Lord Ashton of Hyde

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That the Bill be now read a second time.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful to the Chief Whip for introducing the Bill and almost propelling it straight to Third Reading in his enthusiasm. This is a modest Bill in size about a programme that is large in aspiration. Building on the success of NCS so far, the Bill is mainly concerned with establishing sound and transparent governance arrangements. We want to keep it focused on this defined purpose.

Like several of your Lordships, I visited NCS this summer. In the garden of a care home outside Leeds, I saw a group of young people who had never met before that summer. They came from different estates, suburbs and villages. They had united as a group, had fun and adventure and were now serving their community. I could see how that group of young people would come out of NCS better equipped for the future and how the community around the care home would have their lives enriched by their new garden. That experience was not unique to a group in Leeds. The same thing was happening to tens of thousands of young people this summer, and thousands of communities benefited.

The more young people take part across all parts of the country, the more transformative NCS can be. A maximum of four weeks long, with no cost if parents cannot afford it, NCS is accessible to everyone. In 2015, 17% of NCS participants were eligible for free school meals, compared with around 10% of that age group as a whole. Of their own accord, some young people take to Twitter and say that NCS changed their life. Those are not the words of people who have access to opportunities like this every day.

However, the real strength of the programme is that it appeals to people from all backgrounds and brings them together. They learn together, live together and form one team. The independent Ipsos MORI evaluation found that 82% of people leave the programme feeling more positive about people from different backgrounds. They also leave feeling stronger and better prepared for the future. The same evaluation showed that 83% of participants graduate from NCS feeling more capable than they had realised they were. They have seen their confidence, communication and creativity soar. They have designed their own social action project to support their community.

NCS is a programme for young people, but it is not only the young who benefit. Residents of a Weymouth care home benefited from a new sensory garden built by NCS participants. East Durham mothers and fathers of premature babies benefited from care packages prepared and distributed by NCS participants. Merseyside Huntington’s Disease Association benefited from funds raised by NCS participants. The NCS Trust estimates that in the 16 months following the summer programmes, the 2013 and 2014 graduates gave back an additional 8 million hours of volunteering to their communities.

Together these elements form the ethos of NCS: social cohesion, social mobility and social engagement. NCS is one opportunity in a broader social action journey. Up and down the country, many excellent charities and organisations offer a broad range of programmes for people before, after and alongside it. We also believe in the value of a single, unifying rite of passage for young people, and that is NCS.

The NCS Bill is short and focused. It works in conjunction with a royal charter. No single party can lay claim to NCS as many voices were involved in its development. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, sits on the board of the current body. The Government believe that the NCS Trust has the potential to become a national institution. Incorporating the NCS Trust through a royal charter sends an important message that the trust is a body beyond partisan political concerns and must continue to appeal to young people of all backgrounds. A draft of the royal charter has been published as a Command Paper and was laid in the House when the Bill was published for noble Lords to see. The Bill begins by referencing that royal charter and the functions of the NCS Trust that it describes. These functions capture, in practical terms, the heart of what NCS is here to achieve.

The NCS Trust will be a new body in a new form designed to endure, but we must not lose the expertise and experience of those who have worked in the current body. Under their stewardship, NCS has become the fastest-growing youth movement in this country for 100 years. The Bill therefore makes provision for schemes for the transfer of staff, property, rights and liabilities from the current body to the NCS Trust.

The Bill allows the Government to fund the NCS Trust out of moneys authorised by Parliament. In addition, it allows the trust to charge fees for participation at variable rates so that anyone, no matter their background, can afford to go on NCS. At present, the maximum fee is £50, but the average is less, and many participants pay no fee at all. The royal charter requires the trust to ensure equality of access to NCS for young people regardless of their background or circumstances.

As NCS has such value to the nation and is paid for by it, it is essential that the public trust it and can have confidence in the public money spent on it by the NCS Trust. The bulk of the Bill is therefore a considered series of measures to hold the NCS Trust to account for that funding. The trust must prepare annual accounts, and the National Audit Office will be its auditor. The accounts will be laid before Parliament.

At the start of each year, the trust must publish an annual business plan setting out its strategic priorities and annual objectives. At the end of the year, the trust must provide government with an annual report that will in turn be laid before Parliament. The report will set out how the trust has fulfilled its priorities and main functions, and the Bill lists a series of specific requirements that it must also address. These include the value for money of the programme and the extent to which it has mixed people from different backgrounds.

The potential for NCS to be a unifying force in a divided society is enormous. NCS can break down barriers at the very time—the transition to adulthood—that they could become entrenched. Independent evaluation found that a striking 95% of participants said that NCS gave them a chance to get to know people whom they would not normally meet.

Finally, the Bill requires the trust to notify government if a breach of contract results in serious financial consequences, a provider is in serious financial difficulty or a member of staff commits fraud. This will allow government to take rapid steps to minimise the loss of public money. The NCS Trust will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, the Equality Act and the Public Records Acts. Together, these measures will ensure that the NCS Trust works efficiently, effectively and transparently.

The other purpose of the Bill is to help more young people to hear about NCS. The Bill enables HMRC to pass on information about NCS to the young people, parents or carers whose addresses it holds. In the same way as receiving a national insurance number marks a coming of age at 16, we want this letter with an invitation to go on NCS to mark it, too. The Bill will in this way help make NCS a rite of passage for the young people of this country.

This Bill and the royal charter aim to build on the success of NCS so far and create an institution that the public respect and believe in and that is worthy of the task before it: to change lives and help tackle some of our country’s biggest social challenges. I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ views. I beg to move.

Lord Blunkett (Lab)

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My Lords, I have a declared interest in the register, mentioned by the Minister. I am grateful to him for commencing his speech today by mentioning the impact of NCS on young people and the impact of the work of young people on communities and the most vulnerable. If this Bill is worth anything, it is to embed what NCS means for young people themselves rather than the technicalities, the charter and the necessary accountability provisions that are spelt out in what is, after all, a modest measure.

I offer my support for the Bill and in doing so recognise the enormous contribution over generations that not only individual volunteers but organisations committed to full and part-time volunteering have made in providing the backcloth to the decision of the Government four years ago substantially to fund an experience of volunteering for young people around the time that they reach the end of key stage 4, and the way in which that might be embedded as part of a much broader commitment by the British nation to encouraging people to understand the value of mutuality and reciprocity. It is why I believe that there can be no political party in this House or beyond that would doubt the importance of the experience that young people will gain from National Citizen Service.

Embedding, as I know from my time in Government, is a critical feature of something surviving. I will come in a moment to the issue of one endeavour that I was involved in, namely citizenship education, but many good things foundered because there was not the commitment of subsequent Ministers or even the same Government to the initiatives started. If this Bill enables us to embed that experience for young people and then build on it, so much the better.

The antecedents are substantial. Almost 20 years ago, we commenced the initiative Millennium Volunteers, which built on a number of volunteer programmes—again, full and part-time—that already existed: Community Service Volunteers, of which I was once a member of the trust and which is now Volunteering Matters; the Prince’s Trust with its short programmes; the national Conservation Volunteers; Groundwork; and very many other initiatives that led to some subsequent government initiatives as well. I pay tribute to Dame Elisabeth Hoodless who, over her many years leading CSV, pioneered the idea of an experience for all young people and the issue of full-time service, which I know my noble friend Lady Royall will refer to in greater detail.

I want to spell out three things. First, it is critical that the National Citizen Service follows an existing pattern of commitment by young people to the idea of citizenship and commitment to others. That is why it is critical that the review the Government undertake of citizenship education and related issues takes into account the vital nature—not just for recruiting young people to NCS but for their own growth as young adults and the commitment they can make to society—of ensuring that citizenship education is reinforced. At the moment, there are real dangers. The numbers being trained to teach citizenship has fallen dramatically. The in-service continuing professional development is at risk. The question of those encouraged to take the GCSE, even though it is a core subject, has been in considerable doubt. Of course, A-level citizenship is to cease, along with a number of other A-levels over the next two years. Frankly, that requires a further look and review. The regulator and department should be much more on the ball in terms of what is happening in future.

We have the Government talking at great length about character education, as though that can be taught outside the broader experience we are debating this afternoon. Of course, we have the Prevent strategy. None of these things can possibly be seen in isolation. They are critically linked together in terms of developing that experience of giving and receiving.

When I was 16, I volunteered to go and see an old lady called Mrs Plum. I used to go every week in term time until, two years later, I was leaving the school for the blind to go back to Sheffield. I went to tell Mrs Plum that I hoped I had been some help to her over the two years. As soon as I told her I was returning to Sheffield, her response was, “Well, David, I really hope I’ve been some use to you over the past two years”. This is of course a reciprocal venture. We give and we gain. Volunteering shows that. As the Minister described, it builds the confidence, self-esteem and outward-going nature of young people. It helps develop their understanding of the world around them. It also teaches them how much value they can give to others, and what a reward that can be.

The opportunity for volunteering needs to be widened. As I said a moment ago, this should be an experience that flows from already understanding why social action matters and why Step Up To Serve, with the uniformed organisations, is important.

I pause only to make an appeal that I have made many times in my life: voluntary organisations committed to and working with young people should work together. People think that the voluntary sector, the charity sector, which I have always embraced, is full of loving people who desire to work together and want nothing more than to encourage other organisations. I wish it were true. Unfortunately, it is not. What the NCS Trust is doing is not a threat to other organisations, uniformed or otherwise; it is an opportunity for them to work together. The NCS Trust needs to learn more about how to work collaboratively, but so do many other organisations, because this can be a win-win if people are prepared to commit in that way. So what comes after the National Citizen Service, as well as what went before it, is absolutely critical to success.

I hope we will be able to build on this with whatever review the Government feel is appropriate. If it is not going to be a commission, I hope it will be a serious review of how we can make this work for every young person and expand the experience in terms of what they gain from the NCS: the four weeks, including the residential; mixing with young people from very different backgrounds, which the Minister mentioned; and the way in which social action is encouraged and young people are thereby enabled to understand the impact that they have on others. I hope also that it will encourage full-time opportunities, perhaps leading to a year of service. No doubt my noble friend will refer to this.

I need to put some questions to the Minister. This is an exploratory endeavour in which we are on a journey together, and putting the quality of outcome before numerical targets is essential. My own Government, including in the eight years I was in Cabinet, were bedevilled by setting targets and if we did not meet them it looked like failure. The present Government do it with inward migration. It does not matter how well you do, if you set an impossible target you will always fail to achieve it, with the consequence that people believe that you have not achieved the outcome. In this case, the outcome is the experience gained by young people. Therefore, the 92,000 who were on National Citizen Service this year is a phenomenal achievement in the time it has taken to build that outcome measure. My first request is: please do not set targets that are impossible to meet and result in diluting the brand and undermining confidence in it.

My second question concerns the transition. The Minister mentioned this, but in mechanistic terms. There has to be a commitment to transition from the existing board to the oversight under the new arrangements. Please let there be time to do that. If not, there will be a dislocation in that transition process which will be damaging to young people.

Thirdly, please reinforce again and again that this is going to be independent of government. It cannot be a non-departmental public body. Young people do not like government schemes. It is just a fact. If we have not learned it bitterly over the past 40 years, starting with the youth training programmes, we might learn it now. Maximum independence, with proper oversight and accountability, is essential. I understand oversight and accountability. I understand that the Government have had their fingers burned in recent years with large sums of public money, which have to be accounted for and must be used wisely. But let us try to get the balance right. Control-freakery is not a feature of an individual Government; it is built into the psyche of government processes and procedures.

Finally, can we make sure that the transition includes independent scrutiny of who is appointed? It is my view, and that of the National Citizen Service Trust, that it would be entirely wrong to have a formal government or opposition appointee on the board. Obviously, the chair is appointed through government but the board should be appointed openly through normal public service recruitment programmes and should be seen to be independent. The board should not be paid. Those of us who serve on the board currently would be horrified to think that we were receiving funding for doing the job. I want to pay tribute to Stephen Greene, the present chairman, who has freely and readily given the most enormous amount of time to getting NCS off the ground and making it work. He is committed to the future.

We no longer have a duty on public bodies in the Bill; the original draft did. I hope that there will be an entitlement built in so that schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities will not feel that this is an imposition, but will take on board the idea of an entitlement for young people to feel that this is something that builds a generation for the future. I believe that we can do it together if the Government are prepared to listen to any sensible suggestions made during the passage of the Bill to enhance its support and its impact. If these suggestions are helpful, so much the better.

I know that this afternoon, those who speak will do so from the heart, because all of us, from all parties, care deeply that we create a nation with a commitment to giving to each other, to opening up civil society and democracy, and to making sure that what we do for young people is more than simply teaching them the basics, but teaching them the foundation for life. That is why I am prepared to give my wholehearted support to seeing the National Citizen Service, along with its partners, succeed in the future.

Baroness Barker (LD)

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My Lords, I regret that I have to begin with an apology. For the first time ever in my time in your Lordships’ House, I will not be able to be here for the end of the debate. I apologise for that: it is the first time that has happened, and I really hope it will be the last.

I asked to speak today because there are a number of points that I feel have to be made. This is an intriguing Bill, one that sets a challenge for your Lordships’ House. I say that because the fact that the National Citizen Service provides young people with a great opportunity to meet new people, try new activities and develop skills and confidence at the critical age of 16 or 17 is not up for debate. However, pretty well everything else in this Bill should be.

The decision to spend £l billion on one project at a time when public services for young people are being decimated is a political decision that the Government will have to take and will have to defend. No doubt they can do that. There is a much more fundamental question, however, to which this House needs to have an answer. Why is such a large amount of money being given to a single organisation that has a comparatively weak track record in the field? The Minister will no doubt point to the fact that the Cabinet Office spent a considerable amount of money—I wish he would tell us how much—on commissioning surveys into the effectiveness of NCS. I urge your Lordships to read the survey report that has been produced by Ipsos MORI. It is a very extensive and elaborate evaluation and produces some excellent statistics. In particular, the cost-benefit analysis that it provides is exceptional. It points out that for every pound spent on the scheme, between £1.25 and £4.65 of benefits accrue from it. That is impressive stuff, and any charity or voluntary organisation would be happy beyond measure to have those sorts of data at their fingertips.

There is, however, one big flaw in that evaluation. It was not a comparative evaluation: it sheds no light on the question of whether this service could be delivered more effectively and efficiently by anybody else. It does not do that because the question was never asked. To go from the state in which the NCS has been over the past few years, with exceptional government support, to a huge infusion of funds on the basis of some flawed research is really quite dangerous. It falls to your Lordships’ House to do the due diligence on this proposal, which has not been done by the Government so far.

I have not been able to find the audited accounts of the National Citizen Service; I am sure they exist but they are not available on the organisation’s website. Will the Minister ensure that a copy is available to Members of your Lordships’ House along with the organisation’s annual report? According to the last available audited accounts, roughly what was the income of the NCS, what was its rough expenditure and what level of free reserves did it have at the time of audit? I ask that because it is important information for your Lordships to know before we invest this amount of money into the organisation.

While I could not find out as much as I wanted about the NCS, I looked in some detail at the work of its biggest delivery partner, The Challenge Network. I did so because it sent me a briefing, as it probably did to other noble Lords. This charity was set up in 2009 with five employees; today it has 700 staff, an income of £53 million—£47 million of which comes from the NCS—and it has free reserves of £9 million. In a period when hundreds of charities have either merged or closed altogether, this one has had a charmed existence. However, as demonstrated by its annual report, particularly its accounts, it is almost wholly dependent on central government for its funding. So we have a proposal to invest a lot of money in the NCS when its biggest delivery partner is similarly reliant on continued central government funding. We have a duty to examine that in some detail because I am not convinced that it is a recipe for sustainability.

Unsurprisingly, other organisations in the voluntary sector have raised questions about this huge investment into one particular organisation. They have done so because they can see that in these straitened times it is not so much a competitor as a game-changer in terms of its impact on local volunteering. Here I pick up the points made by the NCVO when it asked that the NCS should have a duty upon it to have further and better collaboration within the voluntary sector. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, about the mythical view of the voluntary sector as a place where sweetness and light reign: my own personal experience is that in the voluntary sector people do not stab you in the back simply because it is quicker and easier to stab you in the front and they have the moral authority to do so.

Given that there is likely to be a significant reduction in money for volunteering, particularly from local authorities, we need to ensure that if this is going to be the big volunteering game in town then it is done in full collaboration with, particularly, local organisations and small organisations. The briefing from The Challenge Network prayed in aid the fact that results could be achieved only by big organisations that had the economies of scale to deliver them. What ought to be running through people’s heads when they read phrases like that is the Work Programme, under which investment that was promised for small voluntary organisations did not happen and big suppliers like A4E were found wanting.

Great claims have been made for the National Citizen Service. It claims to be unique in its extent and reach with young people from all sections of society. Members of your Lordships’ House who are also Members of the Select Committee on Charities would have heard the Church Urban Fund making similar claims last week. We therefore need to interrogate the uniqueness of the claims made by NCS and its backers.

In introducing the Bill at a meeting with Peers yesterday, the Minister said this Bill is intended to make NCS more sustainable and accountable “if it receives more public money”. That seems to lie behind the decision to make it a royal charter body. It is intriguing that the Government have chosen the most cumbersome governing structure possible. Other royal charter bodies often talk about just how difficult it is to make even minor changes to their governing documents because they have to get Privy Council approval. No doubt, the Minister will say that the Government are doing a belt-and-braces job. It looks a lot more like belt-and-braces and a load of cement. We have to consider whether this is the best treatment and why this organisation is being treated in such an exceptional way.

Charities and voluntary organisations are under great pressure to prove their efficacy and efficiency. They have to compete for funds, deliver contracts and prove their worth to funders. It is right and proper that they should. In those circumstances, this decision to treat this organisation on exceptional, favourable terms must be questioned. We have seen what happens when Government become enthralled by a particular organisation, such as Kids Company or A4e. When £l billion is at stake we really should not allow such a mistake to happen again. I look forward to receiving answers from the Minister in due course and to detailed consideration of this Bill in Committee.

Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)

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My Lords, I am glad to have the chance to speak in this important debate. I was involved early on in the life of NCS. When David Cameron appointed me Minister of the Cabinet Office in 2010, straight after the general election, he said: “Oh, and by the way, you’ll have responsibility for implementing National Citizen Service”. Knowing as I did that this was very much his personal vision, personal idea and pet scheme, it was perhaps not the most reassuring task to be given. I am hugely grateful to my colleague Nick Hurd, who was my deputy in the Cabinet Office and who very personally, in a very hands-on way, took responsibility for making this vision a reality. It was a huge privilege and responsibility for us both to take this through. It was designed and conceived as a rite of passage for young people from childhood to adulthood. It took them out of their comfort zone. It brought young people together from all backgrounds; it was of the essence that there was a social mix and that this was a process of young people getting to know people they would not have otherwise come across.

I urge your Lordships, if you have the chance next summer, to go and visit some of these schemes and talk to the young people, because you will hear some incredibly moving stories. I visited many schemes over this period and talked to hundreds of participants, and a couple of stories stick with me. I asked a young Afro-Caribbean girl from south London what she was getting out of it and she said: “It is often said older people don’t understand young people. What you don’t understand is that young people often don’t understand each other”. She also said: “I have spent time in this scheme with young people I would have thought came from another planet and yet I find we have the same interests, the same concerns, the same anxieties and the same kind of aspirations”. The story that that told me of the social cohesion that can come out of the small-scale stories here was powerful.

I also recall a young man in one of the schemes in Yorkshire. I asked him what he was getting out of it and he said—this has always stayed with me—“I always thought I wasn’t very likeable and yet I have come here in a different context, out of school, out of the existing relationships, put in with a lot of other young people who I didn’t know, and I have made friends in a way I wouldn’t have made friends before”.

If you talk to the staff, they will all say that in the short weeks that the NCS scheme takes, you can see almost before your eyes young people maturing, growing and becoming bigger people. That is incredibly powerful and moving. When you talk to the young people and ask them what they are getting out of it, they will all talk about getting more confidence; they are becoming more confident. The reality is that there is a social and economic payback from the scheme. Some of it is short term, for sure, but some of it will be much longer term. You get young people who know themselves better, know each other better and therefore know their country better; who are more likely to be ready for work and employable when they leave school; and for whom social action is much more likely to have become a habit.

I am delighted that the Bill is making the scheme permanent. That is really important. I give credit to Members in other parties who have embraced the scheme. When the scheme was very much the personal vision of one Prime Minister from one party, it would have been easy for other parties to want to stay clear of it and for a potential different Government to want to change it. I pay particular credit to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for the part he played in gaining wider support for it across the parties.

