Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr MP hopefuls give views on young people

Candidates looking for your support have been invited to share their views on a range of issues.

As part of our election coverage ahead of the poll on Thursday we asked all candidates a range of questions, with a theme based collection from all candidates below. You can also read individual answers to all the questions here on our Election 24 page, plus links to party manifesto, supplied bios for candidates and links to find out where exactly your polling station is!

Question: Young people are often an afterthought during election cycles and after years of disrupted education, including closure of youth facilities and lack of mental health support. What do you think needs to be put into place to support young people and how would you lobby for this if elected?

This is a problem that is now becoming very evident. School attendance rates are still well down compared to the rates before Covid, and mental health services are massively stretched, meaning that young people are having to wait far too long for medical assessment and any support when it comes is too late for them to rescue their lost teenage years.
Part of the problem is that for many teenagers, the current education system does not meet their needs. For many, traditional education seems out of touch with how they view the world. There need to be more options to cater for different types of learner. The Green Party advocates for there to be the option for students to opt for more vocational and practical style learning, from age 14 rather than from age 16 as at present, and this may offer some of the students that are now disengaging with education a route with more meaning and purpose.
The Welsh curriculum also offers exciting opportunities for school to be made more relevant to real life and I would encourage schools to make full use of these opportunities.

I am a young person myself, and I’m not afraid to say that I have struggled with my mental health at times, as have most people I know. In the age of social media, mental health has deteriorated even more and young people face increasing pressures over a lack of good housing, employment and life opportunities.

That is why the Liberal Democrats have proposed tripling the tax on social media companies and tech giants in the UK and ring-fencing the money raised to spend on mental health support. This would include a mental health practitioner in every single school.

We also need to recognise that we live in a rural region and mental health is often found to be worse in rural areas due to isolation. Farmers have some of the highest suicide rates of any profession and many young farmers aren’t immune from this. I would heavily support the great work done by the DPJ Foundation and others to continue to tackle this.

We also need to see more investment in youth services to help keep young people away from bad influences and to push them to secure the best future for themselves as possible.

As the only candidate who is a secondary school teacher in Wrexham, I am particularly aware of the lack of mental health support as CAHMS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) referrals can take an intolerable amount of time and whilst waiting, a young person’s mental health can deteriorate even further. In the evenings, closed youth facilities often mean that young people have nothing for them to do. Labour is committed to recruiting 8,500 more mental health staff and a new network of Young Futures Hubs.

Response – Austerity has caused havoc with youth services leading to many closing, but also leading to wider social problems. At a time when we’ve seen mental health concerns amongst young people increasing since Covid it is imperative that such services are invested in. A good example has been established recently at Camarthen where a range of services under one roof for mental health support. Such a facility needs to be established in other areas such as Wrecsam. But fundamentally we need to invest in youth services in order to make up for some of the devastating cuts that have happened in recent years.

Public facilities in Britain are woeful; not just youth facilities, but community halls and what remains of our public library system. Reform intends to restructure local government in England and Wales, properly funding youth, arts and cultural activities on a regional basis; an incredibly successful model in France. Every French ‘Department’ has a publicly-funded orchestra, and most French communes have publicly-owned youth centres and day-care facilities. Why doesn’t Britain? No other political party seems to be asking questions like these.

No response to our Q&A has been received

You can read more Q&A answers here on our Election 24 page along with more election information – remember to GO VOTE ON THURSDAY!

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