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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to increase revenue funding for youth services.

In December 2025, DCMS published “Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy”. It is backed by over £500 million of new money from DCMS.This is complemented by extensive investment from other Government Departments, such as the Youth Guarantee.

The funding set out in Youth Matters forms a three year programme of implementation. Our early delivery focus is on the Enrichment Expansion Programme and establishing the Young Futures Hubs, with other programmes currently being designed with input from a wide range of stakeholders. We are making progress on these programmes with the £22 million Enrichment Expansion Programme on track to start working with schools from the Autumn term and, as of 1 April, all eight early adopter Young Futures Hubs are operational.

This ten year, cross-Government strategy will ensure every young person has somewhere to go, something to do and a community they feel part of. These steps are just the beginning. The Government will empower young people, putting them in the driving seat. We will ensure that they can hold us to account on what we are doing through regular online updates and a youth-led national hearing every year to discuss progress and priorities. We will also publish an interim delivery report in 2027.