The Bill makes the scheme a permanent feature of the landscape of our nation, and that is extremely good news. I have one or two issues with it. I think it is fair to say that the journey from 2010 to here was not always easy. At the beginning, officials wanted us to issue a White Paper. That is normally the response of civil servants—I say that with a little trepidation, a few feet away from the former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. We resisted a White Paper: we did not want it to be set in stone, we wanted to get on and do it, try new ways of doing things, see what worked and develop it on that basis. That has been the approach all the way through, and it will be incredibly important in the years ahead that it does not become set in stone; the new trust must want to innovate.

In the early days, many of the existing youth organisations rather resented what we were doing. They thought it was distracting money from supporting their organisations. Then, when we had resisted that, some of them tried to persuade us to badge what they were already doing as NCS. I remember several of them coming to say, “We do something pretty close to this, so why can’t we just get the credit and the money for it?”. We said, “No, this is distinctive, new, doing something genuinely different from any other scheme”. It was important that we were rigorous in insisting that it remained different.

Then, when it became too big for it sensibly to be managed in-house by our brilliant team in the Cabinet Office, we were urged to create a quango. I so strongly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said: that it must not become an NDPB—or whatever the initials are. We resisted that; we insisted that the NCS trust should be genuinely independent of government. Obviously, we were going to take a very close interest in it, because it was disbursing very large amounts of public money, but I believe that it was right for it to be wholly independent from government.

We faced the same argument when we were setting up Big Society Capital, the world’s first social investment bank, taking money from dormant bank and building society accounts and putting it into a social investment bank to support social enterprises and charities. This was the brainchild of Sir Ronald Cohen. The previous Labour Government had planned that it should be a quango, but again we insisted that it should be totally independent from government and unrestrained by the sense that the Government were always looking over its shoulder.

The royal charter approach gives it permanence, which is important and a clear positive. The danger is that the independence becomes imperilled. I do not think I have heard the phrase arm’s-length body here but when that phrase is used it is normally meant to convey the sense that it is at a distance from government —but as we know, of course, at the end of an arm is a hand, and the hand can be used to hold and control the body. That must not be the case with this new entity.

Of course I understand the need for accountability with very large amounts of money. I do not think that I am open to accusations of being cavalier about public money. The work I led in the Cabinet Office in the last Government saved the taxpayer more than £50 billion accumulatively, so I take the responsibility for public money pretty seriously. However, it has often occurred to me that the Civil Service is often much more interested in scrutinising to death how others spend public money, rather than in how government itself spends money. We need to beware of the danger of creating accountability to the extent that it inhibits the entrepreneurialism which is important here.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on the appointments. I would go further than he did and say that the Government should not even be appointing the chair of this body. Yes, the chair should be subject to approval by the Government. I agree with the noble Lord that Stephen Greene, the current chair of the NCS Trust, has been brilliant. He is entrepreneurial, passionate and knowledgeable; he has devoted a huge amount of time and energy to making this work. However, he is unconventional, and frankly I doubt whether he would have survived going through the often tortuous process of the public appointments morass that we often struggled with.

I support the Bill but I hope we can explore in Committee how it can be less of an arm’s-length body and more of a body that is located at least one step away from government so that the Government can intervene—that is obviously necessary with this amount of money being spent—but not day by day, week by week or month by month. It should be at a distance where, to intervene, the Government have to do something proactive so that this is not routine control. It needs to be an event out of the ordinary that prompts intervention by the Government. I hope we can explore that as we take this important Bill forward.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)

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My Lords, it is a pleasure to support this Bill but of course it needs and deserves proper scrutiny and proper amendment in due course.

At the start, I have to associate myself with everything my noble friend Lord Blunkett said about citizenship lessons, which I believe are critical for the well-being of our civic society. I trust that the Government will not only do more but will review the present lamentable situation. I am grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to the Bill. I am a great supporter of volunteering for people of all ages. It is good for the volunteers, for the people whom they serve and for society as a whole. However, my one concern at this time of financial constraint, including in vital local authority services, is that volunteers are increasingly required to fulfil rules that should be undertaken by public services. However, this is not the case with young people and it is not the case with the NCS.

Sitting on the Labour Benches, I am of course partisan but I warmly welcome the initiative taken by David Cameron in establishing the NCS and enabling it to grow over the last four or five years. It is a tribute to Michael Lynas, who does a fine job as the chief executive officer of the trust and his team that the trust has successfully grown and retained the support of all political parties. That must and will continue. I also pay tribute to the fantastic volunteering organisations up and down the land that work with young people.

As we have heard, and as the charter makes clear, the raison d’etre of the NCS is to promote social cohesion, social engagement and social mobility, to boost the confidence and resilience of young people—and that is exactly what it does. I have to admit that, when I was first introduced to the NCS, I was sceptical and I assumed that like many other projects, it would be dominated by middle-class youngsters whose parents knew how to get the best out of the system for their children. However, my fears were assuaged when I talked to graduates, who told me of their fantastic experiences, spending time with people who in their daily lives they would never come across, because so many of us live in ghettos, rarely meeting people whose lives are different due to class, race, religion or disability. I now know that is one of the great strengths of the NCS—bringing people together, breaking down barriers and enabling them to establish lasting networks. It has also enhanced participation in civic society, encouraging young people to take an interest in debate on matters of local or national interest—working with Bite the Ballot, for example, to promote their understanding of how to participate in national and local elections, thus empowering them.

The Prime Minister, Mrs May, has talked much about social mobility, which is encouraging, but it should not be thought that the expansion of NCS was a silver bullet. It is but one tool—albeit a very necessary one—in the tool box. While the NCS has my strong support, and I welcome this Bill, it is in my view not ambitious enough. While not undermining the NCS in any way, it could do so much more to sustain the sector and embed the concept of volunteering in our society. When a young person has volunteered, they are not only more able to meet the challenges of future life, they also enhance their employability. I have spoken to several large employers of late, who say that when considering the CVs of young people applying for apprenticeships, graduate training or other employment, more and more weight is given to the social action that they have undertaken. That is why it has become more and more important to ensure that all young people, including especially the hard to reach, can take up the opportunities to volunteer. I know that this is the intention of the NCS, but it is not explicit in either the Bill or charter, and reaching the hard to reach requires intensive action and funding. We should therefore table an amendment making specific reference to attracting the hardest-to-reach young people. There are some NCS projects relating to hard to reach and, if they are successful, I suggest that some of the funds should be ring-fenced for this specific purpose.

Social cohesion is one of the key principles of NCS. The experience and result of the Brexit referendum laid bare the depths of the divisions in our society. It will take time to heal those divisions, and working with young people is critical to foster understanding and inclusion. One group of youngsters in desperate need of understanding and inclusion are the refugees recently arrived, and still arriving, from Calais. If they could be included in NCS programmes when most appropriate for them, but as a priority, it would be fantastic for them but also for their fellow participants. I hope that the Minister would agree that we ask NCS to take this forward. I firmly believe that NCS should not be seen or act in isolation. It should be part of the journey mentioned by the Minister—and here I declare an interest as a member of the advisory council of Step up to Serve, and a trustee of City Year. Individuals and society benefit most when a young person’s journey is coherent and cohesive with social actions of many kinds, from primary school through to their 20s, from Step up to Serve, which promotes social action from the age of 10, to City Year and Volunteering Matters, which provide full-time volunteering opportunities for young adults.

NCS provision, while invaluable, must not be at the expense of other interventions and experiences of social action. What can and will be done to ensure that the grant funding for NCS will not dramatically change the ecosystem of youth social action, which includes so many excellent organisations? It is also extremely important that the funding committed to run NCS should not be at the expense of local services for young people. All noble Lords will be aware that councils have had to make difficult decisions to protect statutory services that support the most vulnerable children and young people, and local spending on youth services has fallen by an estimated £370 million since April 2010. It is essential that councils, which know the needs of their communities, should also be able to provide services, and I would be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that this will be the case.

The Minister, the sector and the NCS Trust have all said that the investment in NCS should help the wider youth social action journey, pre- and post-NCS. Will the noble Lord confirm that this is still the Government’s intent? If so, will they consider an amendment to both the draft Bill and the charter to establish a further objective of the NCS Trust along the lines of supporting, and not undermining, existing provision that contributes to a coherent youth social action journey? This would ensure that NCS governance and decision-making truly understood how its resources and presence supported the wider journey, ultimately making it more likely that the substantial public investment in the trust went further in supporting young people and, importantly, gave confidence to the wider sector. It would also give permission for NCS to promote other opportunities more substantially and even invest in them.

As has been said, NCS represents a very large investment of public money. It is welcome that the Bill establishes scrutiny measures around value for money, but does the Minister agree that questions about value for money can be answered only in the context of other youth provision that contributes to the stated outcomes of NCS, and that this should be included in the welcome annual report to Parliament? Related to this, we should table amendments on reporting to ensure, for example, that NCS has to state how many young people have begun their journey with other social action organisations and how many people have gone on to further social action or volunteering opportunities. We would then have a clearer view of the journey and could act if necessary.

I am glad that the Bill states that the NCS must report on the quality of the programmes provided or arranged by the trust, but it gives no indication as to how quality should be judged. I would be grateful for clarification from the Minister on whether there will there be specific criteria or a peer-led assessment. The continued success of NCS will depend to a large extent on evidence of the change that it is bringing about in society—in the improvement that it makes to the lives of our young people. My noble friend mentioned outcomes and their measurement. I suggest that the Government should commission a longitudinal impact study on the life outcomes of graduates so that in future we will have hard evidence of its success.

The charter will, as intended, help the NCS Trust demonstrate its independence from government and party politics, although we should be under no illusion about the ease with which a charter can be amended by a Government working through the Privy Council with no proper scrutiny. In parenthesis, I very much regret that there was no consultation with the sector on the contents of the charter. I welcome the fact that both the Bill and the charter provide flexibility for the trust in delivering its objectives. As many in the sector know, my own view is that young people should be required to give back more in terms of volunteering after they have graduated and following the considerable investment by society. This is not just a matter for NCS; it is a matter for wider society, which should provide quality volunteering opportunities and leadership. There are so many tasks to be fulfilled which could improve and enhance our communities and, while there are many excellent voluntary organisations, sometimes the leadership is lacking—perhaps understandably, given our busy lives and daily treadmills. I hope, however, that, working in partnership with councils and local voluntary organisations, NCS will be able to ensure that there is a commitment to local volunteering that goes way beyond the short-term confines of the scheme.

Finally, I turn to City Year, our campaign for a legal status for full-time volunteers in the UK, and the opportunity wasted by not including this, or even the concept of a year of service, in the Bill before us. NCS is an important part of a mosaic of volunteering opportunities and it cannot thrive in a vacuum: it must be part of the journey. It is vital, more than ever, to give the next generation the chance to play their part in shaping our country, and themselves, through service to others and NCS must not be the end of those opportunities to serve. That is exactly what City Year does. It recruits young people to give a year of service, working in schools in high-poverty communities to bridge the gap between what pupils actually need and what their schools are designed and resourced to provide. It changes the lives of students in the schools and it changes the lives of the young people who serve. It transforms lives and it also changes the outcomes of schools in the most disadvantaged areas. It is a win-win-win situation and we want to expand. Society needs us to expand for social and economic reasons, but there is a problem—a barrier.

While City Year UK and Volunteering Matters are set up to provide full-time volunteering opportunities, and other charities such as the excellent Scout Association, vinspired and Mayday Trust use full-time volunteers as part of their wider work, the volunteers have no legal status.

This means that full-time volunteers are defined as NEETs—not in education, employment or training. Not only does this make the young people feel they are part of the problem when they should be—and are—part of the solution, it means that they are not entitled to national insurance contributions, which would protect their pension contributions. Full-time volunteers can be given expenses by their charity, but charities are forbidden from paying expenses if the volunteer is ill. Volunteers are also forbidden from receiving personal development training or help from the charity they serve when they look for jobs at the end of their programme.

This is clearly a crazy situation. In America, France and Germany full-time volunteering—referred to as “service”—has a legal status, and engages not hundreds but hundreds of thousands of young people every year. Those Governments provide awards, such as discounts on university fees, for participants, who also get cards that give them the discounts for trains and cinemas that students enjoy. Their experience comes with a respected government-endorsed brand, and they are sought after by employers keen to hire young people with maturity and real-world experience.

I am passionate about a year of service, and the need for recognition by the Government in terms of a legal status grows by the day. City Year UK currently works in education, but there is so much more we could do in health and social care, in environmental protection and in heritage. As the evidence from the wonderful AmeriCorps programmes demonstrates, young people undertaking a year of service do not take the places of full or part-time employees. Trade unions, public services and business all recognise that they provide added value. That is exactly what we need in this country. We have a crisis in social services, some of it due to isolation and loneliness; when we suffer an environmental crisis, such as a flood, there are seldom enough people to provide immediate help and support for citizens and the emergency services. So much more could and should be done, in addition to the extraordinary work by City Year in schools.

There are rumours that the Government are going to set up a commission to look at the concept of a year of service and the introduction of a legal status. I ask the Minister: will this become a reality, and if so when? Why was it not included in this important but rather sparse Bill? With those questions I will finish, reiterating my strong support for NCS and this Bill. I have no doubt that the Minister is in listening mode, and I hope that in Committee the Government will both accept amendments and come forward with their own amendments to address some of the issues raised today.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)

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My Lords, I join in the thanks to the Minister for introducing this short but important Bill. In doing so, I declare an interest as a member of the advisory council of NCVO. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have spent most of the past 30 years in various forms of public service, and in different ways, most of the people I know are also involved: they are active in their communities and they volunteer. I think that we would all agree that our lives are enriched by that experience. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is right to say that the benefits of public service work both ways. So if the creation of NCS opens that sort of opportunity for more of our young people, that is, of course, to be heartily welcomed.

However, this large project, serving some 300,000 young people, will come at a cost of £1 billion in the forthcoming five years. That is not a reason not to do it, but it is a reason why we should look very carefully at all aspects of the scheme—starting, of course, with the legislation that establishes it. Having set budgets in local authorities for some years, I am always acutely aware that expenditure on one thing means that you do not have that money to spend on something else, so it is simply not good enough to say we should do something because it is a good thing to do; the question is whether it is the best thing we can do. In its briefing, the LGA points out that this investment is being made at a time when most local authorities have spent the past few years cutting services under their youth budgets because of cuts in their own financial settlements, and we have heard from my noble friend Lady Barker about the quite stringent conditions under which many charities are operating.

It is interesting that there has been quite a sea change in the past few years in that more young people are volunteering. I have seen reports that there has been a 52% rise in youth volunteering. To some extent, social media and online tools make certain sorts of voluntary engagement easier than they have ever been. For that reason, it is important for this scheme to have a relentless focus on those who are hard to reach or disadvantaged through poverty, disability, dysfunctional family lives and so on because they are the ones who potentially have the most to gain. For people with serious disadvantage, a cost of £50 is a big hurdle, so I was pleased to hear the Minister comment on ways of making that affordable. That should be one of the key indicators when Parliament carries out its scrutiny.

The National Deaf Children’s Society raised very important points about the cost of delivering the programme to young people with particular needs, such as British sign language interpreters or speech-to-text reporting. It is currently left to NCS providers to meet the cost of supporting disabled young people, and they are concerned that this funding will not be forthcoming. I am sure that similar issues would arise with visually impaired young people and those with other disabilities. I have a close family member dealing with ME. I hope that there will be enough flexibility in the scheme to manage those sorts of difficult intermittent conditions.

It is very important that we focus on how this scheme is to be promoted within hard-to-reach groups. I am a bit concerned about the emphasis being put on mailings from HMRC to promote it as that seems rather dependent on parents receiving mailings and then acting on them. In dysfunctional families, this may very well not happen, and those who need it most may be passed by.

I was also very taken with the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that young people do not like government schemes. If they do not like government schemes generally, something coming from HMRC might be particularly problematic for them. I know that there are wonderful people in HMRC—indeed, I am married to someone who works for HMRC—but there is a question about the tone of that very first engagement coming from HMRC. It also seems odd that in a scheme designed to transition young people into adulthood, the first engagement is through their parents. I am not entirely sure that we have got that right. I know that local authorities have fought very shy of becoming too closely involved with this, but they certainly need to be involved in a whole range of ways. I also wonder whether there is an opportunity to work with local authorities on voter registration in the context of this scheme because it seems to me that a great part of becoming a citizen later in life is to vote when you have the opportunity.

To a large extent the success of this scheme will depend on the providers, so I have been interested to hear from a whole range of people who have been involved so far as well as from NCVO and other parties. While there are some areas of disagreement, they are not significant and there is widespread consensus on a number of things. The first is that the scheme must sit firmly within the context of the whole of a young person’s life from the age of five to 25 and not be about just this brief period. Secondly, we need to ensure that the whole experience is of high quality and, as Justin Davis Smith, formerly of NCVO, put it, that the programme becomes the,

“must-do choice for young people”.

I think that is right.

Thirdly, the programme needs to sit within the wider volunteering system and make effective use of the knowledge and expertise of specialist charities, social enterprises and providers, especially in their localities. The scale of this programme could mean that smaller providers get frozen out of the commissioning process, as is often the case. The social action part of the programme should be not just a one-off but the start of a long-term involvement with volunteering and social action. However, finding meaningful voluntary activity is not always easy. Voluntary organisations themselves need more resources to manage an influx of volunteers; without them young people either cannot participate or will receive a poorer quality experience as volunteers. Fourthly, partner organisations need to be effectively and adequately resourced. One of the existing providers, The Challenge, explained how it provides personal coaches for young people who have been involved with the criminal justice system or who have been in care. This is almost certainly effective, but, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, it is very expensive.

The Bill also makes a number of provisions to make the NCS Trust accountable to Parliament and the public, which is welcome. We have to acknowledge and, perhaps in later stages of the Bill, think about how we manage the tension between the sort of independence which the noble Lord, Lord Maude, talked about and the need to manage a very large sum of taxpayers’ money. I got slightly nervous at the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, about the morass of public appointments. As boring as process sometimes might be, it usually ensures that you get a solid outcome in which people can have trust. With Kids Company we saw what happens when you have exuberant, charismatic leadership. It does not necessarily work well. We need to learn those lessons.

Conventional reporting—the annual report, the accounts and so on—can be of limited use. Charities now quite rightly focus on the impact they have, and NCS reporting should be exactly the same. Some of it will be qualitative, drawn on the experience of participants, but given this amount of public money, I expect to see a lot of data about the numbers of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, those who complete the programme rather just start it and those with disabilities. Over time, I expect some outcomes with regard to those who remain involved with voluntary service and to whether there have been impacts on employment, reductions in crime and so on, both on a personal level and in aggregate.

It is no longer good enough for something to mean well; we have to get it right. I cannot put it better than the youth social action charity City Year UK. In its briefing it said that it is vital, now more than ever, to give the next generation the chance to play their part in shaping our country and themselves through service to others and that NCS at 16 should be the beginning and not the end of those opportunities to serve.

Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)

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My Lords, I draw your attention to my entry in the register of interests, and I add my apologies to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, because we need to get to our Select Committee. We have permission to leave—it is all perfectly legitimate.

I give the Bill my full support and, like the Bill, I will be short but focused in my remarks. The opportunity for young people to participate in activities which help them with their personal skills development and give opportunities to engage in teams to deliver positive community projects can only be for their and our good. It is also an opportunity for communities to see first-hand the abilities and contribution that young people can make. So often, communities have a poor perception of young people, and young people certainly have a poor perception of the communities in which they live. Sometimes these thoughts are justified on both fronts. NCS also gives young people from a wide range of backgrounds and abilities the opportunity to work together for the common good, which we sometimes lack in our society.

While I have no personal experience of the NCS programme, I have real-life experience of the way in which people are brought together by working on such projects. In his introduction, the Minister referred to organisations which had benefited from the activity of NCS, but let me talk about some of the benefits to young people from working on such projects.

One was in Glasgow, where young people who one might say were the most disadvantaged were challenged to work with a local church to paint the railings that surrounded the church and its land. It is fair to say that that had not been done for a number of years if not a decade, so it was no small feat. To start with, the church and community members were pretty suspicious and on edge, but as time went on they could see the difference that the young people were making to the church and they started to engage with them. They started to talk to them and thank them for what they were doing, and before long those wonderful members of the community who could cook were baking things for them, bringing them refreshments and talking to them. The young people could not believe their luck. The most important thing was that members of the community started to understand the personal circumstances of these young people and could appreciate why some of them had behaved in certain ways in the past. One young lad of 16 was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. When he started to share that fact with some of the people in the community whom he had run ragged, their attitude started to mellow somewhat. If that is the type of change that NCS produces, it will be doing a great thing.

