Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department plans to develop a cross-government strategy for children and young people.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Last year the government announced its intention to set out a long-term vision for young people and has been working to develop this. Building on this announcement, in September the Chancellor announced a £500m Youth Investment Fund to build 60 new youth centres across the country, refurbish around 360 existing youth facilities, and provide over 100 mobile facilities for harder to reach areas. The funding will also be used to ensure that young people have access to a range of positive activities and qualified youth workers.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the £500 million youth investment fund includes money allocated from her Department's budget.
Answered by Matt Warman
The £500 million Youth Investment Fund announced by the Chancellor on 30th September, will be additional funding to the DCMS baseline budget from April 2020.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of social media on vulnerable children and young people.
Answered by Matt Warman
On 7 February this year, the UK Chief Medical Officers published their independent systematic evidence review on the impact of social media use on children and young people’s mental health, and recommended next steps and advice for parents and carers. As outlined in the Online Harms White Paper, the government will continue to support research in this area and ensure high quality advice is available to families.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the review his Department has launched into statutory guidance for local authorities on providing youth services, whether his Department has undertaken an impact assessment on funding for youth services.
Answered by Baroness Morgan of Cotes
Local authorities are responsible for allocating public funding to youth services in their area. We believe they are best placed to know what is required in their communities. To increase opportunities for young people to benefit from open access youth services and youth social action, Government is investing £80 million, in partnership the National Lottery Community Fund, through the Youth Investment and #iwill Funds.
A public call for evidence as part of the review of the guidance which sets out the statutory duty placed on local authorities to provide appropriate local youth services will be announced in due course. We expect that the review will provide greater clarity of Government’s expectations, including the value added by good youth work.