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Services for Young People

I have said that I respect the Select Committee and that I encourage it to study youth services and anything to do with young people. In my opening remarks I said that, whatever I may like, or not, in the Committee's report, I welcome it. However, the report was about out-of-school activities for 13 to 25-year-olds. Myplace centres cater for out-of-school activities for that cohort and more; they were in place in part under the previous Government and money was secured for their expansion under this Government when the report was being prepared. Why did they not feature in the report? That is my point. Whether the Committee wanted to criticise them or be positive about them, they should have featured as another example of what the Government are trying to do, then the Committee could have said whether the Government needed to do better or to do it differently. Are we wasting £141 million? Why just talk about wasting £13.5 million on the national citizen service when we are wasting more than 10 times that—if that is the Committee's view—on Myplace?