That leads me to another important point, which has already been mentioned. NCS must put all its efforts into those who are most socially excluded and who need every ounce of support in taking their rightful place in society. I have been grateful to receive a number of briefings on the Bill. One is from The Challenge, which is delivering NCS. It says that for a programme to have integration at its heart, it must include the hardest-to-reach young people. I agree with its recommendation that special attention should be paid to attracting the hardest-to-reach young people, and perhaps the Minister can give us an assurance that that will be the focus of the programme.

Building on that, I can see how much it means to young people to have the opportunity to take part in NCS, but what do they do when this short programme has finished? How will all their aspirations and hopes be taken forward, and what will be next for them? Will the programme be in danger of becoming a distant memory? It is a bit like the Grand Old Duke of York:

“He marched them up to the top of the hill,

… when they were up, they were up,

And when they were down, they were down”.

I do not know about your Lordships, but when you go on school trips with your contemporaries, you do things and feel absolutely wonderful, but then you have to go home and there is nothing there. I hope that this programme will be the start of a journey and that the young people who have coaches and mentoring on this short programme will continue to have them. I have said this before and I will say it again: if it were down to me, I would give every young person of 16 a coach until they reach the age of 18 or 19 to make sure that they maximise all the opportunities and reach a good destination on their journey. The point I am trying to make here is best captured in the briefing that I received from the NCVO. It says that NCS should be an entry point—a staging-post on a longer journey of social action and volunteering. It says that this should be the start and not the finish. I understand that some longer-term projects have been piloted and I would be interested to know from the Minister how these have gone.

I am not a great lover of bureaucracy in any sense, but I believe that it is in everybody’s interests that NCS keeps good, solid destination data, to which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred. It should be a question not of saying, “I’m going to measure this because X number of people have been through it”, but of saying, “X number of people have been through it and this is where they are now”. Those who are doing well will need all the encouragement they can get, and those who need extra nudging will need somebody there to help them. So I believe that proper data collection and analysis of these young people is of paramount importance. Again, perhaps the Minister can confirm that this will be done. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, referred to the quality of outcomes, not the volume of inputs, and that is absolutely critical.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for raising the points that she did—she was very brave. I know that it is very easy to say what is good, but I think it is right that we understand how the sector will feel about a large sum of money. However, I am certain we will ensure that the Bill will mean that young people get the best possible experiences. I hope that any young person embarking on NCS will see it as a first step on an exciting journey. I hope that we will have the route well planned and well resourced, and that the quality of support will be of the highest standard.

I can sense noble Lords’ interest in the next part of our proceedings on airport expansion. It is palpable, and I do not wish to stop them hearing about that. I will just say that these young people are just as important as how and where airport expansion takes place. Every time noble Lords hear the word “Heathrow”, which I am sure will be often, I ask them to think about the young people to whom this Bill relates.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)

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My Lords, we return to the relative calm of the Second Reading debate on the National Citizen Service Bill. I add my thanks to my noble friend for introducing the Bill. I am very happy to support it. It is, as he said, a slim Bill. Nevertheless, it has the very important strategic objective of encouraging and strengthening the development of the National Citizen Service.

Many Members of your Lordships’ House will know of the reports that I have undertaken for the Government on the various impacts of the charity and voluntary sectors. That work has revealed to me just how much we remain a country of silos—silos of geography, race, religion, educational background and economic position. We need to do all we can to break down these silos to create a society that is, as far as possible, sympathetic, open-minded, non-judgmental and that has a greater understanding of our fellow citizens whose lives and circumstances may be very different from our own. This Bill can play an important part in that process.

A focus on social cohesion is, of course, always important in a modern, pluralistic liberal democracy—but it will be of particular importance over the next 25 years. I identify three trends in particular that I think will challenge our society. First, during this period, western Europe and north America will be in a slower-moving part of the economic stream. It is nothing to do with Brexit; it is to do with the ineluctable shift of wealth from the west to the east and the fact that India, China and south-east Asia are the rising economic powers. So our fellow countrymen will probably have to accept little or possibly no increase in their individual wealth while these other countries, which hitherto we have regarded as less well-off than ourselves, begin to forge ahead. This may be uncomfortable for some of us.

The second trend is the next stage in the industrial revolution: the changes that will be brought about by artificial intelligence and robotics. These developments will likely sweep away thousands of middle-income, clerical and administrative jobs—the jobs of people who hitherto have not felt any concern about their economic security. If the experts on this trend are right, unlike earlier phases, this trend will destroy jobs, not create them. That, too, may be uncomfortable.

Finally, there is the projected increase in the population of this country. If the Office for National Statistics—the ONS—is to be believed, between now and 2039 we will have to build 4.2 million more dwellings. That is three cities the size of Greater Manchester. To meet these strains—and there will be strains from these trends—will require a focus on our national social cohesion: the glue that binds us all together. NCS can help provide at least a bit of that glue, and that is why I support the Bill. Having expressed my support today at Second Reading, I will leave three points for my noble friend on the Front Bench and his officials to consider between now and Committee.

First, as I already made clear to him in discussions before we met today, we are missing a trick in the vision that underlies the Bill. There already exists, in addition to the National Citizen Service, an International Citizen Service. I have just returned from a two-week trip to Tanzania, working with Voluntary Service Overseas. One of the days I spent there was with 30 or 40 young Tanzanians who had participated in International Citizen Service with volunteers from the UK. This programme is run by DfID, using charities and voluntary groups to deliver it. It had clearly been a good experience for the young Tanzanians. To follow on from the point made by my noble friend Lord Maude about how surprised people in this country were to understand that they shared common concerns, what impressed the Tanzanians most of all was that they and young British people had the same concerns about finding a job and somewhere to live, about the future of our society, about whether their Government was positive and about the future of their world—the environment and other aspects of it. About two-thirds of those I talked to were still in touch with their UK counterparts via social media.

For better or for worse, this country’s relationships with the world are changing, and it is more important than ever that we reach out, make relationships and create friendships. I do not suggest that International Citizen Service will ever be a mass movement. It will always involve a small number of young people. For example, the three charities in Tanzania working on this programme send about 150 people a year from this country to Tanzania. However, if we were able to build this international aspect into NCS, it could have huge advantages. It could increase the attractiveness of NCS here; it would help the personal development of the individuals who participate; it would make the UK seem open, inclusive and interested in the wider world; and finally, as these young Tanzanians grow up and assume positions of power and influence, we can hope that the UK’s soft power will rise commensurately.

There is much more to be said about this topic but tonight is not the moment for that. I hope that we will be able to discuss it further in Committee. I hope that my noble friend will not fall back on the argument that this programme is from the DCMS and the International Citizen Service is from DfID, so therefore they cannot be combined. That would be turf warfare of the very worst kind.

Secondly, I will touch on the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, about the legal liability of volunteers and the complications for those who volunteer as regards entitlement to social security, benefits, jobseeker’s allowance and so on. Discussions of legal liability and social security entitlements are lands into which the unexperienced vanish without trace. I am no expert on these matters but I would like to register with my noble friend the fact that outside this Chamber in the volunteer world there are concerns about these two areas that I think we will need to examine and resolve at a later stage of the Bill.

Finally, I would like to register my concern about the corporate form that is proposed to give the National Citizen Service its statutory framework. As my noble friend knows, a wide range of forms could have been chosen, but the Government have chosen the royal charter format. I understand the wish to sprinkle a little stardust on the NCS project with the use of the word “royal”, and I understand the wish to raise the NCS above the hurly-burly of party politics, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made clear. Both are worthy aims—but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, I am afraid that there may be some operational consequences.

When I undertook my review of the Charities Act, I received a great deal of evidence about the clumsiness and inflexibility of the royal charter structure. Based on that evidence, I made a number of suggestions for reform which I think still lie in the long grass. If I am incorrect in that assumption, I am happy to be corrected. The essence of the problem is the interlocking authority of Her Majesty in Council, the Privy Council itself and the Charity Commission. The evidence I received suggested that each of these is disinclined to act without the agreement of the other two, which has resulted in a very protracted process of inquiry and investigation, often with voluminous correspondence, about even quite small changes to a charter and by-laws.

It is inconceivable that a new organisation such as the NCS, growing fast, as we all hope, and developing in ways that tonight we cannot possibly foresee, will not want to, or more likely have to, make changes to its constitution and/or its by-laws—and possibly more than once. Therefore, while I understand that the “royal” title is important, there may be some downsides to it. So far I am not convinced that we could not sprinkle the necessary stardust and achieve the necessary oversight with a continuation of the present community interest company, or CIC, formula that we have at present.

If a CIC structure is not good enough, there is a range of what are called “exempt charities”, where a charity has another government department as regulator in place of the Charity Commission. For example, Defra looks after Kew Gardens; my noble friend’s department looks after museums; and, if noble Lords are concerned about the use of large sums of public money, the Department for Education operates all the funding of English universities through the Higher Education Funding Council. Again, these could provide a suitable statutory form for the future NCS.

To conclude, this is a good Bill and it has very worthwhile strategic aims. However, I think that we will make it a better Bill if, in Committee, we discuss and tighten up some aspects of what is being proposed.

Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)

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My Lords, the motivation that sits behind this Bill could scarcely be more important. As several noble Lords have said, at a time of increasing division in our country, it represents a serious attempt to build a more cohesive society, and what could be more important to that endeavour than developing a habit of service to others among young people?

Noble Lords may be aware that over the past few years I have been involved in setting up a family of primary state schools with character development at their heart. Of the many virtues we could have chosen to represent what we are trying to do at Floreat Education, we chose four: curiosity, perseverance, honesty and service. We chose service because it is, I believe, a foundational civic virtue, without which it is impossible for a society to function, let alone flourish.

At Floreat Education, we are very fond, as primary schools often are, of inspiring quotes, especially if they are from Martin Luther King, and that great orator was not lost for words on the importance of serving others. He said:

“Everybody can be great … because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love”.

As my noble friend Lord Hodgson has said, a commitment to serve others is the glue that binds society together. It encourages humility, understanding and courage. It fills our lives with meaning, purpose and, yes, love.

Psychologists tell us that serving other people is the route to long-lasting happiness. Our colleague in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Layard, once said that the fastest way to make yourself happy is to make someone else happy, so service is not only good for others, it is good for ourselves too.

Parenting is perhaps the greatest form of service imaginable, and many of us were fortunate to grow up in families with a culture of service. In my home, I was able to learn from my mother, who diligently ran riding for the disabled classes, was a school governor and still contributes to talking newspapers, among many other voluntary commitments. My father was involved in the Catenians and coached the Cubs and Scouts football teams that I played in. There were structured opportunities to serve at school, and after university I had the chance to teach in a small orphanage outside Calcutta, the Mathieson Music School, for six months.

I was incredibly fortunate to learn about the importance of service through my family and am deeply grateful for it. Through these experiences, I learned much else too, and met people from all walks of life, but what if a young person does not have these opportunities at home? What if they live in those places where diverse communities exist side by side but never interact, which sadly I am seeing more and more of through my education work? What then?

This is the backdrop to the founding of National Citizen Service, which was introduced as a proposal as far back as 2005 by our former Prime Minister David Cameron. Over the subsequent years, it has garnered support from all political parties and all parts of society precisely because it speaks to important and undeniable needs to bring people together, to forge a common understanding and a shared set of values and to encourage the habit of service that is the bedrock of a prosperous Britain.

NCS has proved very successful so far in delivering on that vision. The young people who take part report a much greater understanding of and positivity towards people from different backgrounds. They have more skills, such as leadership and oracy, that are useful in the workplace, and they report less anxiety and greater well-being. Critically, these effects are greatest for those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The long-term impact on building a culture of service is compelling: in the 16 months after completing NCS, the 2013 and 2014 cohorts gave back an additional 8 million hours to their communities.

NCS is also a model of good policy-making. By starting with small pilots in 2009 and building up slowly, with ongoing impact evaluations, NCS has laid the foundations to be a genuinely transformative programme. That is why I am happy to welcome this Bill and am committed to ensuring that NCS can fulfil its potential.

There are not many measures in the Bill, but they seem largely sensible. Given the increasing ambition of the programme and the sums of public money involved, creating a royal charter for the NCS Trust seems to be the right approach. Other people more expert in governance will have views on that and have expressed them today, but a royal charter puts NCS on a par with organisations such as the British Museum, which have a special cultural status. That seems to me a better alternative than being either an executive agency or an NDPB, with the long fingers of government, as my noble friend Lord Maude described them, playing with the programme.

That is not to say that I have no concerns about the Bill and the accompanying draft paper. I do not quite agree with Ronald Reagan that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”, but it is certainly true that one of the reasons for the success of NCS so far, as several noble Lords have said, is that even though it has largely been funded by the state, it is seen by young people as being independent of government. We must guard that independence jealously because the moment that NCS is seen as something that is “done to” 16 year-olds by the Government will be the moment that it fails. In that regard, some of the proposals on governance and the appointment of the board are of concern, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said. I look forward to exploring them further in Committee.

I am also concerned that the draft charter limits the NCS Trust’s remit only to delivering the specific programme for 16 year-olds. Clearly, this must be the centrepiece of its activity—that is what it was founded for—but the trust can play a much greater role in the social action sector as whole.

While NCS and the Bill have been largely welcomed by major providers such as vinspired, the Scouts and City Year, of which I am a parliamentary supporter, they all raise concerns about whether the current draft charter limits the role of NCS and will inhibit its links with the rest of the sector. For example, there is gathering momentum behind the idea of creating a year of service in the UK, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, described, modelled on the AmeriCorps programme in the US, but, as the Bill stands, the NCS Trust would not be able to get involved in developing that proposal. It would be a tremendous missed opportunity to restrict the trust’s powers when it was perfectly capable—indeed, I believe willing—to play a leadership role in promoting service throughout society. I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance on this point in his closing remarks.

Given the chance, the NCS can not just work for the children and young people who go through it but can be a catalyst for an entire social movement, helping to spread more widely the ideal, which I believe all noble Lords support, that a life well lived is one in which, with a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love, we dedicate ourselves to the service of others.

Lord Lennie (Lab)

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My Lords, I begin by making a declaration of interest; a close family member is employed by one of the NCS providers in the north-east. I will say some words I do not often say, I may never say again and that your Lordships may never hear me say again in this House: I wholeheartedly support the Conservative Government’s initiative in seeking to put this on a permanent statutory footing. Congratulations for that. I also think we should listen carefully, as I am sure the Minister did, to the experience and words of my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lady Royall on their concerns that we do not forsake quality for numbers and make this a tick-box exercise in terms of the throughput; that we set it in the context of wider citizenship initiatives and ongoing matters in schools and beyond; and that we come to value and reward volunteering for its own sake and as a continuing part of all our lives now and in the future.

Of the contributions so far, I was particularly taken by that of the noble Lord, Lord Maude, who is not in his place. He gave us an insight into the modus operandi of the former Prime Minister’s Government. He said that when you receive a hot potato such as the NCS—the Prime Minister’s baby—you hand it on pretty quickly to a young, able, energetic Minister, make them responsible for it and take the credit at the end. That can be added to the Gerald Kaufman tome, How to be a Minister. It is a lesson for us all.

Much of what I will say will be narrative. I do not want to repeat what has been said, but most of it is based on a reception that I was very fortunate to host last week here in Parliament, together with the NCS Trust, for the NCS provider vinspired. Many Members of both Houses dropped in and attended. They met an inspiring group of 25 young people representing the north-east youth board of the NCS. The purpose was to explore, promote and celebrate their achievements, and to recognise those thousands of young people who have participated in NCS so far. It was a revelation of how NCS can bring mutual benefits to individuals and to the wider communities within which we live.

At the reception was a group of young NCS graduates with different backgrounds who had come together from different parts of the north-east. They had never met each other before. They formed a thing called Team Brah—that is B-R-A-H, not the other sort of bra. They undertook planning and delivery of a project in partnership with the Albert Kennedy Trust to support young homeless LGBT people who had been made homeless directly as a result of the revelation of their sexuality, usually by angered parents or relatives, and found themselves with nowhere to live. Their achievement in that project was recognised by the NCS at a national awards ceremony. They won the national NCS award for 2015 for their participation. Many of the young people from Team Brah have continued to volunteer their time with the Albert Kennedy Trust since.

We also heard at the reception from a young woman, Claudia Titton—she is happy for her name to be known—about her development during and beyond her NCS experience. She gave a narrative of her own journey, describing herself as one of many people of school age who choose to say no to anything they are asked to do. Any opportunities they are given or any questions they are asked, they seek to duck. Her preferred position was to refuse involvement or engagement with anything.

Claudia was not sure why she had said yes to involvement with the NCS—but she did, and it had a hugely beneficial effect on her. From entering a room full of strangers on her first day as a shy, introverted, awkward 16 year-old, she is now a positive, outward-looking young woman with plans and ideas about her future, her community and how she wants to engage more. She is a testament to the potential of NCS to help foster an engaged, community-focused and inclusive generation of young men and women. These two examples illustrate the mutual benefit to individuals and to wider communities—to us all—that can be gained from a careful, qualitative programme of NCS.

However, I want to raise a couple of matters with the Minister, one of which I raised before coming to the Chamber. First, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, it is hard to understand why HMRC was considered to be the best body through which NCS could promote opportunities for young people across the country. I understand the argument about its database being the one that will reach the widest number of people, given that at age 16 the national insurance number is allocated—but I say, with the greatest respect to those who work in the Treasury, that a letter from the HMRC does not always inspire citizens to activity, engagement and involvement, particularly if it comes in one of those brown envelopes that is usually a demand letter of some sort. It is a rather more threatening body to communicate with than could have been selected. Perhaps the Minister can reassure the House that HMRC communications will be only a vehicle by which the database can be accessed for NCS directly to communicate with young people rather than such communication being done on behalf of the NCS by HMRC.

Secondly, will the Government reconsider their decision not to include in the legislation a requirement on schools, colleges and other such bodies to promote NCS among 15 and 16 year-olds who become eligible for it in the subsequent 12 months? I know that there was some discussion about this but I understand that it has not been followed through. I do not know whether it is because of the volume of obligations already placed on schools or a financial matter relating to the Government’s relationship with schools, but schools and colleges are probably the most trusted and reliable bodies among the people whom we seek to target into NCS volunteering and beyond, and certainly a better bet than HMRC for promoting and advancing the cause. In fact, many of the staff of NCS link directly to schools to work with teachers and others to recruit people into the activity.

With those questions, I repeat my welcome—I said that I would not repeat myself, but I will—for the Government’s initiative and look forward to the Minister’s response.

Lord Wei (Con)

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My Lords, I speak today with a tremendous sense of delight at the arrival of this Bill and its reception so far. I declare an interest as one of those who helped early on to establish the groundwork for what became the Challenge Network charity before the 2010 election, creating one of the original pilots of the National Citizen Service programme where I was involved from as early as 2008, and then—as part of the team—to write the policy into the 2010 Conservative manifesto, after which I subsequently advised on it from within the Cabinet Office under the coalition Government.

I remember being first approached by members of David Cameron’s team in opposition in my previous role as a founding partner of the Shaftesbury Partnership —I am currently re-joining it in a non-executive capacity and so declare an interest. We were invited to design a working prototype to accompany, refine and road test the original policy idea proposed by David Cameron—and before him many others from across the political spectrum over the years—as part of his leadership campaign. It was a memorable time, helping to put together the original design brief and to cultivate the charitable angels and private donations for the research study and subsequent pilot, and then pulling together the senior team to help design the business plan and run the pilot. The donors—I will not name them all today—must none the less be thanked. Without their generosity, we would not have been able to learn what we now know, insights that have been shared more broadly throughout the NCS programme and community. It was all in all a textbook example of social innovation at the time and everything seemed to go ahead relatively smoothly, such was the support and favour behind the idea.

I must remember here to also thank the staff and trustees of Absolute Returns for Kids, who at the time released me to work part-time on projects such as these through Shaftesbury. Much credit in particular needs to go to Patrick Shine, co-partner of the Shaftesbury Partnership, who went on to chair the Challenge Network charity in those early years, as well as to Craig Morley, who we recruited following a successful career in Proctor & Gamble and as a mentor with the Prince’s Trust to help lead the project. He became the charity’s first CEO. I also highlight the work of Jon Yates, who had a strong background in youth work and was a McKinsey consultant previously, as well as Doug Fraley, who came out of the world of Google and brought tremendous experience in HR.

While we played a role in getting pilots going in those early, riskier years, it was important from the beginning that the charity had its own independent footing and cross-party support. It has since grown to be, through the efforts of many others, a successful provider of the National Citizen Service, incubated by but now separate from the Shaftesbury Partnership.

Of course, a huge amount of work has been carried out since then both in government and at grass-roots level. Ministers present and former, as well as the team at the NCS Trust led so ably by Stephen Greene, Michael Lynas and his team, and the existing and past providers, should feel proud of having been part of something truly special and ground-breaking. We are now witness to a phenomenon that has cross-party support and produced tremendous impact and social outcomes, particularly in that much-needed area of creating social capital across wealth and social divides in an age of social isolation, and at a scale achieved without much or any compromise in quality but in a short space of time.

