Youth Service (Hansard, 12 July 1995)

§ Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish the Youth Service on a statutory basis. I seek leave to bring in the Bill in the full knowledge that hon. Members in all parts of the House have, over a long time, sought to bring in such a measure to establish the youth service in such a way. The reason seems self-evident. It is that the youth service is an extremely cost-effective way to deal with the many problems that young people face.

That great watershed, the Education Act 1944, set in motion a train that was reinforced by a number of reports commissioned by the Government. They were the McNair report, the Jackson report and the Fletcher report. Interestingly, when we reached about 1957, the Albemarle committee was set up in response, ironically enough, to the Notting Hill riots. Its work added substance to a national consensus towards establishing the youth service on a statutory basis.

Sadly, in recent years the youth service has shown a marked decline. I would argue that Government action has subverted its role. It is also interesting that the last time that there appeared to be a major Government interest in youth service provision was after the 1981 riots. I hope that it will not take another round of riots before we interest the Government again in the state of the youth service and the lack of resources it faces.

The youth service most certainly faces a lack of resources. I mentioned that it was a cost-effective service. The cost works out at roughly £10 per annum per youngster who uses it. More than 5 million people use the youth service. Those 5 million young people who are actively in contact with the service are serviced by only 6,000 full-time youth workers in England, Scotland and Wales combined. They are assisted by thousands of part-timers, and more than 2 million volunteers who give of their time and energy. Those people obviously recognise the value of the work that is done, not only in the local government sector but— the vast majority—in the voluntary sector.

If nothing else, both the voluntary and the statutory sectors recognise the community of interest they have in having the youth service placed on a statutory basis. There are now fewer full-time youth workers than in 1978. The voluntary sector has suffered in the same way in terms of Government cuts. NABC-Clubs for Young People, a charity, has reported that its funding from central Government has fallen by 40 per cent. Its funding from local government has fallen by 10 per cent.

The reason is not too hard to divine. As the youth service is not on a statutory basis, when Government cuts are forced through in education throughout the land, it is always one of the first services to suffer. I would argue that that is untenable, given the situation our young people face today.

970 I remind the House that 750,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are outside work, outside education, outside training, outside benefits and outside Government statistics. Those 750,000 people are our own disappeared, disengaged and alienated section of the population. If that does not trigger a response from Members of Parliament and Conservative Members in particular, they should remember that, at the last general election, 2.5 million first-time voters—the self-same young people—did not bother to exercise the franchise. That was almost 47 per cent. of the total.

We talk about the alienation of our young people from the political process. It is not too hard to see why they are alienated, given that they are in a changing world, facing different problems from those that the vast majority of hon. Members on both sides of the House knew when they were young.

Let us think back to our own years in that age group. The majority of people in the House were in that age group in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In those days, there was open access to education. One could look for a job of whatever sort. They were the halcyon days of apprenticeships for huge numbers of our young people. They were days when people felt engaged. They had hopes and aspirations that were achievable.

That has sadly changed. A whole group of people are shown in survey after survey to have no inclination towards what we would call orthodox society. They are turning their backs on it, for the simple reason that they perceive that we have turned our backs on them.

There is one vital difference between the experiences that we all had and those of young people today. They do not have recognisable rites of passage or know that there is a flow to their lives with regular markers that they can follow, such as going into the work force as an apprentice and getting qualified, having access to education, knowing that at the end of it one can get a job or access to something as simple as benefits. Many of our young people—about 160,000 16 and 17-year-olds alone—have been taken completely out of the benefits net.

One of the few agencies that is actively involved with engaging young people in a debate about their interests and future is the youth service. It deserves all the support and encouragement we can give it. We have to say to young people, even if it is by proxy through support for a statutory basis to the youth service, that we are concerned about delivering to them. After all, they are our future. We only steward the country for their generation and for generations to come. Our stewardship is failing them badly.