The Conservative party launched their manifesto on Tuesday, and at Catch22 we welcome the commitment to combat online harms and keep children safe online, and the renewed attention on fixing the criminal justice system.
Children’s rights and safety online
Catch22:
- Commit to tackling online harms, enact Online Safety Bill, ensuring children’s safety online;
- Introduce measures that prevent vaping products being marketed to young people, such as plain packaging and banning sports sponsorship.
Conservatives:
- Put guidance on banning mobile phones in the school day on a statutory footing;
- Urgently consult on introducing further parental controls over access to social media;
- Build on the existing responsibilities set out for social media companies under the Online Safety Act;
- Bring forward our landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
Youth services and violence
Catch22:
- Implement a national strategy to tackle Child Criminal Exploitation, including County Lines;
- Invest in youth workers;
- Mandate training for professionals on youth violence;
- Invest further in the presence of youth workers in communities, to ensure the impact of the National Youth Guarantee is sustained beyond 2025;
- Ensure School Exclusion Panels consult with local experts on child exploitation, ‘gangs’ and ‘serious youth violence’ before making an exclusion decision.
Conservatives:
- Legislate to create a register of children not in school.
Criminal justice and rehabilitation
Catch22:
- Focus on rehabilitation;
- Prioritise victims’ rights;
- Widen access to restorative justice services by placing it as a right in the Victim’s Code;
- Drive better outcomes for victims of fraud through an increase in police investigations and reduction in revictimisation.
Conservatives:
- Toughen up community sentencing by increasing the use of community payback and electronic tagging, so criminals pay their debt to society and communities witness justice being served;
- Ban SIM farms, which are used to send bulk messages for fraudulent texts, and ban cold calls on financial products;
- Turn criminals away from the cycle of re-offending, investing in rehabilitative services such as drug treatment, education and employment;
- Toughen sentences for knife crime, grooming gangs and assaults against retail workers,and combat the ability of serious organised crime gangs to use new technology to harm the public.
Jobs, apprenticeships, digital skills, and inclusion
Catch22:
- Publish a digital inclusion strategy and invest in ‘digital skills for work’ programmes;
- Increase the apprenticeship minimum wage;
- Increase flexibility in the apprenticeship levy so that it can be spent on pre-apprenticeship training;
- Consult on an ‘AI for good’ strategy to help build a diverse workforce, eliminate bias in hiring processes and open up job opportunities to all.
Conservatives:
- Create 100,000 more apprenticeships;
- Deliver the Lifelong Learning Entitlement.
Care experienced young people
Catch22:
- Ensure all care experienced people are made eligible for the over 25 Universal Credit rate from the age of 18;
- Introduce Corporate Parenting Responsibilities so that organisations and government service providers are expected to treat care experienced people up to the age of 25 as their own children;
- Make ‘care experience’ a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act 2010.
Conservatives:
- Support those leaving care with housing, education and employment, in addition to expanding befriending and mentoring programmes for care leavers.
We welcome the focus throughout the manifesto on helping more people to work, but beyond the extra apprenticeships announced, we are lacking in meaningful announcements that would bridge the skills gap on many job seekers’ applications and offer for the wrap-around support many need when coming out of long-term unemployment.
We welcome the reform for community sentences but would have liked to see a different attitude to tackling youth violence in a way that helps young people become productive members of their community in the long run.
Finally, there is no concrete policy offering to care for experienced people, who we know are some of the most overlooked and would benefit the most from a uniform offering across local authorities.