The policy united many behind it from a diversity of political and other backgrounds: leaders of charities, faith groups and businesses, politicians and members of the media—an amazing achievement given the level of debate and differences of opinion in other areas of our body politic these last few years. As I found at Teach First, this is a programme that found many fathers and mothers—and rightly so, and the more the merrier. There was perhaps no greater sense for me that this had arrived as a truly national programme than when, a few years ago on holiday in the Lake District, my family and I happened to bump into a Challenge NCS team on a mountain of all places, totally by accident. I remember at the time being struck by how you could almost go anywhere in the country and there would be people whose lives were being touched and affected by the scheme. In light of this, it is only appropriate that we now bring forward this policy on to a longer-term basis. As a result, I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill.

I will make a number of remarks relating to the Bill based on my experience of the scheme and will look to the future to ensure that it continues to make the impact that others highlighted. First, I will cover the reasons behind bringing it on to a statutory footing, then deal with areas on which to ensure a continued focus, and finally tackle a number of questions and concerns raised about the policy over the years.

First, on the appropriateness of bringing the policy on to a statutory basis, over the years I and others sought to work to bring about what used to be called social reform in the days of my great hero the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, but which we sometimes call social innovation today. In days past, and still sometimes today, this takes place through parliamentary procedure —think about Wilberforce and his efforts to end slavery, and more recent efforts to end trafficking and its ill-effects. At other times, reform and scalable social innovation took place outside Westminster and government through the creation of campaigns, movements, charities and social enterprises that ultimately became of sufficient impact and scale that government could not ignore them.

This latter approach, which arguably was instrumental in bringing about the successes Wilberforce and others in his era enjoyed, catalysed by the likes of Granville Sharp many decades before Wilberforce’s arrival on the scene, is the one I have felt the most affinity with. Social innovators should work to bring about change through piloting and developing outside government and then seek to see how these ideas, once tested, can be rapidly designed to scale and brought into contact with and affect government policy where appropriate. This contrasts to the default thinking that Governments should seek to take on the role of innovator from the inside out, which does not always work, especially in today’s highly media-driven environment.

What is powerful about the Bill and this policy is how the two have come together, with politicians recognising the historic benefits of national service and calling for some variant of it to be brought back, and social innovators and philanthropists taking the risk to develop, pilot, test and scale prototypes—with government support—not just to create a rite of passage but to forge new links between young people from different backgrounds, and then to create a pool of citizens ready to play their role in our democracy and in society. Having tested this policy over the past number of years, it is appropriate, given the benefits it brings to the country and to communities within it, and given the public spending involved, for it to be brought on to a long-term accountable footing—but with the caveat that the innovation and experimentation that led to its realisation from a policy idea to a workable national programme is not lost as NCS becomes, in effect, a new national institution. The seventh Earl himself voiced concerns when the pioneering work of charitable educationalists was nationalised, and it has taken many years and much effort to bring our education system to the point where new ideas and approaches are accepted once again, through the academy and free school movements.

I certainly hope and expect that the Bill will enable new entrants and smaller providers with fresh ideas to continue to bring their innovations and approaches into the programme. This brings me to the point I want to make about the Bill’s emphasis. It is very important that in bringing the NCS on to a statutory footing we do not create a huge bureaucracy, and I am glad that the approach that is being taken is apparently one that seeks to strike a balance between accountability and being sufficiently hands-off to allow the trust to get on with the job. It is important, for example, that the National Audit Office does not look just at past success, which ultimately may favour larger providers, including the Challenge Network, but has a remit to explore the degree to which smaller and newer providers are allowed to come in and innovate, experiment and tailor to different audiences and niches while maintaining the focus on building social capital across different social groups. Will my noble friend the Minister reassure us that this will be considered in the Bill and that there may even be exemptions for new and smaller organisations in the commissioning process to counteract the risk aversion that can sometimes reign, effectively drawing up the ladder behind the early providers who already know how to meet commissioners’ demands in terms of track record and measurement? What has begun through a process of partnership and innovation ought to continue, even as we seek to bring the scheme to a wider, national, institutional level.

It is really important that, over time, effort is put into working with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies to bring this policy to all young people across the United Kingdom. While I respect and understand the competence of each part of the UK to oversee its work in this area, one of the greatest benefits of having young people from around the country engaged in the NCS is the creation of a strong sense of service to both the local community and the wider world. At a time when politics is perhaps becoming uglier and more fractious, more and more of our young people want to be part of something bigger, and it would be a shame to lose the sense of camaraderie that I know was enjoyed by Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and English young people during the era of national service in the early 20th century, and of mutual respect. No matter what the future may bring for the destinies of our respective nations, I would be glad to hear my noble friend the Minister’s thoughts on this.

In my remaining time, I want to turn to some of the questions that have been asked about this policy over the years, and I am keen to see how the Government will address them. The first concerns the relationship between the NCS and other youth charities and providers. I have noted that many different charities and groups have been involved in the provision of the programme—some 200 at the last count. It has been good to see how close links have been established to enable those such as the Scouts and other groups to benefit from NCS alumni becoming mentors and supporters. I would like to know how the Bill could help to support this partnership between NCS and large and small youth charities and groups to bolster their efforts to bring improvements to their communities and people, while avoiding, for example, a situation that has at times characterised the relationship between the BBC as a national body and other television channels and media organisations, with the one at times competing against the others rather than being a source of impact and unique programming. How will the Bill and the principles enshrined in it and the NCS charter or equivalent ensure that the work focuses on that which no other private body alone could do?

The next question that is often raised is one of cost. I am glad that funding has been allocated until 2019-20, and that any young person who wants to be involved in the NCS programme will be granted a place. It is because the public policy requires a significant amount of funding that we are now engaged in bringing it into statutory accountability. Equally, from my understanding of the programme’s design, there is a necessary cost to creating a deep change and bond in the lives of those young people from affluent and low-income backgrounds participating through the residential activities that first take them away from their day-to-day lives at a key moment of transition in their lives and then help gradually reinsert them back into the communities of which they are part. Every study that I have read in the design phase indicated that it was key to bringing about the social benefits that have been reported from the programme in the years so far during which it has been in existence.

We will need to have courage to continue to fund this necessary cost so that we can see the benefits longer- term in society. This will ultimately have an impact on government spending in the form of greater social cohesion, greater community participation, lower crime rates and better educational and vocational outcomes. I recall the stories of those who served together historically, in the years of national service, side by side in training and in the field. This cannot be replicated simply by funding a few hours a week, important though that is, but can be through a sustained initial training period, one which NCS exemplifies. Will the Minister tell us how the Bill will safeguard beyond 2020 the spending on this policy and prevent future short-sighted Governments from seeing this programme, with its many long-term benefits to the country, as a quick way to balance the budget in future?

We have come a long way in the past decade on this journey to creating a National Citizen Service. There remains a tremendous amount to do in the decades to come, not least in designing policies around other key transitions in our lives, not just in our youth. In the light of this, I welcome this Bill as another milestone in ensuring that this innovation, built on the experiences of the previous century, will enable many young people to become, I hope, citizens and even the social reformers and innovators of the century to come.

Baroness Byford (Con)

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My Lords, I support this Bill, which creates opportunities for all 16 and 17 year-olds, giving them the chance to make new friends, acquire new skills and assist other members of their community. More than 275,000 have already taken part in this scheme, with one in six eligible teenagers having taken part in the programme. That is an achievement in itself. The NCS has achieved much already, and the Bill is designed to make sure that the NCS delivery model is more accountable to Parliament. I understand that £1.1 billion has been allocated for the life of this Parliament, and we therefore must get it right.

The social mix of volunteering, to which other noble Lords have referred, has a great effect on each individual who takes part in this scheme. Other noble Lords have already spoken about their links with other organisations. I, like other noble Lords, have seen the opportunities that have made a difference to young people through the existing organisations. For my own part, I am closely linked with two of them, one uniformed —the Church Lads and Church Girls Brigade—and the other, now known as Young Leicestershire. Both of these offer opportunities to teenagers and young children and aim to give them greater confidence and develop their skills. Additionally, Young Leicestershire’s clubs give people the chance to meet informally, take part in organised activities within their clubs and their communities, and—more importantly—prepare the young people for a life after school, giving them practical skills in applying for jobs and raising their horizons. While Young Leicestershire is not one of the host organisations, it encourages participation in the scheme and wishes it well. I also wish the scheme well for young people.

In another context, when talking to an air service cadet recently I was impressed when I asked her what the most exciting thing was that had happened to her in the short time that she had been in the service and she said, “My first camp away”. It was the first time that she had been taken from the comfort of her home environment—the camp was not comfortable in the accepted sense—and thrown in with people she had never met. This scheme has a lot to recommend it, and I welcome that.

The Bill extends opportunities to all young people. My concern is that it should not undermine current commitments in which local engagement is already ongoing with local organisations. It would be a great pity if that were to be a consequence of the Bill. I am sure that in Committee we will discuss this aspect in much greater detail.

Other noble Lords have spoken about the recent briefings we have had, and the Local Government Association is very clear in its concerns about the way in which the money is allocated to the scheme because it may well have an impact on its existing funding of local organisations and charities. Money is tight, and those receiving aid locally have to justify their applications for future funding. I am sure the Minister is aware of these challenges and knows that these have to be balanced against the passage and the future of the Bill and of the scheme.

I have a few direct queries for the Minister, some of which have been touched on by others. What happens to teenagers when they complete the programme? Are they given a steer towards other community volunteering schemes or are they just left on their own to find them? At that stage, a steer would be an enormous help.

I turn to the data that are going to be collected. What data are to be held, and how? When and how often are they to be reviewed, and what real purpose do they have? Is it to assess the number of people taking part or the quality of outcome, as was mentioned earlier? How will that success be judged, and by whom? I add my support to the extension of the newer and smaller organisations that might like to take part in the scheme.

I understand that the advertising of the scheme has cost some £8 million. What response has been received and what success do the Government feel they have had? How have they managed to get over the problems of those who are the most difficult to attract, such as those who are deaf and cannot have verbal communications? It is important that we get this right. It would indeed be a great shame if a lot of young people looked at the scheme and thought, “It’s something I’d like to do, but it’s not for me”.

I do a lot of work with schools. Like the noble Lord, Lord Lennie—I was really pleased that he touched on this—I am surprised it has not been suggested that schools would be a very good stepping stone for promoting the scheme. That is something that had not struck me when I was looking at my preparation for my contribution to this debate, but schools and colleges could be a very good source of encouraging people to take part in the scheme.

The scheme has a lot to recommend it. As has been said, volunteering, whether for the young who help others or for those that they help, is a two-way exchange: the younger person gets a much better understanding of other people and of the opportunities that are out there, and the people they work with get great inspiration from the young. I am sure it will have struck other noble Lords that newspapers today constantly highlight where the young are wrong or are not doing the right thing. The scheme is one way in which we can have a much greater engagement with young people and open opportunities to them to understand, to get greater skills and to play a much more active part in their local communities. I look forward to working on the next stages of the Bill and I thank the Minister for promoting it in the House today.

Lord Shipley (LD)

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My Lords, there is a lot to support in this Bill. The NCS has shown that it can extend opportunities to young people and that it does give a focus for youth social action. I should remind the House that I am a vice-president of a Local Government Association and say that I am grateful for the advice given to me by Redcar and Cleveland Council on its place-based approach to supporting the National Citizen Service. It is an approach that should be commended, not least their year 11 record of achievement.

In terms of the issues that would benefit from further consideration as the Bill progresses, the first would be that in moving from being a community interest company to a body with a royal charter, I hope the NCS will not see itself as somehow superior to all the other organisations working with young people. It will be important for it to support the wider sector in delivering its and the sector’s objectives, and external scrutiny of how it adds value should become a key part of the assessment of its work. The NCS should see its role as strengthening the progression of young people towards and through the NCS programme. In so doing, it must not weaken the rest of the sector. There is considerable need right across the youth social action sector, and with all ages. The NCS is but one part of that.

I want to say to the Minister that other organisations must not lose out because of the expansion of the NCS, which will consume, as we have heard, some £1 billion of public money by the end of this Parliament. This is at a time of major cuts to local government spending on youth services.

Lines 7 and 8 of the Bill, on page 1, talk about the NCS Trust providing or arranging for the provision of programmes for young people. Can the Minister say whether it should be within its responsibilities to provide programmes, or whether it should always work through other organisations in the youth social action field? My instinct is to suggest that the NCS should be a commissioner of services rather than a deliverer. I would appreciate learning more about the Minister’s thinking on that point.

One of the possible consequences of extending the NCS—we heard about this potential problem earlier—is that it will prefer to commission support from the bigger organisations. Can the Minister confirm that small, subregional and local bodies will not be disadvantaged by the commissioning process?

A number of speakers in this Second Reading have referred to the National Deaf Children’s Society briefing. They pointed out that it will be important to ensure that disabled young people can feel fully part of the scheme. I think we all acknowledge that that involves money. In terms of deaf children, for example, it costs more to provide interpreters or speech-to-text reporting. I wonder whether the NCS Trust might have a formal duty to ensure that funding is available to meet the extra costs of young people needing extra support.

There is then the question of higher quality and provision, which has to be a key objective of the Bill. Can the Minister confirm that there will be full guidance for providers on what constitutes high-quality youth social action? I am aware that there are six published principles—they are valuable—but they will need to be stretched to provide much more robust indicators of what constitutes high quality.

We have heard that the NCS Trust will have a lot of public money to spend. I understand that some £75 million will be spent on advertising over the next four years. How much of that money will go to other organisations to help them to reach young people? For example, £75 million is twice the funding announced through the Youth Investment Fund via the Big Lottery to support schemes in disadvantaged communities across England.

I said earlier that I was grateful to Redcar and Cleveland Council for explaining how it managed its place-based approach to the NCS, which seems a very good way to develop the NCS at local level. Simply providing opportunities for young people to take part is not enough where aspiration and confidence are low and where a young person’s experience of life may be limited—yet the NCS will matter to those young people because it provides a framework to enable their participation and personal development. Equally, the NCS must reach them in the first place. That includes those not in education, employment or training, who, I hope, can be integrated into the programme. There seems to be scope in the Bill for this to be achieved.

The place-based approach includes every secondary school, with the NCS programme embedded in school culture through careers advice, social media, parents’ evenings, school events and school assemblies. Involving those who are hard to reach is central to the place-based approach, which can integrate youth provision at a local level. That is why I think that the NCS will want to work closely with local authorities in pursuing its mission. To succeed, the NCS programme will need to be a highly visible brand embedded within a school’s provision and integrated with youth provision across a local area. That means relying on local leadership—and that, I think, means a key role for local authorities.

It is clear that the Bill will give many more young people opportunities that they otherwise would not have had. They can gain confidence, they can gain social and practical skills; and they can develop a love of volunteering, of helping others, and of passing on knowledge. All of this is to be warmly welcomed.

As the NCS is extended, with the aim now of reaching 300,000 participants a year, it will be important to ensure that the large sums of money put into it are fully scrutinised by the trust and Parliament for the outcomes delivered. Given the increase in scale planned for the NCS, it will be important for it to review the progression of individuals on completion of their NCS involvement. Thus, longitudinal studies for several years could be very beneficial to our understanding of the real outcomes of the expansion of the NCS.

In his introductory remarks, the Minister said that the Bill, through the NCS, would create a unifying force in youth provision. I think that he was right.

Lord Lucas (Con)

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My Lords, I do not differ from any of the previous speakers in that I welcome the Bill and congratulate everyone who has been involved with the creation and evolution of the National Citizen Service—it is a truly wonderful thing to behold—but, of course, I will now concentrate on what I would like to change about the Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, I would like a clear emphasis on quality. What has been done with Ipsos MORI is good of its kind, but it is by no means good enough for an organisation of the size that this will be. We certainly need longitudinal studies; we probably need some isolated bits of randomised controlled trials; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, we certainly need routine monitoring of everyone going through the service, so that we know which providers are doing better than others and have enough information for continuous improvement. That is basic. It is not there at present, or, at least, it is not in the Bill. There ought to be a very clear obligation for it.

Also, as many others have said, there must be something much clearer about collaboration. The NCS will have a central position in the structure of voluntary activities involving the young, but there will be hundreds and thousands of other organisations involved. It is very important that the NCS is constructive, that other organisations are involved in pushing young people in its direction and that it, in turn, helps its alumni to find their way into a life that continues to involve voluntary service.

Both those aspects were highlighted, at least for me, by the announcement in May this year that the National Citizen Service will collaborate with the Careers & Enterprise Company in following up my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham’s idea of an enterprise passport—by the creation of a digital passport to record young people’s achievements beyond exams. I think this is a vital idea and one of which I am a thoroughgoing supporter. To record and promote young people’s experiences and attributes beyond those recorded in academic exams is vital for their interaction with employers. To give value to that and to focus on the need for it and its worth will help both schools and individuals in their lives. However, if the National Citizen Service is involved in this, it will give it an immensely powerful position in the middle of the web of voluntary service. It will be recording every interaction between children and the voluntary sector because they will all be important parts of the passport. It will be involved in quality control. If this passport starts to include large quantities of rubbish, no one will pay attention to it, so it will be the National Citizen Service that is saying to other voluntary bodies, “You are not up to scratch. You have to do this, that or the other to improve before we will include you in the passport”.

I think that that also answers the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. Anybody doing this will be intimately involved in all schools. NCS will not need to be promoted to schools. It will be involved in recording what each of their pupils is doing and will be a natural part of a school’s life. That is a positive side of it, but the power that the NCS will have is considerable, and I do not see that reflected in this Bill. How that power should be exercised, its principles and its scope are important things to lay down so that the voluntary sector as a whole can have confidence that as the NCS comes to exercise those powers it will do so in a benign and supportive way.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)

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My Lords, I support the Bill, and am particularly keen that we recognise it for what it is. It is a short Bill with limited scope, focusing primarily on the right organisational structure for the NCS in the future. Using a royal charter ensures the right levels of transparency, accountability and sustainability. Furthermore, NCS will be kept above the mêlée of party politics and, I hope, largely out of the reach of direct control of government.

NCS is a young organisation, of which great things are expected. If I were running the NCS, I would be looking at today’s debate with great interest but also with some trepidation. There may be a temptation to try to review and amend the principles behind the NCS and to add provisions to the Bill. I worry that now may not be the time. Let us look at this from two perspectives—first, the NCS, and secondly, the impact on volunteering. It is beyond doubt that the National Citizen Service has the potential to be a ground-breaking programme offering all our young people of whatever background a valuable experience at a crucial time in their lives. I think we all agree on that.

The NCS’s stated goal is to grow threefold in the next few years. It is a hugely ambitious undertaking—from just under 100,000 young people in the programme to more than 300,000. This is all the more important as quality of experience is essential.

Currently, the remit of the NCS is simple: a short programme, based in the UK, for young people aged 16 or 17—no more, no less. That is absolutely right, for now. The NCS should be allowed to stick to its knitting and focus on growth of high-quality provision, because growing an organisation is exceptionally hard, particularly when that organisation is reliant on relationships with third-party providers. Each successively larger cohort will include an increasing number of young people who are harder and therefore more costly to reach, whether demographically or geographically. Growth will stretch the resources of the NCS, so while it may be tempting to require by statute the NCS to do other things—say, to reflect and represent the broader provision of youth services to people of all ages—there is a danger that we will over-expand the vision. The NCS is a simple concept with a well-defined programme that can and should exist independently of, but collaborating deeply with, large and small providers, in quite a complex marketplace. Simplicity and the ability to be nimble will be essential for growth. We need to let NCS be the NCS, not always but for the time being at least.

I turn to the impact of the NCS on volunteering. For most young people, the teenage years and the years thereafter are times of great change. For some people, a commitment to volunteering and social action is in their DNA, but for many of us it ebbs and flows throughout our lives, as education, work priorities and raising a family allow. Of course, we need a mechanism for sharing social action opportunities, not just for young people but for everybody, but the goal for NCS should be to plant a seed of community and reciprocity, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said and, when the time is right, that seed will germinate and grow. NCS graduates will have the confidence to step up and serve whenever they choose, not because we have told them to do so. The only thing that needs to be right is the conditions for that individual.

While it may seem sensible to promote and measure in great detail the uptake of volunteering immediately on graduation from NCS, that runs the risks of encouraging perverse incentives. The NCS is a window on what is possible, maybe now and maybe in future, but there is nothing worse than being volunteered to volunteer, to feel under pressure to get involved immediately. It is the quickest way in which to extinguish any interest—and, trust me, word of mouth among young people will make sure that the next year’s cohort is well aware of the expectation. So while we and our country expect, we must ensure that the weight of our expectations does not crush the spirit of involvement in our young people now or in future.

