HL Deb 11 February 1970 vol 307 cc881-98

3.0 p.m.

LORD ABERDARE rose to draw attention to the Report of the Youth Service Development Council Youth and Community Work in the '70s; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am greatly flattered that so many of your Lordships are here to-day for this debate on youth. It clearly shows the deep interest which your Lordships have in the young people of this country—or certainly at least in one of them. It is a great honour for me to have the privilege of introducing this debate on such an historic day for, if I may say so with respect, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has won for himself a place in the hearts of all Welshmen and Welsh women, as well as in Her Majesty's other realms and territories. I only wish that he could have made his maiden speech on this Motion, for I know it is a subject in which he is deeply interested and certainly one on which he is a great deal better qualified to speak than most of us. Perhaps, however, we may take some comfort in the words of Jean Cocteau, True youth is a quality which is acquired only with age.

The Youth Service, or the Youth and Community Service, as we are now invited to call it, needs a periodic review if we are to ensure that it is relevant to the requirements of to-day. The Service received its first stimulus with the publication of the Albemarle Report ten years ago. This called for a ten-year development programme, and it is appropriate that we should now review progress. There can be no doubt that significant advances have been made. The number of full-time youth leaders has more than doubled from 700 to over 1,500; salaries and conditions of service have been worked out, and training courses developed. There has been a large increase in part-time leaders, and greatly improved training facilities for them, too. Building programmes from 1960 to 1968 allowed starts to be made on work totalling £28 million and covering over 3,000 separate projects. Government current grants rose from some £300,000 in 1959–60, to almost £2 million in 1967–68; while local education authority spending on the Youth Service rose from £2½ million in 1957–58 to £10 million in 1967–68. These figures show the extent to which we owe a debt of gratitude to Lady Albemarle and her colleagues who produced that first inspiring Report.

Now we have a new stimulus, ten years later, from the Report of the Youth Service Development Council published last March under the title Youth And Community Work in the 70s. This is the result of two separate Reports by Dr. Milson and Mr. Fairbairn, and I know all of us who are interested in the subject are grateful to the Council and to its two sub-committees for the thoroughness of the work they have done and for this resulting Report. We may not all agree with everything that is in it, but certainly it is full of interest and will undoubtedly stimulate a great deal of discussion. I hope that the debate to-day will contribute to that process.

Should not we ask ourselves, first of all, what we are trying to do, and what is the justification for spending large sums of the taxpayers' and ratepayers' money on the Youth Service? My own answer would be that it is part of our national effort to meet the varying needs of different sections of the community and to ensure that facilities exist for every member of the community to find a full and satisfactory life within it. We spend money on defence and on the maintenance of law and order to protect the community; we spend money on the Health Service to enable those who are sick to be cared for until they can return to take their place within the community; we spend money on the social services to care for the old, the un-employed and the disabled as part of the community, and the money we spend on education and the Youth Service is to support the young members of our community and to provide for their needs.

I must confess that I find the Report's definition of youth work unsatisfactory. They state at paragraph 152: The primary goal of youth work is the social education of young people. At paragraph 160 they say: Our commitment is to a society in which every member can be publicly active; ". I find that last thought really rather frightening. Personally, I far prefer the definition that was given some time ago by the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and I quote: … to offer individual young people in their leisure time opportunities of various kinds complementary to those of home, formal education and work, to discover and develop personal resources of body, mind and spirit and thus the better to equip themselves to lead the life of mature, creative and responsible members of a free society.

I do not believe that all young people want to be publicly active; some do, and we must seek to satisfy their need. But the needs of others are as varied as those of older members of the community, and I should like to consider some of those needs. I do so in no sort of order of priority. First, sport and outdoor recreational facilities: these will meet the needs of many young people who want to play games, swim, climb mountains, ride, sail, or just go for a walk. This is a most important form of pro-vision, and I am glad to say one that is growing steadily. Another is for clubs, or bars, or centres where young people can get together socially. Some provision is made commercially, but there is still an important role here for the Youth Service.

