Youth Services

Debate between Alex Sobel and Cat Smith

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend pre-empts a future section of my speech, where I go into detail about that. He is absolutely right and I agree with every word that he said about the sustainability of the workforce. In many ways, youth work is the first public service to have been dismantled. The uncertainty over local government funding creates growing challenges for local authorities to innovate and to provide for these services. It is a testament to our voluntary sector that provision has not completely collapsed under the weight of these cuts. I want to pay tribute to traditional organisations such as the Sea Cadets, the YMCA, the Scouts, the Guides, the Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade that have innovated to keep open access youth work alive. We have seen many new and innovative models of delivering youth provision, spanning public, private and civil society partners to deliver excellent provision for young people in some areas.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as the traditional voluntary sector names, social enterprises play a key role in delivering youth services and use other income streams through enterprise to fund youth services, but that is insufficient. We have seen a huge cut in funding and people having to rely on lottery funding, charitable trusts and short commissioning cycles. We are seeing a real volatility in the sector. Is it not time that we had some sufficiency in the sector so that those organisations, the voluntary sector and the councils can provide a really good-quality youth service?

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the diversity of the current provision of youth work, and I pay tribute to the work that he does in Leeds, where he champions young people’s needs. I look forward to working with him over the summer on a particular project that he is launching.