Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of her Department’s funding for youth programmes is provided to programmes in the Midlands.

DCMS provides funding for a range of youth programmes benefitting young people in the Midlands and right across England, such as the National Citizen Service (NCS). DCMS recently announced a new National Youth Guarantee, ensuring that by 2025, every young person in England will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer.

The Youth Investment Fund, however, is a geographically targeted fund levelling up access to youth services in those areas that need it most. Ministerial decisions regarding which areas would be eligible to apply were taken on the basis of high quality, robust and publicly available data. The eligible areas and a detailed explanation of the methodology is available on the GOV.UK website here.

19 upper tier local authorities across the East and West Midlands qualify in whole or part for support from YIF, covering over 350,000 young people between the ages of 11-18.

It is not possible to assess the proportion of this investment that will be awarded to these Midlands areas as applications for Phase 1 of the fund are currently being reviewed and Phase 2 of the fund will open later this year.