Yob culture, young tearaways and anti social behaviour seem to have formed centrepieces of successive Queen's Speeches in recent years. Has the behaviour of young people dramatically declined as a result?

Tom Wylie:I would draw two distinctions. One is that how we talk about the young probably in time spills over to the young. So if they are invariably presented as young tearaways hanging around street corners it partly bears out the old story: give a dog a bad name and young people, especially those who are engaged and energetic, do rather resent the blanket talk of politicians which appears to cast them as young hoodlums.

It's all about the presentation of the young. You occasionally get stories in the media which portray an individual young person as a heroic figure but when the papers speak about young people in general it is almost always negative. But I wouldn't want to claim that the press and media have a direct influence because in truth young people may not often take a lot of notice. But the drip, drip, drip effect which reinforces negativity is not a good thing.

The second thing is whether the actions that government takes in the light of these generalisations have any effect on the behaviour of the young. The truth seems to be that we are still locking up a disproportionate number of our young population. Since the reoffending rate of young people who go into youth offenders institutions runs at about 80 per cent, questions have to be asked. It has to be said that I don't think a number of measures which the government has taken as part of its youth justice policy are yet paying off.

It has been revealed that the government's sport and culture scheme "Splash Extra" has led to a real cut in crime. What is your response?

Tom Wylie:Well let's see if it's sustainable. To be fair to some of the work - particularly the Youth Justice Board - it has sought to try to do more preventative work and the results of that appear to suggest you can divert some young people from criminal activity. What's not clear is whether you can do it over a long period of time.

The schemes need to be sustainable and not one off. They also need to include genuinely diversionary and exciting activities; what young people are often looking for is the buzz and the excitement. They may get an excitement from something like joy riding and having the police chase them. Just as 30 or 40 years ago they may have sought similar excitement from being chased by park attendants.

Therefore an important aspect of whatever activities go on is that they must include that excitement factor - whether they are sports, arts or drama.

A minister recently attacked the role of music and films in youth culture - provoking violence. What do you think?

Tom Wylie:Kim Howells has attacked just about everybody in this country - 'Conceptual Bullshit', the hotel trade, folk-singers in Somerset and no doubt many more. Kim risks becoming known as permanently disgruntled. Nevertheless there is something in it, there is something in the debasing of language and culture generally but what I think is dangerous is to say that all rap lyrics are of that nature when they're not. It's how you find the balance between wanting to criticise some features of our culture - in this case the rap culture - without writing off what a community or an age group sees as its music or its form of communication.

Much has been made recently about persuading more young people to vote and take an interest in politics. What should the government do to increase participation?

Tom Wylie:It should reduce the voting age to 16. If you study citizenship at a school and then are told oh well, you've learned all these things but won't be able to exercise it for several years, that is disappointing. You must remember as well that it all depends on the election cycle, some might be even be 21 before they are able to vote. A change in the voting age wouldn't mean that millions of 16 year olds will be able to vote - it all depends on when the elections are held.

Lowering the voting age would also concentrate policy makers' minds about services for young people. One of the reasons they can get away with cutting youth services and things that really matter to kids or talking about youngsters in a particular way is because they don't have the vote. So politicians aren't worried about offending them.

They need to be engaged in shaping local services as well as the high politics of national interest.

Do you think Britain's youth should carry some form of national identity card?

Tom Wylie:No, I don't . All the evidence suggests that identity cards are pretty readily made fraudulent. People think they give you protection but they don't. People will copy them and if they become a valuable resource, like mobile phones, then they will just be stolen.

Kids change and develop and I don't think they will want to be locked into a set of information about them unless it is at a very basic level. So I'm not in favour of them.

How could the government better pay attention to the needs of 13 - 19 year olds in deprived areas?

Tom Wylie:They ought to adopt a policy of listening to the young. There have been some attempts at that across different parts of Whitehall but it doesn't yet seem to be fully reflected in policy.

They are also programmes which would make a difference. These would include give disadvantaged kids the same sort of experiences which their better off contemporaries would have - like foreign travel and arts and drama - just to broaden their mind. We need lots and lots of programmes which need to be rolled out nationally backed by sustained investment. They have to be long term - not just one off.

What was your response to Ivan Lewis's announcement on Resourcing Excellent Youth Services?

Tom Wylie:I think it is a historic document. It puts more money in but, equally importantly, it puts in a new set of arrangements such as defining the standards local authorities should reach and defines what should be done to produce a more skilled workforce. Over time the implementation of all these elements will make even more difference than the money alone. I think it's a fantastic paper - the government has done a really smashing job on it.