5 March. It asks young people what they need to be able to thrive. This survey has already had just over 6,000 responses in the past week, and we clearly hope to get many more. We will collate these and all future responses to shape our strategy, which will be published in the summer.

We are engaging with young people up and down the country through one of the most ambitious listening exercises for a generation, making sure that we reach young people where they are. An expert consortium with cross-sector partners will facilitate widespread youth engagement, working with 10 youth collaborators who are recruited to ensure that all activities are genuinely co-produced. Alongside this, the consortium is also collating data and insights via an evidence review, ensuring that the new national youth strategy builds on what has gone before.

In response to my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top on cross-government engagement—a point also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—I say that there has already been extensive cross-government work between the DfE, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, DHSC and others. There is great collaboration and huge enthusiasm to join up on key strategies for young people. We have also shared an engagement toolkit so MPs can hold their own discussions with young people or share the toolkit with organisations in their constituencies who work with young people. I encourage Members of your Lordships’ House to do the same.

In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about why this had not been circulated to Peers, we had hoped to circulate the same pack through an all-Peers email but, understandably, there are very strict criteria, which I understand the pack failed to meet. I will, however, send it to all Peers present today and will place a copy in the Library.

It is vitally important that we reach young people from all parts of the country, and I welcome your Lordships’ support in achieving this aim and in forwarding the toolkit to your networks. Our national youth strategy will be designed to meet young people’s needs, so we are shaping the content of the strategy around what we learn from them. The strategy will ask 10 to 21 year-olds, expanding to the age of 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities—a group that was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. We are asking young people what they need from the Government and what issues are most prevalent in their lives.

The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, rightly mentioned cross-government liaison. We are working with other government departments to ensure that our strategy provides insights on a variety of issues, from tackling anti-social behaviour to improving physical and mental health, to help us make the biggest impact possible on young people’s lives.

On some of the specific points raised by noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, among others, mentioned enrichment. The Department for Education is working to make sure that all children and young people have access to a variety of enrichment opportunities at school. The £3.4 million Enrichment Partnership pilot aims to improve the enrichment offer to up to 200 secondary schools in three education investment areas. It seeks to enhance school enrichment offers, remove barriers to participation and unlock existing finding and provision. As somebody who benefited hugely as a young person from music in schools and other enrichment opportunities, I agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Wheatcroft, on the importance of this area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, raised a lack of understanding or of engagement. It is important for us politicians to recognise that we are responsible for this—it is not necessarily always the young people. I think that was the way in which the noble Baroness approached the issue. We agree that it is essential that pupils develop an understanding of their place in a democratic society so that they can become responsible citizens in a modern Britain. The national curriculum for citizenship provides essential life skills to prepare pupils for adulthood. Pupils also learn the skills of active citizenship through practical opportunities to address issues of concern to them within school and in the wider community. Recruitment to citizenship initial teacher training courses remains unrestricted, enabling providers to recruit future citizenship teachers without constraints from government. The Youth Parliament is DCMS’s key mechanism in the department for engaging with young people and ensuring that their voices are heard in policy and decision-making; I believe that it met relatively recently in the other place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, also raised the question of whether there should be a children’s Cabinet Minister. The Prime Minister has been clear that we already have one who sees their own role as the Children’s Minister, and every department in the Government is expected to care and genuinely cares about young people, championing their access to opportunities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in particular, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, highlighted the importance of us addressing the need for employment opportunities for young people. The Government are determined to break down barriers to opportunity for all young people, and we fully recognise the importance of supporting young people at risk of becoming economically inactive at an early age or struggling to find work. Additionally, through the dormant assets scheme, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, the Youth Futures Foundation has supported over 25,000 young people facing barriers to accessing quality, employment and training since 2019. As part of the Building Futures programme, up to 5,000 young people will be supported to stay in education, employment or training, with intensive mentoring and one-to-one careers coaching.

Returning to the national youth strategy funding, while the local government finance settlement for 2024-25 makes over £69 billion available to local authorities in England, we are investing within DCMS through the national youth strategy. The detail and scale of the funding commitments included in the strategy will be shaped by engagement with young people and the youth sector, and it will be dependent on spending review decisions. While this strategy will take a long-term view of these issues, we are also working hard to provide support during 2025 to local authorities, through our local youth transformation fund to build back lost capability. We have committed over £85 million of capital funding to create fit-for-purpose spaces in places where it is most needed. This includes the better youth spaces fund and completing the youth investment fund projects already started.

As referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, there have been significant cuts over the past 15 years, and spending by local authorities on youth services has decreased by 73% over the past decade. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, referenced the reasons behind the closure of NCS. Last year, this Government made the decision to wind down the National Citizen Service programme from the end of this financial year and to close the National Citizen Service Trust when parliamentary time allows. We recognise the impact NCS has had on a generation of young people. It has enabled over 1 million 15 to 17 year-olds to connect across backgrounds, build confidence and gain vital life and work skills, and those involved should be truly proud of these achievements. However, as my noble friend Lady Armstrong highlighted in the strongest terms, the challenges young people face today are vastly different from when NCS was created. The world has changed and we need a youth strategy and youth organisations that reflect that.

Today’s complex challenges require us to adapt, focusing on cocreating a new strategy with young people to better co-ordinate funding and support where it is needed most. By working across government, civil society and business, we can empower youth more effectively. Today’s debate, which I really welcome, has focused on our commitment to a national youth strategy. This Government are working hard to deliver on our national missions. Supporting the next generation to access the right opportunities forms a cornerstone of this work. Through the new national youth strategy, we are working collectively across government to set a new direction for young people, listening to what they need and responding to those needs with both universal and targeted youth provision.

With noble Lords’ indulgence, I have just a couple more comments before I conclude. We have made excellent progress through our commitment to hearing young people on the things that matter. We have launched one of the most ambitious listening exercises in a generation and are truly excited to share the results in a few months’ time. This debate has been a great opportunity to showcase the role of youth provision in the lives of young people, and I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for securing the debate, and all Members who have attended and taken part.