I am not quite clear what the Report means in its Recommendation 6(d): Priorities for grant-aid, especially capital grants, need to be reassessed. … The first priority, however, must be as outlined in 2(f) above. My Lords, 2(f) says: We must shed the idea that the Youth and Community Service is primarily concerned with buildings, organisations or membership. What are these reassessed capital grants to be spent on, if not on buildings? Personally, I believe that there is a prominent role to be played by the club building and the social organisation that revolves round it, and I am sure that the local youth club will continue to meet the needs of many young people.

Then there are hobbies. This is an old-fashioned word, but a great many young people, just as a great many old people, are not in the least interested in mixing socially or in outdoor pursuits, but want only to be able to get on with their individual hobbies. Not all pro-vision for young people should assume that they are naturally gregarious. Disraeli wrote: I prefer association to gregariousness. … It is a community of purpose that constitutes society. The Youth Service should make provision for those who wish to pursue their own hobbies, be they pottery, music, photography, carpentry, or whatever else. This is surely an area that lends itself to development in a community sense, with all ages able to participate, and where, as the Report itself points out, there is a need for close collaboration between the Youth Service and Colleges of Further Education.

Another need is for adventure. This is not an easy need to meet in this well-regulated world, but there are organisations in existence which are doing a very fine job: Voluntary Service Overseas, for one, or Outward Bound, and there are others. Some of the, more adventurous sports can help in this field—sailing, riding, skiing, mountaineering, for example. I would even include under the hearing of "Adventure" the very fact of living away from home for a period, even for a weekend, which is itself very often an adventure for many young people who have never had that experience before. There is a need to meet the natural idealism of young people—not only the youth of to-day but, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, many of our generation who wish to change the world for the better—and quickly.

The young have a natural impatience at having to tolerate aspects of the society in which they live that they feel to be wrong. This is a particular need which not only must be met but can be harnessed to the great benefit of the community as a whole, and one of the major new developments in recent years within the Youth Service has been the growth of the concept of community service. Many voluntary organisations have started community service schemes, and others, such as International Voluntary Service, Community Service Volunteers and Task Force, have come into existence especially for the purpose. Most recently the Young Volunteer Force was formed with the aid of a Government grant and has launched some excellent schemes.

Community service is an exciting and beneficial venture. It meets the desires of many young people to give voluntary service and to make a contribution to the betterment of society. In particular, it often attracts young people who would never darken the doors of a youth club—the so-called "unattached". At the same time it meets real community needs; for example, by bringing companionship to lonely old people, helping mothers with young families—and this is proving of particular value where they live in high tower blocks of flats—making friends in mental hospitals and meeting similar especially human needs. But there are still problems. The voluntary organisations concerned are rapidly learning from their experience and deserve every encouragement.

Many schools, too, are playing a part, but I must say that I personally do not think it would be wise to compel schools to include community service as part of the curriculum, as seems to be suggested by the Motion in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Arran. To do so would swamp the market and bring the whole idea into disrepute. Nothing could be worse than to put schools into the position of desperately trying to find community service tasks for their pupils to do. The essence of community service is voluntary, and any form of compulsion defeats its whole object. Personally, I look on community service as a growth point within the total provision of the Youth Service. We should do everything we can to help the various organisations that are providing it, and I believe that perhaps the most practical help that the Government could give would be to urge all Government Departments and all local authorities to examine their functions closely in order to discover at what points of need young volunteers could give valuable service.

My Lords, in places the Report has words of commendation for the work of the voluntary societies, but in many respects I think it does less than justice to the work which is being done at present. It speaks of the Youth Service as being "irrelevant" to the needs of young people over 16. I certainly know that neither my friends in the Y.M.C.A. nor those in the National Association of Boys' Clubs would agree with that. The Report speaks of the existing Youth Service as "suffering from a poor image", and at one point attributes this partly to the Press. I was critical of the Press in our recent debate on demonstrations, but when it comes to the Youth Service I should have thought that they were quite blameless and, indeed, very helpful. It also alleges that some workers try experiment tentatively and "hold on to time-honoured custom in the Youth Service"—no bad thing, I should have thought.

