Youth Service

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing this extremely important and interesting debate. I am not sure whether I will be able to share her passion, but I shall do my very best.

During my 10 years as a councillor before becoming the MP for North Swindon, this was one of the most important issues that came up in the residents surveys and in the public meetings that I held. Parents generally accepted that their children were well catered for during school hours, but there were often concerns about after-school hours and the weekends. I have very many happy memories of going to youth clubs in the 1980s, and I know that youth provision is essential. It channels energies, and provides support and opportunities to develop, and many hon. Members who have already spoken have gone into detail on that. I sympathise with those who highlight funding pressures, or even call for youth provision funding to be made statutory. However, I think that far more can be done without money, services and facilities, and so in my brief speech I shall touch on some positive suggestions based on my experience as a councillor and my work with the youth service.

Local authorities should do a lot more with their buildings. I recently secured a Westminster Hall debate on the future provision for libraries, and I think that councils could do a lot more to open up community buildings such as libraries to organisations for the provision of facilities. It does not cost much to put shelves on wheels and to push them to the side in the evenings. It is a great crime that we have many facilities that are open for only 10 hours for their primary function, with the community being locked out for the remainder of the week. More should be done also with schools. I was interested to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) about her experience in the ’80s. Today, we have huge swathes of private finance initiative schools, but the communities that I represent cannot afford to access those wonderful facilities and, therefore, far more should be done to open up the schools.

Our leisure facilities—sports facilities predominantly—should do a lot more with the youth service. The Twilight Football schemes target children from challenging circumstances and promote positive engagement, and that makes a big difference. Also, where there is funding to build new facilities, those facilities should be accessible. I have seen many facilities that in hindsight were built in the wrong place, and I am delighted that the new £1.2 million youth facility in my constituency was built in the town centre, which is easily the most accessible place.

Many hon. Members have also talked about the big society, and Labour Members often try to produce scare stories about that being a way to cover for potential funding cuts. The reality is, however, that it is about empowering local organisations, and the Government and local authorities can do more to support them.

[Mr David]

I am president of the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services and all the voluntary organisations involved are extremely keen to play a bigger role in the big society—there is no question about that. However, they all say to me, “We cannot do that if our grant aid from the public sector is being cut dramatically.” Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the things that he is talking about are almost incidental to the major cuts that will affect the voluntary sector over the next couple of years?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I was speaking at the Voluntary Action Swindon annual general meeting on Friday, and I got similar messages there. We cannot hide away from the current economic challenges, and I am trying to set out some areas in which we can make a positive difference. The shadow Minister will confirm whether it is the Labour party position to find some money—good luck if it can—and the Minister will set out the Government’s position. We cannot ignore the situation that we are in.

I have talked about making more of our buildings accessible. Many organisations have said to me, “We’ve got willing volunteers and enthusiasm. We can see a problem and we want to tackle it, but we don’t have access to facilities.” Whether as Government, local authorities or local businesses, we could do far more to provide those facilities, along with advice and support. One challenge in getting funding is the need to fill in extremely complicated forms. When I set up the sports forum in Swindon, a lot of effort was put into filling in forms. Volunteers are keen to make a difference on the front line, but not to lock themselves away in offices for many hours with complicated forms.

The youth service also needs to be a lot more proactive in matching with the times at which children or young people actually want to use its services. I am delighted that many authorities have changed their hours to match when children are outside school, and they should also go to where the children are. Too often, I have visited youth centres where a service is being provided to just a handful of children. In my constituency, we have an ice-skating disco on a Friday night. There are 650 children there, and the youth service should be parked outside providing help and support to those children who require it. Not every town has an ice-skating disco, but the same principle would apply to a cinema or bowling, or to teenage nightclubs, which I am assured are still very popular. In communities where there are open spaces, the leisure or youth teams could turn up with footballs and bibs, or rounders equipment, and organise impromptu games. I am sure that all hon. Members see when out in their constituencies that there are lots of kids hanging around, and they feel that someone should go along and positively engage with them.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

On the point about reaching out to small groups and how it would be better to reach out to larger ones, some of the hardest-to-reach young people in some of the most difficult-to-reach communities need youth work outreach and support on a very small scale. I have seen youth workers in some of the most difficult parts of my constituency just hanging out with children on the streets of an evening, so that the children at least engage in positive dialogue while they hang out. That is the kind of youth outreach work that is in danger when we focus on big projects and on the big national citizen service, rather than on smaller initiatives directed at particular groups of young people.

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[Justin Tomlinson]

I am not sure that I agree. My point was about going to the young people, but the hon. Lady has made a good point. Engaging with certain children is very challenging, and the youth service must be as proactive as possible. If that means that it parks itself right in the heart of communities and engages directly, that is only a good thing. The service can also be there through the leisure facilities—teenage discos for example—so I sort of agree with the hon. Lady.

Finally, the principle of the National Union of Students discount card, which applies to students, should be extended. A lot more could be done to get young people discounts so that they can make more of the leisure facilities that are accessible to them. As a consumer body, young people are huge in number. By being proactive, we can make those facilities more accessible, to tackle the problems of boredom.

