Minister warns over online obsession of young people

As PM unveils £88m package for youth clubs and schools

- KATE DEVLIN WHITEHALL EDITOR

A cabinet minister has said she is kept “awake at night” worrying about young people spending too much time alone online as the government invests millions of pounds in a bid to stop them becoming disconnected from the real world.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said they were “losing confidence in the real world” as a result - and that adults had to “step up and help before it is too late”. Sir Keir Starmer has also warned that children are “too often isolated at home” facing the challenges of the online world.

It came as the government announced an £88m package for youth clubs and schools for services like new climbing walls and music lessons in a bid to buck the “worrying” trend of young people “detached from the real world”, Downing Street said.

Ms Nandy told the BBC’s Today programme: “It keeps me awake at night. When we were first elected into government last year one of the first things that I did was to appoint a group of young people to oversee the first national youth strategy in several decades.