The Report teems with suggestions for every sort of body, and many of them are extremely good and very stimulating. But I must say, with regret, that there is one significant omission, and that is Wales. I realise that the recommendations as a whole are meant to cover the whole of England and Wales, but there are certain Welsh characteristics to which the Report might at least have paid some heed. It surely is a bit of a slap in the face for the Secretary of State for Wales that his Department is omitted from paragraph 363, which calls for a concerted effort from all the Government Departments concerned and lists the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Security, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Department of Education and Science, but not the Welsh Office.

The main theme of the Report is its concept of community development, which is not an easy concept to grasp, and I cannot honestly say I am sure that I have grasped it. The heart of the idea seems to be best expressed in the words of Mr. Leaper, the Senior Lecturer in Social Administration at the University of Swansea: People themselves meet and reach a common agreement about their community needs; plan with common consent what they are going to do; carry out by their own efforts the major part of the plan on which they have agreed and are assisted by the expert advice and technical help given to them by outside agencies with greater resources than themselves. I should have thought, at first sight, that that might well cause considerable apprehension in many town halls, and the Report does not explain precisely what is intended; nor is it very helpful as to how the Youth Service is to contribute to community development. But one sentiment of which I am sure we all approve is the encouragement of a real partnership between mature adults and young people. This might well begin at local authority level by combining committees and departments dealing with the Youth Service and the adult Education Service into a combined Youth and Community Service.

Another significant step forward, which is also recommended by the Report, would be to remove the present statutory age limit for grant-aid purposes. It is true that much good work has been done since the Albemarle Report for the age range 14 to 20, but I am not sure that we may not have concentrated too much on that one age group. I am sure it is right in future to judge work with young people on its merits, and not to insist on rigid age limits.

In the end, we depend on the people doing the job. The service is no better than its servants, and I wish to pay my tribute to those many devoted people who put in many long trying hours working in the service of young people. We must surely give them proper facilities for training, and as the Report points out, basic training for the full-time youth and community worker is a key to the development we envisage ". I very much hope that the plan for two-year training courses at colleges of education or polytechnics will be implemented in September, 1970. I see immense advantages in holding these courses in close conjunction with training for the Education Service, and I am sure the Council are right in stressing the need for the closest collaboration and interchange between the staff of the Youth Service and the education service. Just as schools should be planned as community centres, so those who work in them should receive training in community work.

But, alas! in the final resort we come down to money. It was increased grant-aid, after all, which enabled big strides to be made after the Albemarle Report. This Report speaks of reassessing the priorities for grant-aid, but unfortunately the Youth Service has suffered badly as a result of Government economies and economies forced on local authorities by the Government. There is no slack to take up, and to reassess priorities would merely harm existing organisations which are meeting very real needs. My Lords, new priorities need new pence. I shall listen with great interest to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has to say. I hope he is not going to say, on behalf of the Government, that they accept the Report "in principle". If he does, may I remind him of some words of Bismarck?: When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.20 p.m.

LORD BYERS

My Lords, the House is indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for providing this opportunity to debate such an important subject as the youth and the community, and on such an appropriate occasion. On behalf of my colleagues, I should like to endorse the welcome which the noble Lord gave to His Royal Highness, and to say to him that I think he shows extremely good judgment in joining this House at the earliest possible moment. We wish him a long and active membership of it.