I am in favour of scrutinising the Bill—of course we should—but we must resist the temptation to expand it, to load additional obligations on what is a relatively new organisation, focusing necessarily on high-quality growth. We should not confer unreasonable or unwelcome expectations on its graduates. We must allow young people to come to volunteering when it is right for them; it should not be forced. NCS is no quick fix; it will take decades to know whether it has worked—and, for once, we must be content with that.

The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth

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My Lords, I too welcome and support this Bill, not only because of the impact, actual and potential, on building the confidence and contribution of participants but also for its intention to both formalise and improve the accountability and functioning of the NCS. It may seem obvious for us to support a scheme with such clear aims to encourage young people to engage with their communities and take responsibility for their transformation, and one that claims some positive impact on community cohesion.

It will be very important to ensure good access to the scheme. In his opening speech, the Minister said that NCS is “accessible to everyone” and he went on to remind us that, where needed, the opportunity is delivered at no cost to the participant. However, cost is not the only barrier to participation. Much as I welcome the discretionary waiving of the fee to enable participation, there are other matters to address. I note and welcome the existing record of bringing together people from diverse backgrounds. However, widening participation can be a challenge, for instance, for young people with specific disabilities, from remote areas or from hard-to-reach backgrounds. The challenge increases, of course, as we seek to include more young people.

The Minister described NCS, with some understandable pride, as,

“the fastest-growing youth movement for 100 years”.

There is a risk that this might be heard as implying some sort of competitive approach, which I know the Minister does not intend. What a pity it would be if NCS threatened other valued and good youth organisations, particularly when they sometimes now have reduced funding, fewer volunteer leaders and long waiting lists. Building on the NCS experience, which is a good one as we have heard—but short—is surely critical. If NCS became a stand-alone one-off, what a waste that would be. It would be good if the Minister could help us with evidence of young people moving on to other volunteering and engagement, giving as well as receiving, and the clear intent to enable that.

Finally, but importantly, can the Minister say anything about the role of young people themselves in the ongoing development of NCS? Valuing young people, and encouraging them in their development and contribution to society, are clearly and wonderfully the basis of NCS. Could it not also involve inviting them—not just allowing them—to have a voice in its future? I am glad to welcome and support this Bill and ask the Minister to respond in due course to what I hope the House hears as positive queries which I trust can enhance the National Citizen Service.

Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)

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My Lords, I also welcome and support the Bill. Of more than 70,000 people who took part in the National Citizen Service this summer, 401 were from Wiltshire: an impressive growth from the 239 who took part in the summer of 2015 and the 137 who took part in the summer of 2014. NCS is already doing a remarkable job, reaching out to young people. Having seen these figures, it comes as no surprise to me that this is the fastest growing youth movement in this country in the past century. In Wiltshire alone, 777 young people have, over the past three years, had the opportunity to challenge themselves and overcome their fears, gained more of the skills they need to get on in life, and engaged with and made a difference to their local communities. NCS does not just benefit the young people it provides for—it also benefits local communities through the activities these young people participate in.

Independent analysis shows that society gets back £3.98 for every £1 of funding we put into this scheme. Over this summer, Wiltshire has really seen the effects that NCS groups have given us: a brand-new allotment at one of our special educational needs schools; a rugby sevens tournament to encourage more young people into sport, following one of the groups’ work with the British Heart Foundation; hours of volunteer support for people in sheltered housing and care homes, and the collection of food and care donations for those people; and fetes, and additional fundraising, in support of the Wiltshire air ambulance—a resource that helps so many people across our county, having already flown nearly 600 missions this year alone.

What is even more remarkable is not just the range of social action that has been delivered across both Wiltshire and the rest of the country, but the fact that these projects are, in the main, designed and led by the young people themselves. The sheer variety of projects delivered shows us that young people really do care about so many different aspects of their communities, and are passionate about making a difference. This is something that we should all be determined to encourage and facilitate.

I am also pleased about the requirement in the charter that the NCS Trust maintain cross-party support. I am proud today that in this House we have managed to provide such support and show our young people that their future is more important than party politics. The requirement of the charter to ensure that equality of access is maintained is equally important. Indeed, the programme as it is now works so well precisely because it includes those from all backgrounds. At a time when our society is so divided on so many big issues, encouraging social integration and mobility for our younger generations is vital to secure a strong future for our country.

However, as the leader of a unitary authority myself, I feel that there are some concerns surrounding local authorities and their role in working with NCS. For it to be truly sustainable it needs to work hand in hand with local authorities, to make sure that it is fully integrated into the local community. I would be grateful if my noble friend Lord Ashton could explain what NCS is doing to make sure that this takes place.

Baroness Finn (Con)

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My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ashton for bringing forward this Bill to put National Citizen Service on a permanent statutory footing. NCS is a remarkable success story. It has been rightly described as the fastest growing youth movement of its kind, and has gone from strength to strength since the pilot projects introduced by David Cameron as leader of the Opposition in 2009. It has reached almost 300,000 young people since it was formally launched five years ago in 2011.

NCS is, without a shadow of doubt, changing lives. Independent evaluation has shown its impact. It is helping to reduce anxiety, build confidence and encourage compassion. Most importantly of all, it is breaking down barriers, not just among young people but also among generations and communities.

NCS was, as my noble friend Lord Maude has explained, the very personal vision of the former Prime Minister, David Cameron. I recall him speaking passionately, even before he became leader of the Conservative Party, about his desire to bring teenagers from different backgrounds together, and saying that social cohesion would be enhanced if they worked side by side on projects to help their community. It was the essence of his one-nation approach, and, as he said last week, it is indeed,

“the Big Society in action”.

I am delighted that he has become chairman of the NCS patrons, to ensure that this amazing programme will continue to flourish.

I will admit I was sceptical at the beginning about whether the NCS programme would be successful. The idea depended on young people actively choosing to give up their summer, get out of their comfort zones, meet new people, and do something involving the words “national”, “citizen” and “service”. These three words are not known for their social cachet among teenagers. However, under the inspired leadership of both my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham and Nick Hurd, when they were both Ministers in the Cabinet Office, the Government decided to take a radical, enlightened approach to the delivery of NCS. They took the view that civil servants sitting in Whitehall were possibly not best placed to connect with the youth of today. Instead, they set up a new social enterprise, the NCS Trust, which operated in a comparatively independent way from government. Stephen Greene, Michael Lynas, Emma Kenny and their amazing team should be justifiably proud of the success of NCS to date.

In my view there are three reasons for the success of the NCS Trust. The first is the independence from government that enabled it to establish support across the political spectrum. Many on the opposition Benches, in both your Lordships’ House and the other place, have witnessed the programme first hand and have built strong relationships with the NCS Trust. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his support which was so very important in the early days of NCS. This cross-party support has given us a unique opportunity to put young people first and to put NCS beyond the reach of petty party politics.

Secondly, the NCS Trust has had the flexibility to respond rapidly to feedback on the programme and adapt to change. We know that government, by its very nature, moves slowly and it is often difficult to get things done quickly and effectively. Instead of taking an inordinate amount of time to approve and execute, for example, a post on social media, it takes a matter of minutes in the NCS Trust.

Finally, NCS has had the freedom to attract and retain world-class talent. It needs to appeal to young people to sign up voluntarily and therefore had to build a brand that resonates with them. It has had to develop innovative ways to reach teenagers and communities across the country. The talented individuals employed from all sectors by the NCS Trust have taken NCS to the full-scale programme it is today. It is therefore vital to secure NCS for the long term and ensure that future generations have the chance to take part in this phenomenal programme. We must continue to support the hundreds of local voluntary organisations across the country. They have done an incredible job in delivering a high-quality impressive experience to children for whom it has had an enormous impact and who might otherwise never have had such an opportunity.

My visit to Parliament Hill School was an enlightening experience. School halls buzzed with happy, enthusiastic teenagers who had just returned from their first week away with NCS. They could not wait to tell their stories and had made new friendships that would obviously endure. Seeing first-hand the reality of how we can change people’s lives makes it all the more important to ensure that the Bill creates a proper framework to deliver NCS in the future. I must therefore urge that we consider with care the changes that the Bill introduces. NCS flourished when it was freed from the dead hand of government bureaucracy. We need to protect its independence as far as possible. NCS must be able to operate in an innovative way, attract the right people to run it and not be bogged down in excessive process that makes it unable to respond as quickly and effectively as it has been able to do thus far.

There are some elements of the Bill with which I have concerns. There are a number of extra, and potentially onerous, reporting requirements. The Government’s ability to appoint both the chair and all the non-executive directors—an issue raised by both the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Maude—could also prove problematic. While I fully appreciate the value of proportionate due process, my experience in government of the public appointments process demonstrated all too often that process trumped good and sensible outcomes. It is vital that NCS continues to attract the excellent and entrepreneurial talent that it has so far managed to do. I also have reservations about an official on the board who will not have gone through an appointments process and will have the ability unilaterally to veto pay arrangements. I hope that any such powers are proportionate and require proper accountability.

I look forward to working with the Minister and other noble Lords in Committee to address any concerns and ensure that the NCS Trust is set up to remain true to its original purpose, be able to adapt quickly and innovatively to new challenges and, ultimately, to become part of the fabric of our nation.

Baroness Newlove (Con)

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My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak in support of this wonderful Bill. I say that because today I will speak to your Lordships not about policy or procedure but about realism, or what it feels like for young people on the ground. It gives me the opportunity to highlight the excellent work being undertaken by the National Citizen Service in my home town of Warrington which, as we have heard, is also happening in many towns up and down this country.

OnSide Warrington Youth Club has been delivering the NCS programme since 2012 and is currently in partnership with Bolton Lads & Girls Club, of which my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton is president, so we have a common allegiance. Both of these clubs provide a very good service as part of the national provider, the Challenge. Since 2012, more than 1,500 young people have completed the programme in Warrington. Those who are responsible for organising the NCS in Warrington and Bolton tell me that the service provides opportunities for personal growth and development for young people from across both cities. It prides itself on recruiting young people from a wide range of backgrounds. In Warrington, this has provided a platform for young people to form friendships which otherwise would have been unlikely to have been created. It is accessible for all young people aged 16 to 17, and the majority of programmes and funding streams are aimed at working with children, young people and families from areas of deprivation.

NCS organisers recognise that some of the most common issues faced by young people are low confidence and low self-esteem. Over the past four years they have observed many grouchy young people attending day one of the programme with their hood up and their head down and often without with the confidence even to give their name for registration. After the first week of the programme, when they are faced with outdoor pursuits with 14 other young people whom they do not know, they soon become far more confident and look forward to the following week of the programme. What is most wonderful is that at the end of the programme all of the young people take part in a graduation event, which they have never experienced in their young lives. I gave a speech at one of these events; it is most humbling not only to hear the young people speak with confidence of their experience but to see their families look at them for the first time ever with pride in their eyes.

In 2016, 375 young people completed the NCS programme and collectively raised £16,000-plus for a wide range of local causes. Through their social action projects, they had a very positive impact on the lives of local people in their communities. They are helping the communities, and we need to encourage this wherever we go. At OnSide Warrington Youth Club more than 85% of young people who have taken part in the programme have become volunteers and members of staff working with children and young people. This type of activity challenges the many negative portrayals in the media of young people. That is why I wanted to ensure that Warrington became a safer and better place for young people to live and to improve facilities and opportunities through education and life skills.

Such positivity through the NCS has developed and strengthened further links with local businesses. I am delighted to say that this summer 12 businesses had direct input to the programme in Warrington and Bolton. A local engineering company undertook a bridge-building challenge, which tested participants’ ability in communication and in how to plan, negotiate and engineer a project. The feedback from these companies was that it was an absolute pleasure, fun, uplifting, inspiring and—most importantly—humbling. This is just a small snapshot of what NCS does, in partnership with local businesses: directly linking NCS experience to the world of work and creating our entrepreneurs.

I would like to share with your Lordships Jordon’s story in his own words. We are talking about young people, so I would like noble Lords to listen to their voice. Jordon says: “When I was 11, I became a young carer for my mum who has clinical depression and my younger sister who has ADHD and autism. It didn’t leave me with a lot of free time. I used to be really shy and wouldn’t speak to many people. School was so miserable for me; I used to get bullied a lot. I used to get really upset and come home angry every night and argue with my mum and this would lead to me storming out every night. Between being bullied, stress at home and stress at school I was going through a really difficult period. Through this tough period, OnSide Warrington Youth Club was there for me and helped me so much. The staff at the Youth Club were fantastic. I have been coming to the Youth Club since I was 10 years old and have always felt safe and”—most importantly—“supported. They were there for me when I was lonely. They helped me when I struggled. They listened to me when I needed to talk, and they made me laugh when I didn’t want to smile. Whether I wanted a game of football or just to chat, they were always there for me”. Jordon concluded that those running the club should have a pay rise, but that is up to the boss. However, he is proud that Warrington and Bolton are leading the way for young people.

As your Lordships will know, these are subjects very close to my heart. My first community involvement was in response to anti-social behaviour in my local neighbourhood in Warrington. This behaviour ended tragically with my husband losing his life by being beaten to death by a gang of youths. Today, there are still too many people across the country who, day in and day out, suffer the misery of anti-social behaviour. Some of this is the result of youngsters being bored and having low self-esteem and, all too often, few opportunities. These are the very people in Warrington and Bolton to whom the NCS is reaching out.

I ask the Minister to give some assurances as the Bill proceeds. Recruitment is still one of the biggest challenges. Will he ensure that schools and colleges understand the NCS programme and the huge benefits that it has for our young people? The programme needs actively to be promoted to ensure that more young people enjoy the benefits of being recruited to it. Will he ensure that universities, through UCAS, give credits to young people who complete the programme? Will he ensure that employers enable our young people to gain more strength by discussing the NCS in interviews, thereby having a better chance of gaining employment? Finally, will he ensure that the programme is promoted to captains of industry as this would gain more sponsors for the programme and a wider range of activities for youngsters?

I feel sure that when noble Lords find out about the good work that the NCS programme does, they will be as proud as punch of it as I am of OnSide Warrington Youth Club and Bolton Lads & Girls Club. I know that this is a Bill for young people but I want to put on the record that adults help young people through this programme. Many people have supported me and my family in helping to make sure that Warrington is a safer place. While we debate this Bill, I ask noble Lords to recognise the quality of the volunteers and the time they put in to ensure that we provide a safer, healthier environment for young people in our society today.

Lord Cormack (Con)

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My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend’s very moving speech. She speaks with enormous experience, and some very sad experience too, and we should certainly heed what she says.

My noble friend on the Front Bench must be a rather happy man. This is probably a unique day in his parliamentary career: he has introduced a Bill which has been supported by every single speaker, regardless of political allegiance. Although it was painful for the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, to support it, nevertheless he did so with enthusiasm and made a very valuable contribution in the process. I shall not spoil things, because I too will express my support for the Bill. A number of very important points have been made during this debate. I am the final speaker from the Back Benches. I have heard every speech so far and of course I shall stay until the end.

I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, made a very important point when she asked whether the Bill is ambitious enough. She talked in particular of the refugees who are coming into our country at the moment. Any service like this must reach out to and embrace those who come into our communities, so that they become valuable parts of those communities. I hope that is something that the Minister will reflect on.

I thought that my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots made a very interesting speech. He talked about the shifting pattern of a changing world—a world in which the West will, quite soon, no longer enjoy pre-eminence—and how important it is that our young people should recognise that. He also said that young people should be able to be part of an international endeavour, and he gave some very good examples of that.

I want to concentrate on one thing. The first recall of your Lordships’ House after I had the privilege of joining it at the end of 2010 was in August 2011. Many of your Lordships will remember it vividly. We were recalled because of the appalling riots, in London in particular, in which young people—and they were mostly young people—ran amok and caused enormous damage and great grief and hardship in the process. I raised then, in the emergency session we had, the need for schemes that would teach young people their rights but also their responsibilities and opportunities and that would challenge them to play a more constructive part in the communities and societies of which they were members.

A group of us, from both sides of the House and the Cross Benches, came together, and we had several meetings. I was particularly reminded about this by my noble friend Lady Newlove’s speech a few minutes ago. We were trying to create a citizenship service that would lead to every young person in our country graduating following community service. As a result of a ceremony at which their efforts would be referred to, as they were in the ceremony in Warrington that we heard about so recently, they would feel welcomed into that community at the age of 18 as constructive young adults. I would like to see every young person go through such a citizenship ceremony.

Those who become British subjects have the opportunity of doing that. I had the great pleasure of attending such a ceremony on the terrace of your Lordships’ House a couple of years ago, at which about 30 people, of all ages, came to proclaim their loyalty to their new country and were awarded a certificate. I would like to see every young person in this country go through a similar ceremony that would underline what I call rights, responsibilities and opportunities. Although I appreciate the proposals in this Bill—it is modest to a degree but also ambitious, and that is not a contradiction—I would like to see them built on so that we can move to a situation like that.

In his very perceptive and powerful speech, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said that we must not reach too far, too soon or set unrealistic targets. I understand why he made those points, but we could, over a period, try to do what I suggest. The group of us who came together—we had several meetings, including one with my noble friend Lord Nash at the Department for Education—argued that this could and should be done over a period. I commend this to your Lordships. There are, of course, cases where one can overreach, but I do not think this is overreaching.

Several of your Lordships have mentioned that this is above and beyond party politics. The fact it has had such unqualified support from both sides of the House underlines that. We suggested that the ceremonies should become a function of the lieutenancy in each county, where the lord-lieutenant and the deputies would officiate, as they do with the nationality ceremonies. Then it would be above and beyond the party political. I urge that further thought should be given to this.

If there was one aspect of the Bill that caused a little frisson in parts of the House, it was very gently introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, on the role of HMRC. To envisage HMRC as a cuddly organisation, sending out missives that will bring joy when picked off the doormat of every home in the land—you have to be a mite extra charitable to credit that. When he winds up the debate, my noble friend must at least assure us that they will not be in brown envelopes, they will not be associated with a tax demand to the parents and they will indeed help to spread the good word of this extremely good scheme.

I am delighted to give the scheme my support. We must all recognise that some of us have talked as if it were national in a UK sense. The Bill applies specifically and only to England and Wales. I would like to see it throughout the country, with something very similar in Scotland, I hope. In Northern Ireland, which I know well because I had the honour of chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place for five years, there is a real need for something like this.

I wish my noble friend well as he pilots this Bill with great dexterity through your Lordships’ House, as I am sure he will. It will then go to another place. I hope by then it will have had the scrutiny that is the hallmark of your Lordships’ parliamentary endeavours.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

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My Lords, when, halfway through the coalition Government, I found myself translated into being the only Cabinet Office spokesman and Minister in this House, I thought I had better find out a bit about some of the things I would be responsible for. Among other things, I asked if I could visit a National Citizen Service scheme in Bradford, not far from Saltaire, given my initial scepticism about the scheme.

On arrival, the young people running the scheme said, “It’s tremendous to have you here. You’re here for a long afternoon. We’d like you to teach these children how to give a public speech”. After a good two minutes’ panic, I got down to it. By the end of the long afternoon I had persuaded several of them, from their starting positions that they absolutely could not do it, that they could—and they did. I came away thinking that they had gained an extra skill and a bit of extra confidence. The way the course was managed was first class. This was a cross-section of teenagers from all the rough schools in Bradford—there were not very many from the posh schools around, by the way—and I became a strong supporter of the National Citizen Service. I think that all of us who have come across the scheme know that it does something that is very worth while.

Our questions are much more about how it fits into a wider context of what others have been doing and continue to do and how it relates to opportunities that follow—local voluntary organisations and the role of local government and the like. I think that several of us were a little worried when we read the briefing from The Challenge where it said that large-scale provision was the answer, because we want it to be rooted in local communities with local charities and therefore also with local government.

I was also struck by one briefing which said that the scheme sets out to deal with the challenges of social cohesion, social mobility and social engagement. That is a pretty large agenda and this is a pretty modest initiative as part of that. If we are to tackle those huge challenges, we have to implicate the concept of citizenship, which involves ideas of empowerment and political as well as social engagement and starts, as has been mentioned by several noble Lords, with citizenship education in primary and secondary schools. We will therefore want to take advantage of scrutinising this Bill to challenge the Government on these wider questions.

