Investing in Children and Young People

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

The Government are failing our young people, too many of whom have been left behind since long before the coronavirus crisis. With chronically underfunded schools, youth services slashed and persistently high levels of mental health problems, young people are already being denied the opportunities enjoyed by their parents’ generation. Due to this Government’s paltry support, the long-term impact of covid-19 will exacerbate the difficulties they already face.

The Government’s new funding package amounts to just £50 per pupil. For the Netherlands this figure is £2,500, while in America it is £1,600. Why do our Government not place the same value on the future of our children and young people? If the UK were to match the US, it would cost £15.5 billion, which is how much the Government were advised to provide by their own education adviser. Yet they have only announced a 10th of what our children and young people need.

Under the Government’s current programme, an entire year of funding for the crucial 2021-22 academic year will amount to around £984 million. That is barely more than the £849 million spent on the Chancellor’s eat out to help out scheme, which only ran for one month and was found to contribute to the spread of the virus, at great cost to the taxpayer. That reveals the warped priorities of this Government of the super-rich. Two thirds of the current Cabinet were privately educated, yet they systematically deny young people—especially those from African, Asian and minority ethnic communities and working-class children—the opportunities and privileges they benefited from.

Children have missed over half a year of in-person school, yet this Government believe that less than an hour of tutoring a fortnight can bridge that gap. Their measly tutoring offer amounts to less than £1 per day for each day children were out of school. Shamefully, the Government are only proposing to feed children on free school meals for 16 of 30 weekdays during the upcoming summer holidays. Do they really think it is acceptable to expect children to go hungry every other day? This is a Government who are happy to fork out billions in shady deals to their donors and large corporations, yet cringe at the prospect of guaranteeing food for vulnerable children. They must significantly improve the quality of, and widen access to, free school meals, including over the school holidays.

Youth work is a powerful tool for young people, providing on their terms someone to speak to, something to do and somewhere to go, and thus youth services are a vital lifeline for all young people. But due to severe Government cuts over the last decade, hundreds of youth centres have closed in Leicester and across the UK. This is nothing short of daylight robbery of young people’s futures. Youth services have been decimated—cut by 73% in less than a decade. That also significantly reduced the support available for young people referred by social services, reduced support for working-class children needing extracurricular activity, and reduced to zero issue-based detached youth work to young people who are at risk. It is to our shame that detached youth work is something of a relic, practically extinct in the UK. Average spending per 16 to 24-year-old in the east midlands also fell by 50%, from £134 to £66, between 2012 and 2019. Taken together, this Government’s neglect of young people is a generational betrayal, and still the Government have offered nothing, coming out of this pandemic, for services to young people. They have not even offered to return youth clubs and after-school provision they stole from young people.

Young people did not ask for this pandemic or choose to grow up as it took hold. They have made incredible sacrifices to protect demographics who are more at risk from the virus. We have a moral duty to repay their sacrifice with adequate support. That requires much, much more than the insulting package put forward by this Government.