Young people 'left behind by political process'

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At a fractious meeting of the all party parliamentary group on youth affairs this week a minister was closely questioned about work and benefits.

The message of the meeting's audience was clear from the outset: young people feel alienated by the welfare system, abandoned by the political system, and misrepresented by the media.

A jam-packed committee room hosted a cross-section of young men and women from up and down the country who had made the trip to parliament to voice their concerns about financial support and the economic wellbeing of young people in Britain.

The youth affairs APPG is chaired by Natascha Engel (Lab, NE Derbyshire) and led by reps from the British Youth Council (BYC), the YMCA and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

It meets five times a year and aims to give young people the chance to voice their opinions to ministers.

Prior to Wednesday's event there was a two hour workshop for members of youth groups to discuss experiences of Britain's welfare system and compose questions for work and pensions minister Helen Goodman.

As the meeting began, with the minister nowhere to be seen, Engel took questions from the many eager young adults present.

The main issue from the start was accessibility – the discussion opened up with a bi-polar sufferer explaining that she had been 'rejected' for job-seeking support as she wasn't claiming Job Seekers Allowance.

Many in the room shared her concern - where there had been an honest desire to find work, they had been turned down and told they must 'sign on' first. One man had been informed that the adviser only had four minutes to see him when signing on, and so no job search assistance could be offered.

The benefits system, it was said, was confusing and seemed targeted at older adults. Many of those at the event said that they felt discriminated against and that there was a subtle assumption that young people had no desire to find a job.

Many young people, claimed some of those at the meeting, didn't understand what they were entitled to, or why. There was a feeling that benefits were not getting to the people they were aimed at.

It soon became clear that the problems these people had experienced were not just with the benefits system.

An intense debate erupted across the room when several people explained how they thought that politicians simply weren't listening; that their generation had been left behind by the political process and that what they were saying wasn't having any effect.

When one worker from youth support group Nacro told Engel that young people weren't being given the help they needed and that the government weren't doing anything about it, the entire committee room burst into applause.

A closely connected problem, the same man went on to say, is that the media are creating an image of younger people as troublesome and lazy. This is alienating young people from politics and sending the welfare system along the wrong tracks. He said that there needs to be greater focus on giving young people recognised skills qualifications that will help them in attaining long-term employment.

At this point – with barely 20 minutes left – Goodman arrive and took a few carefully-prepared questions.

Her answers were short and offered little response to the queries of those at the meeting.

The minister offered to talk to managers of Job Centres about making the system more accessible and 'tuned in' to young people, and said she'd mention a few of the other concerns to her officials.

Without any real discussion about the ways in which things needed to change, the minister left the room to attend a parliamentary vote.

As soon as she was gone, the anger of those present was clear. At least a dozen people, one after another, said that she had been rude, ignorant and had displayed a lack of understanding of their issues.

The stars of this show were the young people who had taken three hours or more out of their day to offer positive contributions about how the benefit system can be improved to help young people.

With the Youth Parliament sitting in the House of Commons for the first time this week, the meeting further emphasised the need of politicians to openly display keenness in listening to the views of this bright generation, and to give young people greater faith in politics.

As the group gradually dispersed it was obvious that those at the meeting had felt cast aside by the benefit system and the political system, and poorly represented by the media.

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