My own perspective comes from my involvement in politics in west and north Yorkshire, from visiting schools in and around Bradford and, above all, from working in the former council estates of Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and Wakefield, where government funding for local authorities had been cut, often by closer to 40% than to 30%. I have just checked: Bradford is cutting its youth services by 60%, which means closing a lot of the non-statutory youth services. Incidentally, youth services have been cut across the country; it is estimated that in London spending will be cut by 90%—Westminster Council is cutting its spending on youth services completely and setting up a new foundation to encourage voluntary initiatives

In the former council estates of west and north Yorkshire, there is passive alienation. You blame the council and the Government for not doing anything for you. There are lots of troubled families and very little outside engagement. I spent a long afternoon in the middle of August looking at a local, Liberal Democrat-led initiative to mount a summer school for children between primary school and secondary school because the council no longer provides any support for them in that crucial period. There was of course a massive vote for Brexit in those areas. It was a vote against London as much as against Brussels—a vote against political elites and the rich; a vote against all outsiders; in other words, a massive “sod off to the lot of you”.

So this is one initiative that deals with this massive challenge in our divided country. When I first read about it, I thought, “Private Eye would call this the David Cameron Memorial Big Society Trust”. That is a little unfair, but Private Eye always is. When it comes to justifications, we have to ask the Minister how, when the Government are cutting related funding, they can justify funding this; and how it relates to other government and voluntary initiatives such as the Scouts, Guides and City Year UK, and to what schools and local authorities and other local bodies do.

My own involvement in another area of this, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and others will know, is with partnerships between independent schools and state schools. If one is talking about social cohesion—introducing the socially excluded to the socially exclusive, if you like—that is a very important thing to do. I spent a day with a magnificent scheme in York, led by the Quaker-founded independent schools there, where a number of Saturday schools take place ending in a week camping together in the Lake District for children from different schools in the area. It is a really worthwhile scheme.

Depressingly, in other areas I have been told by independent school heads that their parents resist such schemes because they say, “We pay for our children to come here and why should we allow others whose parents don’t pay to come and share our facilities, let alone our teachers?”. On this point, having been persuaded not to move an amendment to the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act, I have got much tougher on the charitable status and obligations of independent schools. That is something that I, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and others will not give up on.

I mention in passing that if one wants to reintroduce grammar schools we might raise the question of how that affects social cohesion. I also mention in passing the question of pay, which plays quite a large part in this Bill and is sensitive for all trusts and charities—as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and others will know. My own strong view on this is that acting as a non-executive director of a trust is volunteering for the well to do and should not be remunerated. Perhaps we will come back to that in Committee.

On the wider context of citizenship and social engagement, I got out the Goldsmith report on citizenship of 2008, which deserves not to be forgotten. It talks about citizenship education—as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and others did—and longer-term periods of citizen service, allowing for certain diminutions of tuition and other fees for those who undertake that. The issue is out there. It is a question of how far we wish to take it up again.

The report also talks about citizenship education throughout school, an issue that successive Governments have funked over the years. That means political as well as social engagement. Again from my own perspective, the removal of local democracy affects most of our northern cities, in which there are somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 electors per ward, so that your local councillor is not really local and has no chance of being engaged with the local communities there. That raises large questions about whether we need to reinvent local democracy, urban parish councils and the like. I am also persuaded that a reduction in the voting age to a point where you would begin to vote while still at school is one way to engage people in the political process at an early stage. Clearly, in this deeply divided country we must re-engage people in constructive, democratic politics.

Social engagement is also very important here. I trust the Minister will be able to tell us something about the Government’s thinking on longer terms in the citizen service and whether they are reviewing this whole area. If not, some of us might wish to suggest that there should be a Lord’s committee to review it in the next Session. We very much wish to promote a cross-party approach to all this. If the Government are to fulfil their promise to bring the country together and govern in the interests of all, they have a very broad agenda to follow and a hard task. We on these Benches offer a welcome, but a cautionary one, to the Bill. It is only a small contribution to what this country needs to bring back the concept of citizenship, social engagement and social cohesion.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)

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My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to the Bill and thank the House authorities for arranging matters so that those noble Lords who also serve on the Charities Select Committee have been able to participate in the debate. Their contribution has been very helpful.

What a rich debate it has been, despite being—as one might say—a game of two halves or a debate separated by a new runway. We covered many aspects of volunteering and the contribution that charities and third-sector organisations make to our civic life. I certainly learned a lot about what has been going on out there.

Like many noble Lords, I, too, am grateful to the agencies and charities that have provided briefings and made very helpful suggestions for improvements that might be made to the Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House. I also thank the Library for its very helpful note about the Bill and its antecedents in the big society.

The Minister said in his introduction that the National Citizen Service Bill is intended to secure the future of the NCS and make the NCS Trust more accountable to Parliament and the public. He said that the Bill, although slim, was large in aspiration. I have to say that the preponderance of comments have pointed out the opportunities missed and the lack of ambition in the Bill to solve problems in the broader area of civic engagement, volunteering and citizenship education. But we are where we are.

In May 2016 the briefing notes for the Queen’s Speech explained that a National Citizen Service Bill would,

“expand National Citizen Service by encouraging thousands more young people to take advantage of the skills building programmes offered”,

that it would be granted a royal charter and that the NCS would,

“benefit from a £1.2 billion cash injection”.

So the organisation is well funded and sufficiently well regarded by government to be given the benefit of the stardust—as I think it was called—of the special protection that can be accorded by a royal charter. I noted, as did a number of noble Lords, the reservations expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, with which I have great sympathy. I understand where he is coming from. Those of us who have been grappling with the BBC royal charter and the fallout from the Leveson report might well have good reason to pause at this point—but, by and large, it probably is a good thing that we are proceeding down this route.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Maude—who did not need to dress up for this occasion; we are quite capable of doing this in a democratic and open way—raised the independence of the new organisation and whether it would be possible to arrange for the board and chair to be appointed independently of the Government. They wanted the organisation to be not so much at arm’s length but insulated from government. As my noble friend Lord Lennie said, there is concern about the role of the Inland Revenue, whose letters do not always bring good news and may be viewed with suspicion.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, that the key point here is the need to ensure that the organisation is both independent and seen to be independent of government; otherwise, as many noble Lords pointed out, it may destroy the possibility that it will become the rite of passage for young people that we all hope it will be. I am sure we will return to this issue in Committee.

A number of noble Lords raised the question of scale. The November 2015 spending review included funding to expand the NCS to deliver up to 300,000 places a year by 2019-20—which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, said, is an ambitious uplift even allowing for the fact that NCS is as much an enabler of other organisations to run their courses as it is a direct provider. Indeed, a number of noble Lords suggested that in future it should concentrate on being an enabler and not a provider—more Channel 4 than BBC, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested.

Several noble Lords focused on one of the distinctive aspects of the NCS, which is that it seeks to bring together young people from different backgrounds, to help participants develop greater confidence, self-awareness and responsibility by meeting people they would not ordinarily meet. It is not the only organisation in the UK that does this sort of work but its determination to run mixed geographical and cultural groupings marks it out. I took the feeling across the House to be that the new organisation will have to use all the tricks in the book to do this, combined with what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, called a relentless focus on those who are disadvantaged and a steely determination to ensure that they participate—not forgetting those with disabilities or those who live in rural settings, who often have their own barriers to participation, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth reminded us.

The introduction of the Bill gives Parliament and the country an opportunity to reconsider the potential of the title words: “national”, “citizen” and “service”. On “national”, under the Bill the NCS’s funding and current activities are restricted to England, as we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Wei. I support him in this. As he said, of course it is right to respect the wishes of the nations of the UK to come up with their own models but it seems strange that more has not been done to seek partner organisations in Scotland, for example, and to give them the carrot of an opportunity to have guaranteed funding and royal charter protection.

Incidentally, I assume that Barnett consequentials flow from the funding that is going into the NCS. Can the Minister help us here and point out where the money is being spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland if it is not being spent on the NCS? After all, £1.3 billion is quite a lot of extra cash to be accounted for.

On “citizen”, a number of noble Lords took up my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s plea that the NCS should not and cannot exist in isolation from wider considerations of citizenship. As we have heard, the risk is that citizenship as a curriculum subject is going to disappear. Can the Minister see how this might be resolved in practice? I would be grateful if he could spend some time on this—or perhaps write to us if it takes the input of other departments to do that.

On “service”, it was argued by my noble friend Lady Royall and others that the NCS makes up part of a mosaic of volunteering opportunities for young people. The research done on the pilot cohorts shows that the NCS has had a positive impact on social integration and whets young people’s appetite for further volunteering. So it makes good sense to see the current NCS programmes as a beginning and not an end of opportunities to serve.

This raises the need for proper recognition for all young people who serve by creating a legal status for full-time volunteers, who are—in the eyes of many, and as we were reminded—currently punished for their efforts by an outdated legal set-up that considers them to be NEETs: not in education, employment or training. In America, France and Germany, full-time volunteering has a legal status and engages hundreds of thousands of young people every year. The figures are impressive: 75,000 in America, 45,000 in Germany and, in France, more than 100,000 places a year by 2018. Will the Minister share with us where the Government have got to on this issue, and whether this would be a fruitful line to take up in Committee?

On evaluation and monitoring, we have had reports from NatCen and Ipsos MORI, which have been reviewing and reporting on the pilot and the early rollout of the NCS. It is, however, unfortunate that the Bill has been introduced in the midst of an NAO review of whether the Cabinet Office is achieving value for money in its delivery of NCS. It seems to be rather germane to the issues that we are discussing. It remains to be seen whether the review, due to be published, it says, in winter 2016—it seems like winter now—will be available by the time the Bill goes into Committee in the House of Lords next month. Will the Minister enlighten us on this point?

Can the Minister also comment on the plea made by my noble friend Lord Blunkett and others that the performance measures to be used for this project should be outcome based and not simply raw throughput? If we want this to be a rite of passage for the youth of our country, and to change the way that young people engage with civic society, we have to allow the programme to find its place in the volunteering and civic engagement ecosystem. If we are to be truly ambitious, which the Minister asked us to be, we should allow NCS the space and time to work out what works, and give it the independence, the structure and the resources to do it brilliantly.

We on this side support the idea of the NCS and we will support the Bill. We welcome the work that the NCS has done so far; it has real potential to be part of young people’s journeys into adulthood and a starting point for more active participation in civic society. It could inculcate the habit of volunteering throughout their lives. For this potential to be realised, the social action element of NCS needs to be of consistently high quality and participants should be supported into other volunteering arrangements. The law must be changed to make sure that that is a viable way forward. This must be the focus of the Bill. We support the Bill, but we will—as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, enjoined us to—give it proper scrutiny in Committee. We look forward to a constructive dialogue with the Government as the Bill progress through your Lordships’ House.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)

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My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed from all around the House—and particularly to those noble Lords who took the time to come and see me. I particularly relate to the story of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, of mild panic before a speech, but I hope that I will overcome that.

It is very pleasing, as my noble friend Lord Cormack mentioned, that virtually universally there was support for the NCS itself. I am grateful for that: the NCS programme has deserved it. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker—who is not in her place, but explained why—who, in a way, went against the mood of the House and subjected the Bill and the charter to intense scrutiny. I pay tribute to her for doing that, and I hope that I will be able to answer some of those questions when we come back to the Bill in Committee.

I am also grateful for the suggestions on how we might help NCS reach out to people from all backgrounds and for the emphasis on placing NCS in a wider social action journey for young people. As far as amendments are concerned, I am happy to listen to and meet noble Lords to discuss them before Grand Committee if they so wish. I am not going to make any commitments on individual amendments tonight, but I assure the House that we will listen and I will answer as many questions as I can in the time.

NCS does not and should not stand alone. We will continue to support opportunities for young people before NCS. As the National Council for Voluntary Organisations said, NCS can act as a springboard to other opportunities. Last month the Government announced a further £80 million of funding for the youth sector. The initiatives will be jointly delivered by the Government and the Big Lottery Fund, with £40 million going towards the new Youth Investment Fund, targeting disadvantaged communities across England, and an additional £40 million providing continued support for Step Up to Serve’s successful #iwill youth social action campaign.

Within that broad and varied journey, we also see the value in a single unifying rite of passage for young people. NCS is available and affordable. It has a distinct combination of personal development and the chance to mix with people from other backgrounds. I am pleased to say that although the Bill as introduced will apply to England only—my noble friend Lord Wei mentioned this—the Northern Ireland Executive continue to deliver NCS with their own delivery partner, Co-operation Ireland, which has distinct expertise in bringing communities together. We maintain a positive dialogue with the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Government. This Government’s aspiration remains to have NCS available throughout the UK in a way that recognises devolution and the distinct circumstances in different areas.

I shall try to answer some of the points that noble Lords have raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in what I thought was a very good speech, mentioned recruiting hard-to-reach young people. We agree in principle that it is important that we should continue to do that; NCS exists to promote social cohesion, social engagement and social mobility. The Government are committed to providing a place on NCS to every young person who wants one. One of the trust’s primary functions is to enable participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities. The charter codified this vital function, making clear its central importance to the trust’s mission.

The noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Cormack mentioned refugees who come into this country. Anyone who is resident or receiving education in England is welcome. As I said, we are committed to providing a place for those who want it.

My noble friend Lady Byford asked about marketing and how successful it is in reaching the hard to reach. The trust needs freedom to innovate and the space to try new approaches to reach young people, particularly the hardest to reach. For example, it has successfully secured the endorsement of musicians and YouTube video bloggers with a high profile among young people. Incorporating the NCS Trust within the royal charter will position the trust above party politics and retain its operational independence to enable it to do that.

I turn to a subject that many noble Lords mentioned: HMRC, and whether it will reach hard-to-reach groups. I admit that when I first heard of this, the thought of getting a brown envelope from HMRC did not seem exactly the most favourable marketing tool. However, a bit like the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, having had what I would say was a normal view of HMRC I then spent some time as a Treasury Whip defending its very good work. I know that in this case the reason we are doing it is purely that HMRC has the best data available. At the moment the NCS Trust uses commercial data that it has to buy. HMRC data are protected in a special way that means it cannot just hand them over to the NCS Trust to use. So we intend for the NCS Trust to provide its own letter—it will not necessarily even be in a brown envelope—and we will just use HMRC as a postbox to try to reach as many people as possible.

Lord Cormack

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Can my noble friend assure us that there will not be any other enclosures in the envelope?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I cannot guarantee that there will not be any enclosures, but I do not think there will be the one that my noble friend is thinking of. It is only one way of reaching young people. Schools, local authorities and direct marketing all play a role.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, also talked about the importance of people with disabilities. The trust is currently developing a detailed inclusion strategy to ensure that over the long term there is consistent and high-quality provision for all. Many NCS providers already reach out and offer support to those with disabilities. For example, the largest provider, The Challenge, has worked for the National Deaf Children’s Society. It has adapted the programme for young people and has provided dedicated support workers. Across NCS, young people with special educational needs have personal coaches and one-to-one support workers alongside staff members. However, I acknowledge there is work to do in this area.

Many noble Lords mentioned local authority engagement. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for example, was one. We certainly want NCS to be woven into the social fabric of communities and local authorities clearly have a central role to play in this. That is why officials from the DCMS have been engaging with local authority representatives in a series of regional workshops on working with NCS. The ideas generated will feed into national government guidance, setting out how local authorities can promote NCS and maximise the benefits in their area.

The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and my noble friend Lady Byford asked if we should reconsider the requirement and duty of schools to promote NCS. I do not think we are going to do that. We want to work collaboratively with schools, rather than impose burdens on them. We are working with representatives from schools to develop guidance on working with NCS. I have some personal experience on other Bills before your Lordships’ House of imposing duties on education establishments, and it certainly was not very popular at the time. I fear therefore that we are not going to do that.

As far as whether there should be a duty on the NCS Trust to collaborate with the wider sector, we are certainly ready to discuss that in Committee in detail. At the moment, the NCS Trust partners a broad range of charitable and social enterprise organisations—over 200—which deliver NCS. Young people often develop lasting links with the organisations they work with, making a real impact at grass-roots levels with local community groups. The trust is a part of Generation Change, a group of youth organisations looking to collectively increase the scale, quality and status of youth social action programmes. The trust is committed to helping NCS become a gateway to other programmes and opportunities, helping young people to see volunteering as a habit for a lifetime.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether NCS should just be a commissioner of programmes. As I mentioned, the NCS Trust oversees the delivery and it already works with a supply chain of over 200 regional and local providers. The trust’s job is to shape, support and champion NCS by promoting it to young people across the country. At the moment, however, we want to maintain the flexibility of the NCS Trust to do the job in the way that seems best for it.

My noble friend Lord Wei and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about small charities and I agree this is a very important consideration because small and medium-sized charities play a vital role in NCS delivery, particularly in hard-to-reach groups, which can be targeted in the groups’ local area. At the moment, some of the bigger providers use smaller charities to do exactly that. The royal charter requires the NCS Trust to ensure equality of access to the programme and have regard to the desirability of promoting social mobility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about pre- and post-NCS and whether we would consider amendments to support and not undermine youth social action groups. I certainly look forward to discussing that with her in Committee. The NCS Trust has expertise specifically in NCS, and I must say that we are cautious about seeing the trust, or indeed the Bill, as a vehicle for everything that the Government will continue to support, as my noble friend Lady Vere mentioned, but I accept that that is a point to be discussed in Committee.

My noble friend Lady Byford also asked what happens after NCS. The NCS provides an online opportunity hub for NCS graduates to help them on their next step. I noted the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, of enterprise passports, which I will have to consider in further detail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about reporting and asked how many graduates go on to later volunteering. I mentioned that 2013-14 graduates undertook 8 million hours of volunteering. The NCS Trust is focused on the NCS programme, but the Government are committed to support the wider social action journey, and we are keeping it under review.

Many noble Lords talked about a commission or a review, and I thank noble Lords for the suggestion on full-time volunteering. The Government made a manifesto commitment to support social action. We know that there continue to be challenges and obstacles to participation in some forms of social action, and are therefore considering how they can be identified and addressed—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also mentioned that.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson talked about the International Citizen Service. We agree that the NCS is an excellent gateway to it—it is for a separate age group, the next age range up. ICS benefits both its participants and the UK’s standing abroad, so we agree with him on that. NCS has a big task ahead of it in getting more people to join, so for the time being we are not ready to commit to an international element, but we recognise that NCS can act as a step towards the ICS.

My noble friend Lord Cormack talked about citizenship ceremonies, which is a long-standing cause of his. The NCS itself culminates in a graduation ceremony with a certificate signed by the Prime Minister, and I invite my noble friend to attend one, but I take on board his wider suggestions, which may not be part of the Bill.

I will answer some of the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, which are relevant to other noble Lords. She asked why such a large sum is spent on NCS. We will provide funding to deliver the manifesto commitment of a place available for everyone who wants it. The Bill will require the trust to lay its annual accounts and reports before Parliament, to ensure that Parliament can continue to protect value for money for the taxpayer. We make no apologies for what NCS is: it is unique and requires investment of both money and effort, especially in hard-to-reach groups. NCS is successful and a countrywide badge which applies equally from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Billericay. We think it is money well spent and we hope to grow it in a sustainable way.

My noble friend Lord Wei asked probably the most difficult question of the debate: will I guarantee spending post-2020? That is a hard thing to ask a Minister, particularly one who has been in post for only a few weeks. The answer is, obviously, that I cannot bind a future Government, but the Bill goes as far as it can to entrench NCS as an institution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked whether the service could be delivered by other organisations. There is no comparative analysis. It is delivered by more than 200 organisations, as I said. The NCS Trust acts as a central commissioning body and promotes the programme. As for comparative analysis, it is difficult to compare it to something similar because this is unique. But, of course, its value for money will be undertaken by the National Audit Office. Accounts are available online, and if anyone cannot find them we will be happy to supply the link. They will continue to be available online.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about amending the royal charter, and said there was no consultation. It was published as a Command Paper, giving both Houses the opportunity to scrutinise it and see that it provides for appropriate government oversight on such matters as the appointment of board members and the chair. The charter expresses the Government’s commitment to the independence and permanence of the trust. We believe that the royal charter achieves the right balance between protecting NCS for the future, while allowing its scope to evolve.

I want quickly to talk about one thing which is very important. Many noble Lords have mentioned the growth targets of the NCS Trust. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott and the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Lennie, asked whether there would be quality in the outcome. We have made the commitment that there will be a place for everyone, but we do not want to put numerical targets before quality. The programme has grown because people value it, and we remain committed to offering this place. We agree that quality is very important and we want to provide a quality place for everyone who wants it. How will that be judged? An annual report will have to be published, and it is specifically mentioned that the quality of the year’s performance has to be reported on.

I am coming to an end and I am sorry that I cannot mention everyone’s points.

Lord Blunkett

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Will the Minister write to me about transitions, as this could avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or amendment?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I certainly commit to do that for the noble Lord, and to everyone whose questions I have not answered. I will put copies of that letter in the House.

