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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Government partners with young people to help develop new national youth strategy, published on 5 March 2025, whether any Democracy Cafes will take place in Bedfordshire.

As part of the development of the National Youth Strategy, we have conducted nine Democracy Cafes, one in every region of the country, as well as online focus groups. No Democracy Cafe was held in Bedfordshire, but one was delivered in Cambridge. There are no plans to conduct further Democracy Cafes, but we are planning larger in-person events called ‘Hacks’. Details of these will be on our website for the Strategy in due course. We also encourage as many young people across the country as possible to respond to the National Youth Strategy survey or to complete the ‘digital postcards’.