UK Youth policy and public affairs latest round-up

This is our regular policy and public affairs round-up, covering what the team has been up to at UK Youth, what young people have been saying and what is coming up in the next couple of months.

We would love to hear from you, so please get in touch if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas to share with the team…

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has released his Spring Budget, but UK Youth is disappointed in the lack of dedicated funding provided for the youth sector and the lack of focus on the biggest challenges facing young people today. You can read more about our reaction here.

We also attended the All Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs, with #iwill ambassadors Finlay and Phoebe and UK Youth impact team interns Emma and Isabella.

It was a great event, with Jo Gideon, Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central and Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, speaking, as well as ample opportunity for the young people to share their views.

Emma and Isabella have shared their reflections on the event, which you can read here.

The APPG is run by the YMCA. It has also historically been run by the British Youth Council, which recently announced its permanent closure. We are grateful to both organisations for creating a space for young people to have their views heard in Parliament.

We have seen some great engagement from MPs in supporting us with written questions in the House of Commons recently, as well as support for youth organisations highlighted in the recent Westminster Hall debate on youth services.

It was great to hear Stuart Andrew, Conservative MP for Pudsey and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities, Lilian Greenwood, Labour MP for Nottingham South and shadow civil society minister, and Rachel Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton South, all quote findings from our Untapped research as part of this debate, showing just how valuable this work has been. Our Impact Team Intern, Emma, has shared her reflections on the debate here.

Thank you to everyone who answered our February Just One Question, centred on the upcoming General Election and what support youth organisations may need.

We recently ran a follow-up webinar with The Politics Project on how to engage with young people around politics, and a webinar with My Life My Say to share how youth organisations can be involved in its #GiveAnX campaign. These directly follow the Just One Question responses and we will continue to develop our work in this area based on what has been suggested.

Our influencing work has been full steam ahead recently, attending round-tables with the APPG on Tackling Loneliness and Connected Communities to chat about our work with the Belong Collective, and a round-table with Sport England.

We are also pleased to have met a number of MPs from across the political divides recently, including Conservatives Ben Bradley, MP for Mansfield, and Justin Tomlinson, North Swindon MP, Labour’s Alistair Strathern, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, and Labour (Co-op)’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle, MP for Brighton, Kemptown, and Rachael Maskell, York Central MP.

Our impact interns Emma and Isabella shared their reflections on the youth affairs APPG, which you can catch up on here.

At the event, #iwill Ambassador Finlay shared his view on the need for investment and funding for youth organisations, and that effective and meaningful youth participation is required for all young people to be able to engage.

It was great to have Finlay and Phoebe there and to hear all of the young people involved be confident in sharing their views.

We know the issues about historic underfunding of the youth sector have come to a head with recent acute crises, to create a challenging financial situation for the sector.

Many organisations in the sector, including youth organisations in the UK Youth Movement, have struggled with financial challenges, despite many examples of excellent provision and management of resources.

The needs young people are facing have increased, but youth organisations have not been able to match this increasing need through their support and services.

This has left many young people unable to have their needs met, and youth organisations often left unable to reach their full potential.

Staff in the youth sector are working incredibly hard to provide support young people need, but the funding is not there to close the gap between need and provision. Staff are lacking the investment needed to grow services, and the support needed to prevent workforce burnout.

If you have any experiences of this you would like to share with us, please do get in touch with Kate Roberts, UK Youth policy manager, at kate.roberts@ukyouth.org – we are looking at what further support and influencing we can provide in this space.

We are continuing to listen to feedback from February’s Just One Question around support for the next General Election. Please keep an eye out for further updates and resources. Do also let us know if you have any ideas of what would be useful to you.

Please get in touch by emailing kate.roberts@ukyouth.org with any feedback you have on the content of our round-up, as well as any ideas/reflections you would like to share to feed into our policy and public affairs work.

UK Youth is a leading charity with a vision that all young people are equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives. With an open network of more than 8,000 youth organisations and nation partners; UK Youth reaches more than four million young people across the UK and is focused on unlocking youth work as the catalyst of change that is needed now more than ever. To find out more, visit ukyouth.org 

UK Youth is involved in a range of programmes designed to help young people thrive, such as outdoor learning, physical literacy, social action and employability, including Hatch, a youth employability programme run in partnership with KFC. For more on UK Youth’s programmes, see ukyouth.org/what-we-do/programmes