The whole question of young people in society has to be looked at at frequent intervals as the circumstances of society change and develop, and that is what we are proposing to do to-day. People alter, and so do attitudes. What was acceptable, and even advanced, before the war is almost certainly "old hat" now. The one thing that does not change is the fact that the young people in any society are the seed corn for the future, and that the direction in which they develop has a marked effect on the type of community into which the nation eventually develops. At the present time, we are dealing, I believe, on the whole, with a more intelligent young group of people, and one which lives in a more sophisticated and affluent society than we have had before It is a group which is maturing far faster than its predecessors; it has more money to spend; more of them, unfortunately, come from broken homes. But their needs, I believe, are quite different from those of the youth of the 'thirties, and probably even the 'fifties. What is more, they have not, thank God! been subjected to the fears and experiences of war, either as troops or as civilians. But many of them, I think, resent the fact that they have not had an opportunity of showing their mettle and proving themselves; and this is why, it seems to me, we must find worthwhile, satisfying opportunities for them in the peaceful field.

Of course, different age groups and age groups in different circumstances have different needs. There are the leisure-time problems of the very young, the 13 to 15 year olds, who are still at school; there are the different problems of the school-leaver who has a job to go to and the school-leaver who has not; there are the different needs of the student groups, many of whom are largely self-sufficient; there are the general needs of the adolescent 16 to 17 years olds and the adult 18 to 20 year old group. I have read the Report to which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred; and I did so with great interest. There are many sentiments in it which are excellent; and I should be the first to acknowledge that a great deal has been done and achieved since the Albemarle Report. My main quarrel with the Report is that it does not paint the magnitude of the problem, or the tremendous scope which we have now to help our young people to open up new, satisfying opportunities in the field of community development and community service. I shall leave my noble friend Lord Arran to develop in his own inimitable way the arguments in favour of his Motion. I want to concentrate on a few aspects of youth and the community.

At the moment, my Lords, we seem to be spending about the same on all our youth services as the Arts Council has to spend on its sector of the Arts. I am all in favour of the Arts Council having money to spend in this way, but the need of a Youth Service which is to be adequate to modern needs requires far more than the amount of money we are spending on it at the present time, which I think is something like £10 million. In my view, the total has to be measured in tens of millions of pounds—and eventually in much more than that. We shall get this money back in different ways in the decades to come. I am not suggesting that this should be a new burden entirely upon the Government. Money must be found by the Government, by local government and by foundations. Industry, too, has quite a part to play here in providing money; and so have the voluntary organisations themselves.

I think the leisure time of the youngest band is not too difficult to cater for, with the assistance of the Ministry of Education, the school authorities and the voluntary organisations. The group I am worried about is the 16 to 20 year old bracket; and it is here, I think, that we can afford some new thinking and a new approach. There are still far too many people who consider that too much is done for the young—and they usually add that youth does not appreciate it, anyhow. Too many people still think that if you provide a club and a youth leader you have done all you need "to keep the kids out of trouble". With these attitudes we shall get nowhere. They merely conceal the problem, they conceal the perspective and they conceal the solution. People who think and talk like this are totally remote from the real problems of life and society.

My Lords, I am reminded of an experience I had in mid-1940 when, as a young officer, I was living in lodgings in Cambridge prior to going overseas. During the night I received a code word which indicated that the Germans were about to invade. I left the lodgings pretty fast, and I reported to headquarters. It was a false alarm. The next morning the landlady asked me whether I could be a little quieter in future. When I told her that I had been called to headquarters because there was an imminent German invasion, she merely said she hoped that in the event of the real thing I would still be a little quieter. I think the lesson is that we have to be relevant, we have to be involved and we cannot afford to be remote from the problems that have to be tackled. Above all, we have to get away from paternalism, and must realise that what we are dealing with is the chance to make a genuine and worth-while investment in good citizenship.

I believe that many young people want the chance to stretch themselves, mentally and physically; they want the chance to broaden their horizons; they want the chance to become socially at ease as young as possible; they want the chance to assume responsibility and to be able to speak with authority; they want a variety—and I stress the word "variety"—of different experiences available to them from which they can choose, and these experiences must be such as will satisfy them and help them to mature. If we can achieve this, we shall not just be "keeping the kids off the streets": we shall be improving the all-round standards of performance in the community, including, possibly, to put it at its very least, a new attitude to work, which could emerge from people who have had the opportunity to show what they can do when they have the chance to stretch themselves.

