Government must invest in young people

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 10th Jul 2008

There are not enough local services to engage young people the Welsh Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Communities, Peter Black has said in a key note speech to the conference of the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services (CWVYS) today.

Mr. Black pointed out that young people spend an equivalent of only nine minutes of every waking hour in school, yet only £56 per head is spent on what they are doing for the remaining 51 minutes.

Mr Black was invited to speak to the organisation following his unsuccessful Measure proposal on the Welsh youth facilities in May. Mr Black took the opportunity to talk about why more needs to be done to help young people and how he thinks this can be achieved.

"A shortage of facilities causes boredom, one of the main causes of anti-social behaviour. You cannot expect young people to stay in the house. Older people go to pubs and restaurants, but these cost money. Where do you go if you have no income of your own but still want to get out and socialise?"

"I would like to thank CWVYS for the opportunity to come and speak to them as well as to answer questions from them. I have not given up on the cause of improving youth services in Wales and still believe that working with local authorities is the best way of achieving this."

"However, to secure the kind of services that I have talked about today, there needs to be more than just warm words from the Government. I do not share Jane Hutt, the Minister for Children Lifelong Learning and Skills, view that this can be achieved by revising existing guidance. We have had guidance in place before, such as 'extending entitlement' and it has not proved to be effective. Unfortunately the Government is simply not committed on this issue."