Lisa Nandy: Decades of neglect left young people isolated and vulnerable

YOUNG people have endured decades of "violent indifference" from politicians, leaving them struggling to cope with modern challenges, the culture secretary has warned.

Lisa Nandy announced the first national youth strategy in 15 years, backed by £500 million in government funding, to address what she described as a generation facing unprecedented isolation despite being the most digitally connected in history.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Asian minister said the strategy would help put young people "back in the driving seat of their own lives" after years of neglect that saw youth services stripped away across the country.

The Youth Matters plan aims to give 500,000 more young people access to a trusted adult outside their home, such as a youth worker, teacher or sports coach.

It includes building or refurbishing up to 250 youth clubs over the next four years and creating 50 new hubs offering professional support in areas including Birmingham, Nottingham and County Durham.

Nandy said young people today face a "perfect storm" of challenges, including the Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis and an "always-on digital world" that adults struggle to understand or police effectively.

"It's violent indifference to an entire generation of young people who've grown up with a new set of challenges that the adults who want to support them can't navigate ourselves," she told the newspaper.

She warned that too many young people no longer believe politics can improve their lives, leading them to turn away from mainstream parties including Labour.

Local government spending on youth services collapsed by 73 per cent between 2010-11 and 2022-23, according to the figures. More than 1,000 youth centres closed during this period and over 4,500 youth worker roles were lost.

Nandy acknowledged that online spaces remain harmful for young people despite child protection measures in the Online Safety Act coming into force over the summer. However, she said most young people did not support an Australian-style ban on social media.

"The challenge with banning social media is enforcement," she said. "Are we really saying as a country that we're going to start prosecuting under-18s for using social media?"

Instead, young people wanted "help and support to both police and to navigate the online space in the same way as you would in the real world", she added.

Nandy stressed that building self-worth among young people was crucial to protecting them from exploitation, whether by criminal gangs running county lines drug operations or harmful online influencers.

"At the root of all of this is self-worth," Nandy said. "They matter. They haven't felt that they matter for a very long time, and that, in turn, makes them very vulnerable."

The strategy includes teaching young people skills such as how to stay safe online and aims to boost resilience through enrichment activities, particularly for working-class children.

Nandy said the plan represented a shift away from government being seen as something that stops people living the lives they want, towards genuinely empowering them to make change.