August 2003

My Week in the Real World

The account of a week in August 2003 in which Alan Duncan MP takes over the real life of a youth worker, and goes outward bound in Wales with eight 12-16 year olds from a tough Manchester housing estate.

Last August I found myself leaving my natural territory of Westminster and my rural constituency of Rutland and Melton to an Outward Bound course in Wales with a group of lively youngsters from a troubled estate on the edge of Manchester .

I spent a day on the Langley estate, meeting the kids before we set off to Wales together. One of my first experiences was seeing a group of young teenagers racing a stolen car around the estate whilst adults looked on from their gardens. For me this epitomises a huge problem we face today. How can it be that a group of children are so unconcerned about authority whilst the adults on the estate feel so unwilling or unable to take any action? Teenage disorder is one of the major problems facing society and as a politician I feel that it is important to try and understand the background and causes of this situation.

I was relishing the outdoor activities, but I must admit I was slightly apprehensive about how I would get on with the youngsters, and how one week's worth of filming would be edited into a one hour program. However, I think that over the week I built up a good understanding with the kids and began to see what made them tick. That a child may be an absolute tearaway but underneath he is just as vulnerable as other children his age.

I was very pleased with the way in which the BBC produced the programme. It was a fair reflection of the week, the ups and downs, including the odd bit of grumpiness from me brought on by a lack of sleep.

I think the programme was good way of communicating with ordinary viewers who might be turned off by political news TV shows, but for me it was more than that. Over the week I learnt an incredible amount and I think the youngsters learnt a huge amount too.

I don't think there are any simple answers to the problem of teenage disorder. Part of me thinks that an education system which instilled a respect for authority and discipline would have kept some of these kids on the straight and narrow. I remember extolling the virtue of ‘six of the best' and a good ‘walloping' at a few points during the programme. However, I do realise that it is more complicated than that and many of the children have missed out on meaningful parenting in its entirety and what they have lacked is support and inspiration rather than discipline.

The most important lesson I learnt during the week is that social work is important. Without the dedicated and - as I also learnt, highly skilled work - of social workers many of these children would be in a far worse situation.

The problems faced by youngsters on estates like Langley are not just due to economic poverty, but a poverty of aspiration which leaves otherwise lively and bright children feeling hopeless and tempted into drugs and criminality.

The work of projects like the Langley Youth Inclusion Project need encouragement as they do vital work in showing young people that they can aspire to something better.