Services for Young People

Debate between Neil Carmichael and John Robertson

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is wondering whether he can read out a list of places in his constituency.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we get rid of references to individual places?

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) is absolutely right, and his point is central to the matter. We should not think that youth services are just about statutory provision, because they are not. They are all part of the big society, which is encouraging many villages in my constituency to start thinking about providing the services that people need, including youth services.

I think that I have made my point about the rich variety of facilities, clubs, sports clubs and so on with which young people can get involved, and about the powerful role played by charities in providing facilities.

[Damian Hinds]

Before concluding his remarks, perhaps my hon. Friend will touch on the provision made by what these days we call faith communities and in the old days used to call Churches. There is an ongoing debate about the role of Christianity and other faiths and religions in public life, and a lot of churches provide important youth facilities that often are not restricted only to members of one particular denomination. The King’s Arms in Petersfield is one such example—

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. We are talking about the Select Committee report, and although it may be nice to mention every group in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I doubt that we have got time for them all.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you, Mr Robertson. Your point is absolutely right, but it shows that we can think of more examples than just the evidence provided by the Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire is right about Churches. My father used to take me to Sunday school, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first bit. I have remained a member of the Church of England for some time, and I look forward to a life of such membership. My own children had a similar sort of arrangement. Church organisations play a part in providing great facilities for young people, and I have seen that in action.

We are in danger of labouring the point, although I think that it has been well made. I am therefore going to move on to the point raised by the hon. Member for Wigan about the national citizen service. As she said, we went to Germany and looked at the range of options that were available for young people. We noticed first that a huge number of young people were participating in Germany’s equivalent of our national citizen service, and that to a large extent the activities were work based. That is the essential reason why, broadly speaking, the programme costs just over £1,000 in Germany for the year, but about the same in this country for a number of weeks. That is the big difference between the German system and the fledgling system in Britain, and the German system has a number of noteworthy advantages.

First, the work-based nature of the programme chimes well with the emphasis that is put on training and education in Germany, and the relationship that has with employers and professional activities. We need to embed such an attitude to education and to what happens afterwards in our own culture. It was obvious to me that the schemes that we saw in Germany provided a strong continuity from education to employment, and we should learn from that.

The second interesting thing that I noticed in Germany was the consistency of the youth programmes. We visited a fire station just outside Berlin, and there was a continual throughput of young people. Young people had to make a choice, but they knew what those choices were before they had to make them. From that, I gleaned that young people were able to think about what they were going to be doing outside and immediately after school. I thought that that was really encouraging; the experience of working in that fire station meant being part of a large team with awards, presentations, pictures and so on. Such things demonstrated that people had been there and benefited from being there, before going on to do something else that was the right step in their career development. Those who were starting the programme could see the results and the beneficial outcomes.

Those are the differences that I saw between the German system and the national citizen service. That did not stop me, however, from writing to local secondary schools in my constituency to remind them of the value of the NCS, and to make sure that they informed their students about getting involved in the schemes provided by the NCS. I hope that students get involved in the programme, but if the NCS is to continue in the long term, we must learn one or two of the lessons that I have just mentioned. It is imperative to provide the schemes that we propose with a sense of continuity and worthiness.

Too often in this country we end up putting things into silos. We forget that most things are linked and that most policies are not dependent on the work or delivery of one Department, but that there are connections between Departments, agencies and other structures. The provision of youth services is a good example. What matters is not only the budget provided by the Department for Education, or wherever, but the overall Government approach and the links between various policies—including the Work programme, for example—as well as what we do in and expect from our schools, our objectives for social services, employment opportunities, and so forth. That is why it is dangerous to rely only on the evidence that we are given. At times, we have got to think slightly beyond that, and the provision of youth services is one such example. That is why the Government are sensible in encouraging other things to happen, rather than just the statutory provision.