The organisation of opportunities for the adolescent and adult age groups should, I believe, be seen as part of our general community development plans, and I think this is basically the message of the Report, even though, as Lord Aberdare says, it does not make the point as clear as it should. What is needed in this particular field is a new impetus. I am not sure, indeed (I am not putting this forward as a concrete suggestion), that we do not need a new organisation, with substantial funds at its disposal, in which the young people themselves are in the majority: an organisation which could co-ordinate—and, my goodness! it certainly needs some co-ordination—the activities of the voluntary organisations; an organisation which could initiate new developments, which could provide guidance and administration, and enable young people to decide how best they can make a contribution to community development while enlarging their own horizons.

I emphasise, my Lords, that young people must be involved up to the hilt in the decision making, the devising of programmes and the spending of the money. Too many organisations have too many older people playing too big a part, and I think that we ought to reverse this tendency. Of course we need to have some older people, but I believe that the proportions have gone wrong. I tried to point this out in a report on the Amateur Athletic Association, but I did not get very far. Any proposition which involves the older generation making decisions for the younger generation will be regarded only as a form of arrogance and will widen the generation gap, thus defeating its own purpose. I am quite sure that the young people, given a chance, will come up with some first-class ideas.

If I were to offer suggestions, I would look first to the field of the Youth Volunteer Force Foundation. I think that a grant of £100,000 over three years from the Government is generous, but, really, it is only tinkering with the problem. Far more is needed for that sort of activity. I think that if that form of activity which was described by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order! order!

LORD BYERS

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord who crossed the Floor of the House knows that that action sometimes costs £500.

My Lords, the point that I was about to make is that if we are to get community service on the lines of the Volunteer Force then we have to overcome the hostility and the suspicions of local government. The local councils do not mind a group of young people looking after the old people; but if the young attempt to do anything which might uncover a piece of local government incompetence, woe betide them! One of the complaints of young people is that local councils cannot stand criticism, especially from the younger generation. The truth is, my Lords, that there is so much that could be done if only the proper funds and administration were made available. We need better training facilities and skilled administrators—many more of them—and, as the noble Lord, said, more residential centres for young people who may come from broken homes, or from homes where parental interest is minimum.

I believe also that we must do more to get our young people overseas. I should like to use some of the development aid funds, the overseas aid funds, to establish British centres in newly developing countries to receive and place young British people where they can do the most good. We have tremendous scope here. I think that we could get a tremendous social return. I hope that this debate will give a little new impetus to it.

3.32 p.m.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKXETON)

My Lords, some of us will remember from our schooldays that it was customary on a royal occasion for the headmaster—and I do not claim to be in this position—to announce a half holiday. I am not able to suggest anything as favourable as that; but I am prepared to make one offer: I shall keep my speech very short indeed. I should like to congratulate the noble Lords who have already spoken on the shortness and the pointedness of their speeches; and, noting that there is a very long debate, I hope we shall be able to sustain this brevity.

Not for the first time in this House I find myself in the position of inviting the House to give advice to the Government rather than to inform the House of Government policy. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare—and I congratulate him on his speech—I am not quite sure whether he wishes me to welcome the Report in Bismarckian terms with the intention of carrying it out or of not carrying it out. I am not quite clear as to what his wishes were; but what I can say is that this is a discussion document; it does not necessarily represent Government policy at this stage and the Government have made this very clear. I am sure that all noble Lords, and especially many noble Lords who have a deep knowledge and experience of youth work, would in fact prefer this. I do not wish to make a particularly Government point; but I think that the way that this Report has been commissioned and produced is consistent with the approach that we are increasingly adopting these days of ensuring that there are documents and reports on the basis of which consultation can take place. We anticipate that the Youth Service Development Council will shortly be considering their own Report in the light of the various comments they are receiving on it. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that this is not a euphemism along the lines of his Bismarckian analogy.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord—I know that he is moving to a timetable—but the Secretary of State in his preface to the Report said that the Government are examining the wide issues raised by the Report in consultation with the many bodies concerned and will announce their conclusions in due course. Am I right in taking it that this will be in the course of a further discussion in your Lordships' House; but not now?

