We can absolutely afford to invest in our young people

Two chancellors have come and gone since George Osborne set out the last full multi-year review six years ago, and rumour has it the third may be on shaky ground as well.

The pandemic downgraded what was meant to be a proper multi-year spending review last year to just a one-year review, which to most people sounds pretty much like a standard autumn statement. This one will be Boris Johnson’s first proper review. It comes in an era where worries about debt and deficits seem to have melted away, and only partly as a consequence of covid.

As many parents will attest, youth clubs and similar services for young people have really felt the brunt of a decade of spending cuts. It’s all the more dispiriting given how important people think youth services are for their local area. When we polled people for our latest Levelling Up research, “improved youth clubs or activities for young people” were among the highest rated things people would expect of an area that had “levelled up”. “Something for the kids around here to do” is the usual way people think about it. No doubt in many cases to keep them out of mischief. And yet youth services have been starved of funding, with an overall fall of 70 per cent since the Conservatives took office in 2010 according to the YMCA.