Opinion: What Hodge really said about youth clubs

According to it, Hodge said: "Children would be better off watching TV than attending youth clubs."

But this assertion bore little resemblance to what the minister actually said. Margaret Hodge has been accused, in some of her recent speeches, of placing too much emphasis on the children's agenda at the expense of young people - and failing to mention youth work. But her IPPR speech was firmly focused on the ideas underpinning the imminent youth green paper.

She did remark during her comments on the "focus and organisation" of youth work that some provision carried a risk of negative outcomes, in which case young people might well be better off staying at home and watching TV. The context of this remark was, however, grounded in the expectation that youth work projects and activities needed to pay careful attention to provision that encouraged positive outcomes. And that is a very valid point. It is not just about outcomes but about inputs - as an often-forgotten line in the Welsh Extending Entitlement document emphasises: "The quality of opportunity and experience offered to young people is sometimes more important than the specificity of outcome." If we give young people poor opportunities, then it should be no surprise that there is a risk of poor outcomes. Conversely, reflexive and well-considered provision is, in my view, never likely to produce poor outcomes.