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl at least on reading the Preface to the Report. I am bound to say that it is quite undesirable to pin this down to a particular timetable until the consultations have taken place. I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and those other noble Lords who are very familiar with this work, will agree that without allowing the impetus and energy to disappear—and I shall have something to say on this in a moment—we must take stock of a Report the chief quality of which, to my mind, is the extent to which it rubs home particular concepts, including some of a rather uncomfortable kind. One of the most uncomfortable aspects of the Report is that it compels us to take stock and to think about where we are going in this field. I should like to congratulate Mr. Howell—and those who know him know that he is a very energetic person. It is a monumental task to get a Report like this welded out of two separate inquiries. I know that a number of noble Lords have followed this with a good deal of interest.

My Lords, we have already had one lengthy debate in this House. It was in February, 1968 and it went on until very late indeed. I propose to resist the temptation to tell your Lordships what I think about youth. On the last occasion we had a lot of this; and very valuable it was. It is very tempting to lead off on the qualities, defects and sex habits of youth and all the rest of the things which excite the older people and arouse their interest in youth; but I hope that we shall devote our efforts to giving guidance and views on some of the particular issues. The Report we are debating has provided a very thorough analysis of the problems. I should be interested to know how far your Lordships agree with this analysis and to know with which parts of it noble Lords do not agree.

The Report draws attention to the changes that have taken place in the ten years since the admirable Albemarle Report—and that was a great landmark, one to which one cannot pay tribute too often; it was a truly important document. But some of the changes have been very striking. The Report draws attention to some of them: for example, the end of National Service, the lowering of the age of majority, the expected raising of the school-leaving age, and also—and this seems to be an important point which we shall need to examine—the number and, according to the Report, the increasing number of young people who see the Youth Service as irrelevant to their needs. I shall be interested to hear the views of noble Lords on this—they may be able to refute some of the figures in the Report, which appear to show a decline in the number of those who make use of the facilities of the Youth Service. They may suggest that statistically the Report is not sound on this point. But at least it appears that no more people are using these facilities.

I think that the Report is right in making a major priority of youth work with those young people who have left school—and they are talking particularly about the secondary modern schools—and whose social environment is in-adequate. The suggestion is—and again I should be interested to hear views on this—that this is an under-privileged section of youth compared with those who remain at school and continue to University. Despite the increasing numbers who stay on, we still have this group who are not provided with the same facilities. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that we all are inclined these days to assume that young people are all rolling in money. Quite a lot are, quite a lot of those in some jobs; but there are some who are not. There have been enough Reports of the nature and problems of young people in particular areas—New Society has published these and there have been reports from others who are working with them—to suggest that there is a big element of under-privilege here. And it is still in this area, above all, that the various voluntary organisations and clubs have so much to contribute. But this is not to suggest that the State should not make a bigger contribution.

The noble Lord, Lord Byers, with that characteristic freedom which is open to the Liberal Party but not open to the Conservative and Labour Parties (who arc either in Government or may have a faint prospect of forming a Government) suggested that we should spend millions more pounds. As noble Lords know well, almost every issue that we ever debate calls for vastly greater expenditure. But it is worth looking at the figures actually in the Report, which suggest that in fact there has been a very considerable increase in the last few years and particularly since Albemarle. The grants of the Departments have increased by about 500 per cent.—though, of course, that does not mean very much necessarily—from £299,000 to £1.9 million over a period of eight years. The expenditure by local education authorities has increased from £2.58 million to £10 million. I would not for a moment suggest that this meets the full need, but at least a good deal of progress is being made. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who said that we spend a lot of money, for instance, on the Arts Council—or was it the noble Lord, Lord Byers? He seems to be "getting it" to-day. Let me remind him that quite a lot of the money that the Arts Council spends is spent in the direction of youth. I recognise that the noble Lord is suggesting that we could do a great deal more. I am just giving him a few facts about what we are doing to help him.