We are at a pivotal moment on NCS. It was tested on a small scale, proved a success and was rolled out more widely, and still proved a success, as the independent evaluations attest. It earned its cross-party support and the Government’s commitment to provide a place for every young person who wants one. Now is the time to cement its place in national life and do all we can to ensure that future generations of young people will benefit. It is time to create a delivery structure for the programme that reflects NCS’s status as an enduring service for young people that is transparent and accountable to Parliament.

I look forward to the Committee stage and working with your Lordships in doing what this House does best: to test the Bill and ensure that its provisions meet those aspirations—aspirations that I think we share. This is our opportunity to create an enduring and effective delivery structure for a programme that has proven qualities—a National Citizen Service that enhances young lives and unites communities. I commend the Bill to the House and invite your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon) (Lab)

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My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 1: National Citizen Service Trust

Amendment 1

Baroness Barker (LD)

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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde; since Second Reading he has been at great pains to discuss with opposition Members some aspects of the Bill. I put on record my thanks to organisations such as the challenge trusts, which have been similarly forthcoming in light of the searching questions that we on these Benches raised on Second Reading. I forgot to declare my interests on Second Reading; I have been a management consultant for over 30 years in the voluntary sector, and have a small consultancy that specialises in charities and voluntary organisations. I have no dealings with this organisation or any people engaged in delivery of the programme, but that experience of looking at voluntary organisations—how they are established, how they work and the trouble that they get into—led me to ask a series of questions on Second Reading about the establishment of this organisation. Those questions remain unanswered and that sets the scene for our more detailed probing this afternoon.

I hope that Members of your Lordships’ House might forgive some of us to whom voluntary sector organisations are deeply fascinating things; it might not be so for them. They should appreciate that the Government are about to invest a billion pounds in this organisation, so it falls to us to do some of the important due diligence that should be done in advance of such a decision.

I went away from Second Reading, read the Minister’s speeches carefully, and listened to and read again the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maude. I am now even more certain than I was before that the Bill is based on two flawed assumptions. The first is that the National Citizen Service is unique. It is, in that it has had unprecedented support from the Government, but it is not in terms of the young people with whom it works or the benefits that it delivers to them. It is unique only in that its programme is four weeks long. Other organisations work with as large a range of people in the youth sector and do so on an ongoing basis. That assumption right at the beginning is profound, flawed as it is, because all the decisions that flow from it in the Bill are built on that wrong assumption. It is not true that the service is unique and can be delivered only by this organisation.

The second thing, which flows from that, is the statement made by the Minister during the debate on 25 October in cols. 187 and 188: that because the service is “unique”, it is incomparable. That is also wrong. Although the service is of a very tight and specific nature, its outputs and its outcomes for young people can be analysed and compared to those of other organisations. Some of them will be among the 200 organisations which deliver the National Citizen Service. It is therefore possible to look at the work done by this organisation, and its cost-benefits, and compare them.

I submit that that analysis should have been done before the decision to make the current sizeable investment was taken. It certainly should be done before the decision is taken to set this organisation in—to use a word that the Minister used in his speech—“cement” in the life of the nation. Having decided that this organisation should stand alone, the Government now wish to embed it in the most clunky, heavy and difficult-to-change charitable structure that can be found. That puts this organisation in yet another unique situation. Unlike the rest of the voluntary sector, which is having to become more efficient and effective, to collaborate, to draw up strategic alliances and to become much more lithe and nimble all round, this organisation is to be put into a structure which is almost impossible to change. We should therefore have a thoroughgoing look at this. Other Members on these Benches will talk about the effects of being a royal charter body and the extent to which services run through such bodies are extremely difficult to change.

The Minister prayed in aid the fact that to be a royal charter body means that an organisation will have to account annually to Parliament. I put it to him that for an organisation to receive the level of investment proposed for this one full reporting should be required, but it does not necessarily follow that it has to be locked down as would be the case here.

I started out by being sceptical about the need for the NCS to exist as a separate organisation. I remain doubtful that it needs to be a distinct organisation: its service could be provided by any one of a number of organisations. On balance, I would be happy to accept that the Government should be allowed to let it exist as a separate organisation. I see no reason why it should not exist as a community interest company. As such, it would be required to produce a high standard of accounts. I would prefer to see it incorporated as a charity. The challenge trusts are both and therefore subject to a high degree of public accountability.

I really do not see the need to use the structure proposed. I therefore tabled Amendment 1 and the consequential amendments in this group, which would remove the royal charter body status from the organisation while leaving the Government the option to explore other forms of charitable structure which would enable accountability. I beg to move.

Lord Blunkett (Lab)

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My Lords, I have a registered interest as a member of the National Citizen Service Board. In briefly addressing the amendments in my name, I associate myself wholeheartedly with the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble Lords, Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord Maude.

It seems to me that the benefit of having a debate in Committee is to see where we can agree with each other, and I think that many of the amendments have taken on that challenge. There are many improvements that can be made to the way in which the current National Citizen Service is delivered, including greater transparency. It would be quite useful if people would reverse the mirror and say, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if a lot of organisations receiving substantial public funds also had to comply with many of the precepts laid down in the amendments before us this afternoon?”. In other words, it works both ways.

In some cases, young people have been sceptical about the National Citizen Service, questioning whether it should be embedded—I prefer that term to “cemented” —in our structures. I am keen for organisations that work with these young people to monitor and publish evidence and material about both the impact on the young people and the spread of young people who are reached in the way that is quite rightly being asked of the National Citizen Service. I say “quite rightly” because it receives substantial sums of money. I do not think that it helps for the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, to talk about rolling up money. I used to ask previous Chancellors—not least Gordon Brown—not to do this. When I was at the Department for Education, he had a meeting with me and told me that in the next spending round education would get £19 billion. Unfortunately, it was over three years and was cumulative, and therefore it did not quite have the impact that £19 billion might have done. We are doing the same now with the National Citizen Service.

I want to say why I think that, difficult though it may be to implement the royal charter, it is better than having an NDPB. Making the National Citizen Service a government scheme with, effectively, a government department would be the biggest possible turn-off for young people and would make it extremely difficult for it to have a relationship with the dozens—in fact, scores—of good, professional and effective organisations that constitute the delivery mechanisms at NCS. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to that but then suggested at the end of her speech that, although she did not oppose retaining NCS, it is an organisation which commissions, monitors and oversees, ensuring quality and consistency, but which in itself is not the delivery mechanism. All the good organisations that many of us in this Committee are associated with are the ones that are delivering.

Those who have at times worked with and spoken to the young people engaged in the National Citizen Service know that, as we said at Second Reading, that is just one part of a much bigger jigsaw in terms of the journey that young people make before they reach the relevant age for National Citizen Service. Also crucial is what happens afterwards with regard to part-time and full-time volunteering options, and the ability of young people to understand what their experience has meant to them, as well as, importantly, what it has been able to deliver for others.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lords I referred to a moment ago help to clarify that the Government cannot have their cake and eat it. If the Government want, understandably, to be engaged in the appointment of the chair, it will be quite inappropriate for a government representative—or, for that matter, an opposition representative—to be on the board. The process should be transparent, independent and open in the way that we seek for many other organisations. Incidentally, regrettably, there has been a drift over the last six years towards a hegemony where even those more transparent methods of recruitment have drifted into departmental pressure and something more than oversight. Many noble Lords on this Committee will be painfully aware of examples that they have come across where pressure has been brought to bear.

We must protect NCS, and its delivery and engagement with young people, from any suggestion that it is a government-operated organisation or subject to government appointments in that way. I hope that by the time we reach Report and Third Reading, we will not have to move amendments that reverse the situation as laid out by the Government at the moment on the issue of the appointments procedure. I also hope that by the time we reach Report we will have some idea about the transition arrangements. Although the Minister did write, as promised, after Second Reading, I do not think we are any clearer as to what the transition arrangements are than we were three weeks ago.

Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)

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My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, declared his interest as a member of the board of the NCS Trust. I declare an interest as the Minister who, with my brilliant colleague Nick Hurd, brought the National Citizen Service into existence, and I hope your Lordships will forgive a certain amount of proprietorial pride in what we created and my very deep concerns. As the Bill takes NCS into the next stage of its existence and what I think we all hope will be a permanent place in the life of this nation—with the important role that is now proven to be the case that NCS can play in creating this rite of passage for young people on the journey from childhood into adulthood—I am concerned that we get this right, so I make no apology for the amendments that I and my noble friends have put down or for supporting other amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

I completely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has just said. It is an interesting group of amendments, because they go in opposite directions. Amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, crave more control by the Government, or more scrutiny, oversight and powers to intervene in the management and conduct of the trust. Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, suggests that there should be a chief executive who is the accounting officer, which would make it look and feel much more like a quango or a government department. The noble Lord is nodding approvingly—he is now shaking his head, although I am not sure at which part. But whatever it is, I do not like it. I do not want the NCS Trust, the body that administers this admittedly very large and growing amount of public money, to be something that looks, feels and behaves like a quango.

We deliberately set the trust up at the outset—frankly, against some of the advice we were given at the time —as a body genuinely independent of the Government. It was not to be without scrutiny by the Government—how could that be the case? As I said to your Lordships at Second Reading, I was the Minister who presided over a programme saving very large amounts of public money, and I do not think I can be accused of being cavalier with the use of public money. But the essence of the NCS Trust was that it should be entrepreneurial and able to innovate, to do things quickly and to be agile rather than being subject to endless scrutiny and endless intervention. It was not to become the kind of arm’s-length body that has a very firm grip by the hand at the end of the arm, which is why I and my noble friends have put down Amendments 14 and 15, which would make it absolutely clear that the NCS Trust board shall be independent of government.

That is not to say that the trust could appoint whoever it likes as chairman or members of the board; that is not what we have in mind. It is clear that it has been the case with the NCS Trust so far that the appointment of the chair and the members of the board have been subject to approval by Ministers. It would not have been possible for Stephen Greene, the brilliant chair of the NCS Trust, to have been appointed without us and indeed the Prime Minister of the day approving his appointment. Things were done a little less formally than is proposed here but, none the less, that was the reality. Your Lordships would expect that to be the case and we expect that to be the case in the way that the arrangements will work in the future. Therefore, it is very important to have a clear, bald statement on the face of the Bill to say that:

“The Board shall be independent of Government, with all appointments subject to fair and open competition”.

On the independence of the trust, it is important to establish from the very beginning that this is not to be an NDPB, which is a clumsy formal word for what we all think of as quangos—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations. We have established quite clearly that it is perfectly possible within the nomenclature or the way in which different types of bodies are classified for this, as a very unusual and I would say unique body, not to be classified as an NDPB. That is for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, set out.

This programme has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people. We hope that over the years and decades ahead it will touch and change the lives of millions more. I cannot stress enough to your Lordships how important it is that this is seen to be not a programme run by the Government. Nothing could kill it more surely and definitively than that.

I agree that my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues want this to be set up in a way that enables there to be proper scrutiny and, as a last resort, the ability to intervene directly—because as a last resort the Government will always have the ability to withdraw the funding from the trust and to set up another administrative body if it goes completely out of kilter. Although I have that sympathy, I urge them to keep in mind and resist the tendency that all of us who have been Ministers have seen at every stage: that is, the desire of the government machine to reach out its hand—its no doubt very caring hand—to control what goes on outside the reach of government. That is of the utmost importance for the future success of this programme.

The programme has already demonstrated a very high degree of success with the young people whose lives it has touched and changed. It has attracted the support of political parties across the spectrum, after quite a high degree of initial scepticism, and huge swathes of voluntary bodies from the youth sector and beyond. It has been very successful but it is a fragile vessel that needs to be treated with great care. Therefore, I urge the Minister and his colleagues to take these amendments away and reflect on the fact that this is the way to give the best chance of success for the future and to guarantee independence, subject to scrutiny and the appointment of the chair being made, as we said, by the Prime Minister or on the recommendation of the Prime Minister to Her Majesty; and with the ability of the Prime Minister to approve appointments to the NCS Trust board for the rest of its membership. We strongly argue that there should not be a nominated government representative on the board, which smacks of having a nark in the camp and could undermine the crucial sense of independence that will make all the difference for the future.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)

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My Lords, I have Amendment 49 in this group. Before turning to it, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. It seems a shame if we should not be prepared to consider positive ways to deploy the very large sum of money in a programme that is already proving itself successful. She expressed concerns about bodies being squeezed out, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made the point that the National Citizen Service Trust is a delivery operation. The opportunity is therefore for smaller charitable and voluntary groups. I entirely agree with her that there is a danger that they could be squeezed out; we shall be debating that in a series of amendments later on in Committee. The underlying thrust of what is being achieved with the Bill is entirely praiseworthy and we want to make sure that we maintain that. To take some of the details, my noble friend Lord Maude made a very important point about the need for it to be seen as independent of government to give it the best possible way forward.

Where I can be more sympathetic to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, was in her remarks about the way that royal charter companies operate. They are tied into a very inflexible structure, to return to a point that I made at Second Reading. I understand the need for a royal charter, which would have the stardust in it. It is a great thing to be able to talk about as part of the sales pitch for this operation and will help the delivery groups as well. But all the evidence that I received when I worked in the charity world was that a royal charter makes an organisation very difficult to handle structurally.

Your Lordships can see this in the draft charter that has been tabled. If the Committee turns to the way that it deals with charter amendments at article 15, it can be seen to lay out quite an elaborate procedure for changes to the governing documents. The difficulty put to me before, not apropos of the Bill but of royal charter companies generally, is that most such changes have to be dealt with by the Privy Council, which is not of itself very familiar with this sort of activity. The Privy Council is therefore quite concerned about how it is to happen and what the implications are, so there is a good deal of back and forth—of talking and discussions—before a decision can be reached.

At the end of that, while I understand that the National Citizen Service Trust is not directly a charity, it will have a public benefit objective. The Privy Council will not want to find that it is allowing something to happen that could be done by a charity. It would then go off to talk to the Charity Commission. The whole system would start again, with a further series of questions going back and forth, and it would therefore be a very slow process. The Privy Council does not want to appear on the front page of the tabloids for having allowed something to happen which may of itself be undesirable and, even more importantly, would not have been allowed by the Charity Commission. In my view, if the NCS Trust is to be successful—and along with other noble Lords, I certainly hope that it is—and to go from 58,000 young men and women a year to 300,000, there will be changes to this document. We do not know what or when they will be, or how many there will be, but I suspect that there will be a lot of them.

My Amendment 49 is designed to keep the stardust implied by the royal charter but to simplify the procedures for changing the governing documents. It suggests that changes to the constitution, which is the key governing document, would require the permission of the Charity Commission and the giving of notice to the Privy Council, which could complain and therefore block it by talking to the Charity Commission. That would give the control, the proper parameters, that my noble friend Lord Maude referred to as being desirable. For changes to the by-laws, which are so far not extant but will come into being in due course and which are of a lower order of magnitude and importance in corporate governance, notice is to be given to the Charity Commission and the Privy Council. Again, complaints and objections could be made to stop it if required.

Finally, where the board or trust wished to move administrative matters from a constitution of by-laws, this could be done but again notice would have to be given to the Charity Commission. These changes are designed to provide the balance referred to by other noble Lords and the stardust that a royal charter implies but at the same time to enable the National Citizen Service Trust board to move reasonably quickly and to be flexible—my noble friend Lord Maude talked about the need for it to be flexible. It needs to be able to return to and react to changes. This measure would enable it to do so much quicker than in the structure presently envisaged. I hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendment.

Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and pleased to put my name to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and to Amendment 17 with those of my noble friends Lady Finn and Lord Maude. I thoroughly endorse the comments both of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and of my noble friend Lord Maude and their passionate defence of the purpose of the NCS programme and of its independence.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked whether this is a unique programme—which I think gets to the heart of it. It is true that some of the activities that take place in NCS may be found in a range of other volunteering social action organisations, but there are things that are unique about NCS. The first is the idea of a rite of passage and the ambition that it should be something that every 15 year-old, 16 year-old or 17 year-old goes through as a binding experience that builds into a sense of social cohesion and social mixing, which are inherent to the whole programme. That is not to say that every activity in the programme is unique, but its ambition, its potential scale and the idea that is something that everyone goes through, with an opportunity to mix with others, are unique.

The NCS is not a threat to the sector. Rather, as others have said, it is an enabler of the sector. It is delivered by others. It is a beacon—a sense that the Government take incredibly seriously the idea of social action and are providing a centre of momentum that can push this agenda forwards. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, not just in this group but in others, seem to face in different directions. They give a lower status to the NCS Trust by keeping it as a community interest company but they also add more control, which seems to be the precise opposite of what one would want for it to be a success. It needs to be more independent of government and to have a higher status. That is ultimately what the Bill attempts to do.

Two principles are at stake here: the actual independence of the body and its perceived independence —of course, one feeds the other. The royal charter seems to be a neat way through this. It provides independence as a well as a sense of permanence and, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, puts the operation of the NCS Trust effectively beyond politics to become something that is seen as a public good and to be supported.

The royal charter sends a strong signal to all stakeholders that NCS is a permanent part of our national landscape, a new British institution that takes that most British of virtues—service to others—and elevates it to the appropriate position. Just as the National Trust might be seen as the protector of historic spaces, NCS can perform a similar role in the development of the nation’s young people.

That is why I absolutely support the amendments on not just the independence of the board but also the appointments process, which my noble friend Lady Finn will talk more about. It relates to this point about the public body, and it is quite right that given the level of state funding involved there is a new regime and greater accountability for the money spent. The clauses that deal with audit and accounts—and indeed appointments, subject, I hope, to some movement from the Minister—would provide the correct level of scrutiny, and of course it will continue to be audited by the National Audit Office and so on.

It is, however, incredibly important that the independence provided by the royal charter is not undermined by the NCS becoming classified, as my noble friend has said, as an NDPB—a quango—which could be a back route into the reassertion of government control. As we have discussed, that is the sure way to kill this thing in the eyes of the people we want to use it. For that reason, the right device is a royal charter. This is not my area of expertise by any means, but the Cabinet Office guidance on the classification of public bodies of various kinds provides for unclassified ALBs—arm’s-length bodies—when they are genuinely unique and unclassifiable, and I think this is genuinely unique. There is, therefore, a spot in the existing landscape that this body could land on. Another organisation with a similar classification is the Churches Conservation Trust—in receipt of public money but clearly carrying out a public good which is beyond the political realm.

In closing, those of us who have put our names to this amendment look to the Minister for his reassurance that the independence that he clearly wants to pursue through the royal charter will not be compromised by bureaucratic consequences of the classification process. It is so important that the fact that it should not be an NDPB is on the face of the Bill.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

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My Lords, I, too, should declare an interest. I have done most of my politics in places like Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds and Manchester, particularly in areas where the people who we would now call the left-behind are clustered. That is where I have come across the National Citizen Service and been impressed by what it does. However, I also recognise that it is one useful initiative in places where government funding has been cut by 40% in the last 10 years, and where the state is not at all evident.

My worry—and the reason for all these probing amendments—is that we have here something that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, rightly called one part of a bigger jigsaw, and that can only be part of a bigger jigsaw. It needs not to be set too permanently in cement. It needs to have the flexibility to become part of a wider strategy, because we desperately need a wider strategy towards those who no longer feel that they are really citizens and part of our society. Other voluntary bodies are working in the same area. Just in the past six months I have visited the York schools partnership between independent schools and local state schools. It is excellent: Saturday extra curriculum throughout the year—including a week in the Lake District—funded by contributions and other sources. In the middle of August I visited a summer school run by local volunteers in north Bradford for children between primary school and secondary school, some of whom are still struggling to read or count. That point, at which children are moving from one area to another, is crucial. The local Tesco provided the food and we managed, with contributions from people like me, to take the children to the Lake District for a week to work together. Some of them had never been that far from their homes.

There is a range of activities run by the Scouts and others; they need to work together. If the National Citizen Service is to expand at speed, as is proposed, it also needs to be locally linked and networked, and not have yet more national organisation imposed on it. The choice of local partners and local providers is important.

We will need to develop a wider strategy and look at how one works the volunteer dimension and how far it can fit into the things that desperately need doing for younger people—not just the 15 to 17 year-olds but all the way through from when children enter nursery school. That needs to be discussed further. I worry a little. The reason why some of us are testing this royal charter is that, when one hears about permanence and cement, one wonders whether this is being put down as a great lump, when there is a huge amount that we need to do. Whatever we think about the outcome of the referendum, the scale of the vote that we saw not just against Brussels but against London, the elite and all the outsiders in these areas shows us that we have a major, long-term underlying problem, to which this is one useful response, but as part of a wider strategy—it is only part of a bigger jigsaw.

I have just a few hesitations from my limited experience in the coalition Government about the total independence of royal charter bodies if appointed by the Prime Minister on the advice of the Cabinet Office. There are occasional, small political interventions at that level. Perhaps I had better not say any more than that, but I have watched it with a degree of interest.