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[Stella Creasy]

I am glad to see the Minister shaking his head. Those two things cannot be comparable. We in the youth sector know that they are apples and pears. The national citizen service, which is interesting, should in no way be regarded as a compensation for the ability to integrate services and work with young people in their communities in the long term. In areas such as Walthamstow, it is important for people on the ground to build up trusting relationships over time with young people to help them make the right choices in their life. It is critical that we understand the need to intervene differently in respect of various age groups and children in differing circumstances. Youth services in local areas have been able to develop ways of working around young people, rather than around the service that is delivered. I accept that that differs in various places. There are issues about how youth services are delivered, but we Opposition Members are concerned that the cuts that are coming through now will hamper youth services’ ability to be more flexible in working with young people in different ways and producing the interventions that people need to get the outcomes we all want.

Secondly, the consequences of the public sector cuts, nationally and locally, are already clear. I urge the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) to look again at the impact of the cuts on the national and local youth sector, particularly the voluntary youth sector. We recognise the interconnectedness of the voluntary youth sector and local youth services; that is the challenge for us. The National Council for Voluntary Youth Services has said that already this year youth sector organisations have lost 20% of their budget, and that 80% of the programmes that are closing are those working with people who are not in education, employment or training—the very group we are especially concerned about. That is already happening as a result of the in-year cuts.

There is understanding about the relationship between the voluntary youth sector and youth services locally, and other public services. It is important to put on the record the great support that the police and health care services in my area provide to youth projects. However, before we can get to the great world in which the voluntary youth sector is more involved in running services, we will see it being cut off at the start, so that it will be unable to do some of the more innovate partnership work we all want to see happen.

I shall make my third and final point brief because I recognise that we are short of time. The challenge we are facing is not difficult economic circumstances but the question, “What are our priorities?” If our priority is to get best value for money, it is clear from the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West that investment in voluntary youth services and youth services locally reaps dividends well beyond the initial financial investment.

What is the best way to tap into the ability and interest in volunteering with young people locally, and how best to support it? I welcome some of the ideas the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) has come up with, but he did not say how he would get the youth services bus to the youth disco, or who would pay for the person who organises and manages that. That is our critique. The hon. Gentleman’s ideas are fantastic, but how will he make them happen? Delivery and implementation—

[Justin Tomlinson]

There is still funding, although all hon. Members accept that that there are challenges in that regard. My point is that people should make the best use of their resources. I would expect that to be a priority in respect of organisations’ funding.

[Stella Creasy]

No one doubts the need to make the best use of resources, but cutting resources year in, year out with no alternative and asking the voluntary sector to pick up the slack does not add up. For example, it is explicit in the tender document for the national citizen service that the Government are already saying, “We will not fund this properly. We’re expecting the voluntary sector to pay for it.” Many voluntary sector organisations that might work with youth services in future to provide the more creative services that the hon. Gentleman was talking about are dependent on public sector funding, so they will be unable to do the work he wants to happen, let alone to provide services not just for 16-year-olds for three weeks over the summer, but for every age group at the point at which they need intervention.

I plead with all hon. Members to give the Minister the evidence and encouragement he needs to return to his colleagues and fight for the funding that youth services so desperately need to deliver services that we all want for young people in our communities. I am looking forward to welcoming the Minister to Walthamstow tomorrow, so that we can have a conversation about how he can fight for the funding he needs to deliver the services that all hon. Members in this Chamber want to see delivered.

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[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Weir. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Rosindell, you don’t even look like Mr Weir.

This has been an excellent and thought-provoking debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate and on her contribution, and I will reflect on some of the other contributions.

One point that my hon. Friend made particularly powerfully was about the value that youth work provides in generating money into our communities. The fact that for every £1 spent on youth services, another £8 of voluntary activity is generated is a powerful statistic. She also reflected on the national citizen service, and whether it should be seen as an alternative to youth service provision. The general mood of the debate was that it should not.

I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments to the question raised by my hon. Friend during Education questions:

“As youth services nationally have already been cut by 30 to 40%...how will the Secretary of State ensure the quality of youth service provision in future?”

The Minister responded:

“The hon. Lady underlines the great importance of engaging the young people of this country as proper citizens, which is why we are carrying forward the national citizen service programme,”—[Official Report, 15 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 643-4.]

To an impartial observer, that sounds rather as if the national citizen service was the replacement for youth services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said that cuts to the youth service are a false economy. That is a powerful and central point that we should all reflect on. Making such cuts to youth services will lead to additional costs in policing, social work, education, health services and fighting crime in our communities. If we do not get it right, we will be paying for the cuts to the youth service time and time again.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm exactly what level of funding the Labour party would provide and how they would pay for it?

[Toby Perkins]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution in more detail. We had a Budget in 2010, and people could see from the direction of travel taken by the Labour Government over previous years just how much of a priority we placed on youth services. The improvement in youth services is clear as a result of that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West also said that she did not want us to return to the bleak days of the 1980s. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) talked about the big society as a political convenience. She is in good company because the Minister himself is completely unclear about what the big society means. He says:

“The trouble is that most people don’t know what the Big Society really means, least of all the unfortunate ministers who have to articulate it.”