My Lords, a very important point is made in the Report about the extent to which there is a real generation gap between the 14 year olds and the 18 year olds. This is again a matter on which I should be interested to hear views. I am sometimes impressed by what appears to me the fixity and the senility of the views of some of the moderately young as opposed to some of the apparently very aged which we have in your Lordships' House. I think that this is a matter which probably needs a good deal more consideration—the extent to which the work of the Youth Service should particularly take into account the needs of young adults, and should be directed to those needs. This is dealt with in very frank terms in the Report. This suggests that there is a drop-off in interest in boys' clubs around 16 and that the absence of girls may have something to do with this.

My Lords, I suspect that there is some truth in this. I remember that I learnt to ski in circumstances where there was a certain amount of feminine stimulus. On my first day on skis at the top of the Corviglia run, which some noble Lords will know, I saw a beautiful girl going down in front of me. I should think that I fell fifty times on the way down; but by the time I got to the bottom I could ski and I caught her up in time to take her off to a dance at the Kulm Hotel. I believe in adventurous activities and there is something in that; but I would not for a moment suggest that there is not a vital role, indeed a fundamental role, for the traditional single-sex youth organisations. They have been responsible for many of the recent activities and developments, and I hope they will continue to grow. But we do need to think about some of these issues which are so starkly expressed in the Report.

Then there is the point made so strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, about young people having a larger say in the Service. I agree with him. If there was a fault from which we should have learnt a lesson in our otherwise, as I believe, admirable colonial history, it is that although devoted and highminded people went out and gave their lives in the Colonial Service, none the less we were a little bit paternalistic. Giving a larger say to the young people themselves calls not for less experience on the part of youth leaders, but for more. It calls for more skill in a situation of the kind indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Byers.

My Lords, the centrepiece of the Report is their recommendation that all youth work, and particularly that with young adults, should be placed in a community setting and should be more client-oriented. In other words, youth work should be where youth is. This is something of a new concept and has difficult aspects. On this again I should be interested to know what noble Lords have to say. Reaching young people in the community may be easier said than done. There are also some interesting points in the Report on counselling, which is vitally necessary but dangerous if badly done. These are all matters of which I think the great majority of noble Lords will have had experience.

We must not forget the achievements of the Youth Service in the last ten years, and I should like to pay my tribute to both the full and part-time youth workers, who form the heart of the Youth Service. The increasing number of professionally trained full-time youth workers is a unique development of the last ten years. I would pay a special tribute to the National College for the Training of Youth Leaders. The Y.S.D.C. Report shows how large the voluntary sector of the Youth Service is. Its diversity is both its strength and its weakness and any organisational frame-work which emerges from the present ferment must be sufficiently flexible to maintain and develop those aspects of voluntary youth work which have established a role.

Now, I know that when the noble Earl, Lord Arran, comes to make his speech he will be—I will not say putting his foot in it, but he will certainly be sticking his neck out in a very controversial area. I do not propose to anticipate his remarks. I have a great deal of sympathy for the noble Earl. On the other hand, there are points beyond which Government should not seek to do everything for everyone—although I know that the noble Earl who, at any rate at the present moment, sits on the Liberal Benches (I regard him as a Liberal wherever he sits) would not suggest this in that form.

I am very conscious, too, of the marvellous work done by some voluntary bodies. Those of us like the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, and particularly the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, and also myself, who have been involved with people like Voluntary Service Overseas, see a strength in this type of organisation as opposed to the Peace Corps type of organisation. Here I think we have good material with which to build, but we need continually to clear our minds and I hope that to-day your Lordships will contribute to this process by giving us the benefit of your advice.