The Lord Bishop of Leicester

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for securing this debate. I also express my gratitude to Alan Milburn and his team for firmly putting the number of young people out of education, employment and training on the political agenda. I think there is real cross-party consensus on the need to address what Alan Milburn was right to call a “moral crisis” facing our young people today. I sincerely hope that when the second part of his review is published, his recommendations will be taken seriously. Mr Milburn referred to the drivers behind rising NEET rates as a whole-system crisis; I would go further and characterise it as a whole-society crisis. There is an important role for community organisations to play—whether they are faith groups, uniformed groups, sports clubs or youth clubs—and for all of us as neighbours, friends and mentors to young people. In my time today, I want to focus on one area specifically: volunteering opportunities. They provide the intermediate layer between individual and labour markets and can help build young people’s skills and confidence to equip them for the world of work. Many of us will be familiar with the experience trap. When you are first trying to get a foot on the career ladder, you need so many years of experience to get a job, but a job is the only way to get that experience. This is where community groups can make a real difference. In these settings, young people can learn, practise and develop new skills, and ideally have their first leadership opportunities. Developing skills is not simply a matter of absorbing knowledge—which is where the classroom environment is at its strongest. It is about having one’s gifts and talents recognised, put into practice and stretched. In the most recent government youth social action survey—which, noble Lords might be disappointed to hear, has not been run since 2019—over half of 16 to 20 year-olds said that social action had improved their self-confidence and communication skills. Significant numbers also reported improvements to their ability to work as a team and motivate others, and to their social skills more generally. I urge the Government to think holistically about skills development, the foundations for learning—here the Government’s ambitions for reducing child poverty are especially important—and the many contexts in which all this can take place. These include, but are not limited to, colleges and universities. I am impressed by the Government’s ambition in introducing work experience placements for young people long out of work—but, as it stands, these placements will reach fewer than one in 10 of the roughly 948,000 young people not in education, employment or training. Will the Government consider adding a supported volunteering strand, delivered through the volunteering community and faith sector, to their skills, vocational training, FE and HE strategy? In so doing, I believe the Government could help thousands more escape the experience trap, realise their potential and help society benefit from their gifts.