We look forward to him attempting to do that in a moment. He says:

“What actually is the Big Society, let alone is it good or not? Exactly how big is it now or is it going to be?”

I can answer that question: it is getting smaller by the moment. However, I look forward to him perhaps attempting to articulate better in the future than he has been able to in the past what the big society is and what the contribution of youth services should be to the big society.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made a thoughtful contribution, which started well when she said that prevention was better than cure. She focused on how important it was for us to take serious action on NEETs. She may be aware of the piece in The Times Educational Supplement with the sub-heading “Experts predict rise in Neets as young people are left without support following local authority raids”. It stated:

“Local authorities are slashing Connexions budgets”

and youth services,

“raising fears that young people out of work or education will be left without support.”

In raising the initial question, the hon. Lady was on exactly the right lines. It is just a shame that she did not follow that through, but decided instead to divert us to the line we heard a number of times that the issue is the quality of the service, rather than the money. It is deeply disingenuous for us as politicians and for those in government to talk about the level of cuts that local authorities will see and say that they must not cut safeguarding—the Minister has already told them that, and the Prime Minister said that they should not cut the voluntary sector—but that it is totally up to local authorities what decisions they make. Some responsibility must be taken at central Government level. If cuts of 27% in local authority funding are to be made, youth services in particular will be affected, but services will be affected across the board. We cannot keep saying to local authorities, “Well, it’s your decision what you choose to cut.” The Government have to take some responsibility for that.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) had obviously given youth services considerable thought and he reflected positively on his experiences as a councillor and the importance of youth services in that area, but he repeated the idea that the cut in funding should not necessarily lead to a cut in services. That is the elephant in the room that we need to be honest about. If youth service professionals are to take us seriously in this debate, we need to be honest about the fact that they will see very substantial cuts. I think that 95% of local authority youth services say that their budgets for providing services to young people in their area are being cut. That will make a real difference to the level of service provided.

The hon. Gentleman had some good ideas about how school and council buildings could be used more effectively, but we must be realistic. The big cost for youth services is actually for the people employed within them, so yes, we can use buildings more effectively, but there is still a cost attached. We ought to be realistic about the cost attached to improving those services. The hon. Gentleman’s ideas about taking people on trips and so on all have a cost attached to them.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Just to clarify, opening up those facilities was as much for external organisations, whether those are scout groups, dance groups, sports clubs or whatever.

[Toby Perkins]

Okay. Certainly the voluntary sector will play a very important role. As someone who has been involved in youth sport coaching for the last six or seven years, I know how important the role of the voluntary sector and sports organisations is and completely support that. That is why I have been so horrified by the cuts that the same Minister has been making to the school sports partnership. That was a very important way of engaging children in sport, which led to their involvement in sports clubs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) reflected on the interconnectivity of all these services. That is a central point that we need to consider. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) reflected on a lifetime dedicated to youth work and youth services and made a thoughtful contribution. When he reflected on the success of youth services in their contribution to the education of people who then go on to develop themselves further and become mature students, he made a very powerful point. He also reflected on the importance of street engagement in terms of youth services. That is another of the central areas in which the national citizen service will be no replacement for youth services, because the national citizen service is a universal service and the activity that it involves will take place over a very short period of a young person’s life, whereas youth services are there every single day of the year, providing a service, particularly to people from more deprived communities, out on the streets. It is a service that they have to engage with; they have to make that contribution.

When the hon. Gentleman said that councils do not have to cut the voluntary sector, he was repeating the line that we have been hearing, which does not take into account the serious level of cuts that there will be for local authorities. Inevitably, when so much of local authorities’ money is already tied up in contracts with external providers, the cost of redundancies and so on, the voluntary sector is an easy area for them to cut. The reality that we all recognise, and that the voluntary sector is very worried about, is the amount of cuts that there will be.

My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) focused on the fact that the cuts will not spare youth services. I put it to him that in fact the cuts will specifically focus more on an area such as youth services than on some of the statutory areas, such as safeguarding, which councils will be very sensitive about cutting.

I think that all of us, right across the House, would support the general ethos of a big society and the general principle behind it. The Minister is right to say that it still defies an exact description, but we all have an idea of what we think it ought to mean.

The lack of co-ordination between different organisations has implications for how we keep our children safe. Safeguarding is an area that many councils will be protecting, but safeguarding often applies after the problem has been identified. Youth workers play a central role in identifying children who are at risk and in making referrals. There are many cross-referrals from youth services, police services and adult social services to child social services. If those services are diminished, the number of referrals will reduce and many children will never be identified as having problems.

I would like the Minister to respond to the question about whether he agrees that youth services are an integral part of our education system. Does he still see a central role for youth services in our education system? Does he accept that local authority funding is the glue that holds a wide range of youth services together? We currently spend about £100 per year per young person. How much does the Minister think that we will spend in 2011-12? Does he see youth work as a professional role? Does he recognise the professional qualifications that youth workers have now and how important they are?