Exclusive: “Young people’s voices must be heard,” Cat Smith tells Gavin Williamson

Labour’s Cat Smith has told Education Secretary Gavin Williamson that “young people’s voices must be heard” after the government failed to respond to a now three-month-old letter from youth organisations.

Leaders of Teach First, the Fair Education Alliance, Save the Children, Unicef UK, Girlguiding, the Chartered College of Teaching, and the National Association of Head Teachers wrote to the Prime Minister in May.

As part of the #iwill campaign, they penned an open letter calling on the government to hold a dedicated press conference for young people during the pandemic that would highlight their particular Covid-19 concerns.

Senior figures from more than than 80 organisations, plus over 150 of their youth representatives, requested that under-18s be allowed to submit questions to the daily press conference, which has since been scrapped.

After no response, LabourList can reveal that the shadow minister for youth affairs has told the Education Secretary in a strongly worded letter today that young people deserve “the decency of a reply”.

It comes after what Keir Starmer described as a “screeching U-turn” on exam results, which will see a controversial algorithm and Ofqual-generated grades scrapped, and teacher predictions used instead.

Commenting on her exchange with Williamson, Cat Smith said: “At every stage of this crisis, the government has disregarded efforts by young people to have their voices heard and concerns acted upon.

“The shambolic mishandling of A-level results demonstrates just how out-of-touch this government is when it comes to young people. Young people have been sounding the alarm for months about A-level results day, but the government has had its head in the sand, leaving students and families devastated last Thursday.

“If the recent A-level fiasco has taught us anything, it is that young people are best placed to inform policymakers about the most pressing areas of concern for their generation.”

Labour is also calling for the introduction of a regional opportunities guarantee as part of the government’s kickstarter scheme to ensure that “no young person is left behind simply because of where they live”.

Below is the full text of Cat Smith’s letter to Gavin Williamson.

Dear Gavin,

I am writing to you regarding the government’s failure to respond to calls from 130 youth representatives and 90 CEOs/chairs of leading organisations asking the Prime Minister to engage directly and meaningfully with young people. Organisations such as Save the Children, Unicef, and The Children’s Society, as well as youth representatives at #Iwill and My Life My Say have been waiting three months for a reply.

Given how badly the government have let down young people over recent weeks and months, I would urge you and your government to look into this issue immediately and at the very least offer these important organisations and representatives the decency of a reply and an idea of how you intend to engage with them going forward. Given the incompetency shown in the past few weeks, it is important to show that your government is prepared to listen to what young people have to say.

Unfortunately, at every stage of this crisis so far, the government have disregarded efforts from young people to have their voices heard. Whilst young people have been sounding the alarm for months over A-level results day, the government’s refusal to engage with these warnings and subsequent mishandling of the situation has left students and families devastated. Indeed, CEOs of Teach First, the Fair Education Alliance, the Chartered College of Teaching, and the General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers were signatories of the open letter, urging the Government to listen to students. But these calls were ignored, allowing young people’s future opportunities to be tarnished due to government incompetence.

In your government’s slow response to the coronavirus crisis, young people’s concerns and circumstances have been missing. Young people’s voices must be heard, and their views made central to government policy response.

We know that this generation of young people are set to be most heavily disadvantaged by the pandemic, in terms of future employment and opportunities. The Resolution Foundation found that young employees are most likely to have lost work due to furloughing, jobs losses and hours reductions. But we are yet to see any official guidance about the roll-out of the government’s Kickstart Scheme, announced over two months ago. Mounting evidence from across the youth sector demonstrates the negative impact this is having upon young people’s mental health. But ministers have done nothing to address this worrying trend. The government continue to be slow and out-of-touch with young people’s experiences and concerns.

If the recent A-Level fiasco has taught us anything, it is that young people are best placed to inform policymakers about the most pressing areas of concern for their generation. Your government must respond to these calls urgently and engage directly with young people, to prevent another devastating fiasco as we saw last week.

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours,

Cat Smith

Shadow Minister for Young People