One should not overstate the contribution that NCS alone can make. The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, talked about giving it a higher status. If this is to be a rite of passage—almost the rite of passage—we need to do a lot more. We need to do a great deal for those in secondary schools. This is a useful contribution to that, but there is a great deal more that this House might usefully debate—we might even have a sessional committee to investigate it further—because we know that we face a much wider problem.

Baroness Finn (Con)

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My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 14 and 15, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friends Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy, and to Amendment 17, also in the names of my noble friends Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy, which relates to the wording on appointments in the royal charter.

I reiterate that I am completely delighted that the NCS Bill seeks to put the remarkable success story of the National Citizen Service on a statutory footing. I fully support the aim of the Bill to achieve that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friends Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy that the independence factor is vital. For me, it is absolutely critical that the National Citizen Service is not classed as a non-departmental public body.

This real and perceived independence will give the National Citizen Service a status that is above petty party politics. To imperil that independence would be completely wrong. The NCS must not be seen as an arm of the state. I believe that the royal charter route, which brings a sense of permanence, is the best route to achieve all these aims. Like my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, I believe that the Cabinet Office guidance on this matter—that a publicly funded body can be unclassified if it is genuinely unique and unclassifiable—is the best solution in the case of the National Citizen Service Trust.

Having established that maximum independence with proper government oversight and accountability is essential, I turn to the vexed issue of appointments to the National Citizen Service board. The appointments lie at the heart of the real and perceived independence issues. I do not believe that the NCS Trust should have a formal government or opposition appointee on the board. There are several reasons for that. First, there is a very real conflict of interest. The Secretary of State has a role in regulating both the National Citizen Service and wider civil society. It would therefore be wrong to have the regulator as such sitting as a non-executive member of the board.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)

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Well, my Lords, what a good debate we have had. Possibly most of it could have been said at Second Reading but I think that it gained in acuity by focusing on our series of amendments. I say to the Minister, “If these are your friends, I wish you luck in trying to unscramble where you have got to on this Bill”.

First, let us be clear about the nodding. I was not agreeing; I was simply encouraging a previously hesitant Member of your Lordships’ House to speak on. I hope that it was not misunderstood in any way.

Having dealt with the serious stuff, let us move on. Here, we are debating the question of how to balance independence and accountability—a crucial area. Of course, those things are capable of being interpreted in many ways and I am sure that the Minister has had much advice about what the various modes lead to. I do not think that any of them would have led to the idea that this would not be an NDPB because it was genuinely unique and unclassifiable. I think that that might be a step too far for those who have to advise Ministers on such matters. I think that this is genuinely not a unique institution, and it is certainly not unclassifiable, even though we might wish it to be.

I will start with a problem that comes up from time to time—indeed, we have discussed it in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions. There are some models here that we might want to look at. If you are looking for genuine independence from government in a body, even though it may be in receipt of government funds, I think that you have to look at the green bank and the rather difficult discussions that we had about how to ensure that it was a truly independent body, although it retained at its heart the mission statement agreed by the Government and for which the Government offered funding. That was done by creating a break between Ministers and the bank by invoking a charitable body which would have the power to hold on to and sustain the mission statement. The Minister might want to look at that to see whether it is a route down which some of the arguments that we have heard today lead us.

If there is a sense abroad, and it is widely bruited, that the NCS is of government, that may well be the kiss of death, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said; others supported him in that thought. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Maude, said that nothing could kill it more definitely than that. If that is the case then we will obviously have a serious problem. I think that there is another argument—I am sure that the Minister will make it—that if you are going to have a body which has truly national aspirations and which is a rite of passage for all our children and all those who aspire to contribute to our society, then there is some value in having an association, whether a royal charter or some other organisation, which shows that it is given that accolade. I do not think that we can just discount that by saying that independence is inconvenient for a better and more exciting future. There must be a way of brokering that.

I think that more time has to be spent on this issue before we come back to it, but I am pretty confident that it would be a very brave Minister who rejected such a strong coalition of interests as have argued this case today. I am sure that we will see this again on Report.

My Amendments 16 and 41 were predicated on the basis that this was an uncontroversial area, that there would be a royal charter and that there would be an arrangement under which this body would have to become a non-departmental public body. I am simply probing—because that is the nature of what we do in Committee—whether there will be an accounting officer. I think I will hear the response that there will be an accounting officer under this model, should it be approved. The National Audit Office will be the designated auditor, so I think that that follows. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that, if I am right and we are in that mode and have an accounting officer, the normal cycle of reports and appearances—if necessary—before the Public Accounts Committee will ensure the sort of scrutiny and accountability that other noble Lords have been seeking.

There is another point that I want to pick up, because I have been in this position before. Where an NDPB has an accounting officer and the PAC makes an inquiry, the Permanent Secretary as the accounting officer of the department responsible answers for the Government’s side of the equation. So there is very tight accountability, and it is a model which I hope we can retain the essences of if it is decided to move down a different route in terms of independence.

I do not want in any sense to be too critical but I think that Amendment 41 is the Kids Company amendment. It suggests that there has to be a strong line of responsibility over and above that which is placed on an accounting officer to ensure that, where there is any sense of financial impropriety or difficulty, the accounting officer is named as the person who will tell the Secretary of State in the—I hope—unlikely circumstances that there is a problem. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)

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My Lords, can I add something, slightly tongue in cheek? One good reason for the NCS not being an NDPB is that it cannot be abolished under the Public Bodies Act.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their views on this fairly large group of amendments. I hope that we can get through subsequent groups a bit quicker. I apologise for the length of my answers, but this is important because, as my noble friend Lord Maude said, it highlights the opposing views, and we have to try to strike a balance. We have to deal with the maintenance of the entrepreneurialism; we have to look at control, but we want flexibility; we want accountability; we want freedom from government but we want structure that can be sustained. Therefore, it is important that I go through these amendments to try to explain why we have decided on this constitution, if you like, that will strike the balance on those sometimes conflicting views and aims.

In many ways, all the amendments have to do with the governance of this organisation going forward. I start with the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. It is important that we lay out in detail why we think that the royal charter route is the correct one. Having piloted the programme in-house, in 2013 the Government set up the NCS Trust—my noble friend Lord Maude was involved in that—as an independent community interest company to start growing and promoting the programme. The trust had the independence of CIC status to work flexibly, innovatively and with pace. It has grown each year and has created an independent, bold brand for NCS that appeals to young people across the country. We want to retain the impact of this work and help the trust to continue delivering. That is why we want to incorporate it as a public body by royal charter.

A programme of this scale requires a distinct public body to deliver it that is accountable for its performance. For NCS to be a unifying experience, there needs to be consistency. A key strength of NCS is that it physically brings together young people from different areas and backgrounds. Young people bravely leave their friends to take on new experiences. All this needs a central co-ordinating body.

Royal charter status carries certain associations particularly appropriate to NCS. The first is a distance from government, which my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, have mentioned. The point was well made that, as a youth movement, NCS should not seem too close to government. The second is stability. If the nation is to embrace NCS as a rite of passage for the young then they need to be assured that we intend it to endure. The third is neutrality and respectability. The association with the monarch would be a constant reminder that this organisation must act in a manner worthy of a national institution and maintain public trust. The charter will enable the trust to retain operational independence from government. It will serve as the trust’s constitutional document by laying out the primary functions of the trust and how the board will be appointed and governed.

The Bill refers to the NCS Trust as incorporated by royal charter, so the Bill and the charter are inextricably tied. The Bill then makes provision for the trust to be appropriately accountable to Parliament. Removing reference to the royal charter from the Bill would render the Bill as drafted unworkable. We believe that this new legal framework strikes the right balance. It will make the trust more accountable, while ensuring its continuing independence. This will help the trust in its mission to entrench NCS as a rite of passage for young people. The trust is to be the commissioning body for NCS; as a public body, it will be even more important that its arrangement with government is proper and accountable.

Baroness Finn

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It is quite a big responsibility to be a government representative who is given the ability to approve even the remuneration policy on pay. I suggest that the Government are quite rightly not going to intervene unless it is above the Prime Minister’s salary. It is already a reserved right that the chief secretary will have to look at any pay proposals above the prime ministerial salary. I therefore suggest that this is a bit of an onerous requirement on an organisation that should, in theory, be independent of government. I wanted to put that point out there.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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The norm in these sorts of organisations is that the Government get involved in individual pay decisions, full stop, so this is a more light-touch proposal. If I am wrong on that—

Lord Maude of Horsham

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Unless something dramatic has changed, the Government approve pay decisions only when they are above a certain level. There is a requirement that if it is proposed that someone should be paid above the Prime Minister’s salary, it goes to the chief secretary and the Chancellor for approval. Other than that, I do not believe that there is that kind of level of detailed control.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I take my noble friend’s point. I agree that above a certain level—which is, as my noble friend Lady Finn said, what happens in this case if it goes above the Prime Minister’s salary—it goes to the chief secretary. I think the answer is that we will have to come back to this and make sure that what I have said is correct. We can come back to it on Report, if necessary.

Lord Blunkett

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Can I suggest that we try to find a way through on this, rather than having to have a debate and a Division on Report? If we wish to establish and embed a remuneration committee of the NCS board, and if the Government wish to have a representative on that committee, which they could quite easily do rather than being on the board as a whole, we might be able to square this circle.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I am grateful to the noble Lord. As a general point, I agree with him entirely that we want to find a way through all the issues being raised in debate. The point of today is, in a way, to raise these issues, and I certainly commit to us trying, over the next two weeks until Report, to find our way through everything so that we can have a very easy Report stage. We will wait and see; we are only on the first group at the moment, so I will move on.

I turn to the subject of non-departmental public bodies and Amendments 14 and 15 from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The body will be incorporated by royal charter and there is nothing in the Bill to say that it will be incorporated as an NDPB, which is not a legal status but a means of classification used by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office has chosen those particular words to describe a body with certain characteristics, but it may use different words in future. None of this is established in legislation, and there seems little need to define a unique category in the Bill only to say that the trust is not in it. However, I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Maude have had rather more experience in government than I, so of course commit to thinking about this before we come back on Report.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned the accounting officer. I can confirm to him that, in practice, the Government will require the trust to have an accounting officer, as set out in the government guidelines, Managing Public Money. The chief executive will be the accounting officer, as the noble Lord suggested, and will be the person to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. I am not sure about the Permanent Secretary in this arrangement, but I will check and come back to him.

The noble Lord is right that the Bill does not explicitly mention an accounting officer, but we are prepared to think about how that could be clarified. In doing so, we will have to take on my noble friend Lord Maude’s point about how not having an accounting officer is crucial to making the organisation acceptable. I commit to thinking about that and coming back. In practice, there will be an accounting officer: the chief executive.

On the noble Lord’s second amendment in the group, in the case of serious operational or financial issues with the trust’s provider network or staff, the accounting officer would normally be the individual responsible for informing the Government. However, we have left this open in the Bill in case the accounting officer was absent at a precise moment and needed to delegate this function to another officer. If this flexibility were not available, the trust might risk delaying its notification of the Government. As provided for in the Bill, the trust—that is, the members of the board—has that responsibility.

Finally in this group, your Lordships will be relieved to hear, I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for tabling his amendment, as we talk again about the functions of the trust and its governance. We entirely agree with the point that the NCS Trust must not be encumbered by excessive regulation. The royal charter and the Bill have been drafted to ensure operational autonomy for the trust, and we must be sure that its governance arrangements complement this intention.

The amendment aims to prevent a cumbersome process for amending the royal charter and clarifies the role of—or inserts a role for—the Charity Commission. However, the NCS Trust, as a royal charter body, will be a public body. This is an essential point. As it is not a charity, it will not be subject to regulation by the Charity Commission at all, and I suggest that the Charity Commission will have no desire to get involved. The charter contains provision for how it may be amended, without any role for the Charity Commission. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured that the existing amendment process is simpler than he fears.

The amendment would also introduce a process for amending by-laws, again with the good intention of streamlining the process. In fact, we have no intention of introducing an extra set of regulations for the body in the form of by-laws. The royal charter gives the trust a broad-ranging power to do anything calculated to facilitate, or incidental or conducive to, the carrying out of any of its functions. It is also expressly given full autonomy over its own procedures. This leaves it with more freedom than if it had further regulation in the form of by-laws.

I know that my noble friend has come across examples of charities that have experienced the cumbersome side of royal charter regulation, but in this case, the body in question is not subject to charity regulation and will be regulated only by the charter and the contents of the Bill. I hope that I have provided sufficient clarification on this point so that all noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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I thank my noble friend for giving way at the end of a rather long and turgid debate. It is not that the Charity Commission wishes to get involved, it is that it will be forced to. The Privy Council is worried that something will be done with a semi-charitable body that will provide a loophole that is available to a royal charter company that is not available to charities generally. I am not asking him to answer the question now, but will his officials look at that between now and Report to be satisfied that the Charity Commission will not, willy-nilly, be pulled in to give its opinion every time the National Citizen Service Trust wants to change the trust?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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Of course we will look at that.

Baroness Barker

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My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to what was an important testing-out of the Government’s proposals. The Minister spoke helpfully about the tensions in what people had said were important for the National Citizen Service and in their attitudes to it. That is often the case when a charitable voluntary body is set up. What matters is what decisions people take, which are crucial to the body being able to achieve the objectives set for it. Some people were worried about status. I am not bothered about the status of the organisation; much more important is its effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objective.

It is interesting that the Government have chosen to go down this route. From the long list of priorities that the Minister read out, he cited permanence. I think that the Government have put that above all else and built a structure that starts with permanence and then works through in a different order to other things. There are different ways to achieve a number of points that noble Lords raised. On independence, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, gave a description of a board of which the Prime Minister had oversight. Well, the Prime Minister has no oversight of the appointment of a charitable board. There are many instances of long-standing charities with a national reach—some of them have royal patronage, the Prince’s Trust being one—where there is no government interference at all, even though there is certainly accountability for public funds. If independence was what the Government really wanted, they would not have gone down this track.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was right to talk about the National Citizen Service being subject to high standards of scrutiny and accountability. Other charities, because of the way in which their services are commissioned and are open to competition, are even more subject to such standards. I fear that, given the rigidity of the structure envisaged and the permanence that is expected of it, it would be easy for the trust to let standards slip and for those not to be challenged for some considerable time.

I come back to the two points that are of fundamental importance. First, nothing that the service does is unique; it is designed in a unique fashion, but its interactions with young people and the outcomes it achieves for them are not unique—they could be delivered by other organisations. Secondly and most importantly, the service has not been subject to comparative analysis. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that it is not about rolling up. If any charitable organisation in this country knew today that it could count on having £1 billion-worth of income over the next five years, it would be in a spectacularly unusual position. The Government are asking us to invest that amount of money in what the noble Lord, Lord Maude, called this “fragile vessel”.

We may not have got very far today in seeking the answers that some noble Lords want. I do not want to control the organisation; I want it to be accountable.

Lord Maude of Horsham

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When I talked about a fragile vessel, I was not talking about the trust but about the programme and degree of confidence that it has inspired in young people. That is fragile and we must not put it at risk.

Baroness Barker

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I am happy to stand corrected but the rest of us who have compared it with similar organisations would consider it to be a fragile vessel: it has not been going for very long and it has achieved what it has only with exceptional political support. I remain, like the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, unconvinced that this structure is right. I will, however, go away and look at what the Minister said, particularly about the accounting regulations, which we will come to in more detail later. I beg leave to withdraw—

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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Before the noble Baroness sits down, we all have questions about the NCS but it is wrong to say that it is “sectional” support. I am here, my noble friend is here: the Labour Party supports the NCS. We are not sectional; we want to see improvements and changes, but we support it.

Baroness Barker

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I am sorry, but I think the noble Baroness may have misheard the word “exceptional”. Perhaps she will agree with me that, cross-party though it is, it has an exceptional level of support. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, this should not take too long. I appreciate that there is also an amendment here from the noble Lord, Lord Cope, and I look forward to hearing his case for an England-only solution to these issues.

My question was based on page 4 of the Explanatory Notes, which tries to do what many Bills try and fail to do: to explain the difference between its extent and its application, should it become law. That page explains that the Bill extends to England and Wales, but applies only in England. I suspect that that will be an opening for the noble Lord, Lord Cope, to come in on his point. It continues:

“While the Bill includes provisions that are within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Bill applies in England only, so no legislative consent motion is being sought in relation to any provision of the Bill”.

I can understand why that is so, but I regret that it is not the aspiration of the Government for what it calls a national citizenship scheme to operate in all parts of the United Kingdom. Failure even to put forward LCOs to the various national Parliaments and Assemblies does seem a rather fragile approach to this, so I would be grateful if the Minister could spell out in his response the ambition for this programme, and reassure us that there is a sensibility within the Government’s intentions to require that the NCS becomes a truly national—in all senses of the word—service. I beg to move.

Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)

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My Lords, first, I apologise for not taking part in Second Reading, because a Select Committee meeting that I had to attend took place at the same time. I do, however, support the Bill and the NCS.

My Amendment 51 has been grouped here. It is a small amendment that has large implications. It suggests that Clause 13 should state that the Bill extends to England only, instead of to England and Wales. Clause 1 makes absolutely clear that the effects of the Bill are limited to young people from England. The draft royal charter is equally clear and limited in exactly the same way. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that the benefits of the NCS should be extended in some form to all parts of the United Kingdom. We are, after all, citizens of the UK, not only of England—or wherever else it may be in the noble Lord’s case. I strongly support anything that strengthens the union.

A different Bill would, however, be required to extend these provisions to the other parts of the UK. This Bill—Clause 1 in particular—limits them to England. On the other hand, Clause 13 refers to England and Wales. It is a lawyer’s nonsense—a lawyer’s fiction. It is a deliberate fiction: a lawyer’s fib is embodied in Clause 13. I hope that the Minister will confirm that when the Bill goes to another place, he expects it to be certified by Mr Speaker as an English Bill. I cannot see that any other decision could possibly be made at that stage.

I learned some law a good few years ago in the course of becoming a chartered accountant, and I have been a legislator for something like 40 years, so I know that when lawyers talk about the laws of England, they really mean the law of England and Wales—it is typical English arrogance that that happens, but there it is. We now know that there is “a body of Welsh law”. The Wales Bill, which was discussed again yesterday and a few days previously actually says so in terms. Why is there not also a body of English law, of which this would be part? If Tuesday’s Bill can talk about Welsh law, why cannot Wednesday’s Bill talk about English law?

I do not really expect my noble friend to respond to this great matter today in the way that I would like. However, I would like him to go back to his departmental solicitor and suggest that parliamentary counsel needs to reconsider this point, not only in relation to this Bill but much more widely. They should look out the windows of the parliamentary counsel’s office at the wider world—actually I think if they look out the windows of the office they will see Whitehall, which is not quite the wider world in the way I mean it; unless they look out the other way on to Horse Guards Parade. What is required in this is some common sense. Of course, I have been around long enough to know that common sense is not the same as legal logic.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, explained, his amendments would have the effect of giving the new charter body a UK-wide remit, extending the Bill to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. His reason for doing so was an opinion we all share. I can confirm that the Government’s aspirations remain that National Citizen Service should be truly national. We believe that all young people should have the opportunity to go on NCS, and that is a commitment we made. Its offer is unique, as well as complementary to the excellent programmes that I know are already available in Scotland and Wales. But as I know the noble Lord is aware, NCS is a devolved matter so we would not be able, and certainly would not want, to force NCS upon the devolved Administrations. An amendment of this kind would breach the conventions underpinning the devolution settlements unless approved by each devolved Administration by a legislative consent Motion, which he mentioned.

I am pleased to confirm that NCS is already available in Northern Ireland. The UK Government have licensed the NCS intellectual property rights to the Northern Ireland Executive. The programme is delivered on their behalf by Co-operation Ireland, a charity with unique expertise in bringing different communities together in the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland. The arrangement maintains the consistency of the NCS programme but is in keeping with the spirit of devolution. It has worked well, we are wholeheartedly supportive of it and we commend the Northern Ireland Executive for their continued commitment. We have invited the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly Government to adopt a similar model so that NCS can remain a devolved matter, perhaps with a distinct Scottish or Welsh stamp, but with the vital elements in place to ensure that it is a consistent offer in all corners of the UK. We remain in dialogue with them. I assure the Committee that we will remain committed to working towards a UK-wide NCS. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw the amendment.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Cope, who I note trained as an accountant; no wonder he was sceptical of lawyers in that way. My noble friend’s amendment would change the extent of the Bill from “England and Wales” to just “England”. He is right that the Bill applies only to England in practice. Under the current drafting, the NCS Trust will operate only in England and HMRC will write only to those with English addresses. However, it is a technical point that England and Wales are one legal jurisdiction. The Bill, if passed by Parliament, would form part of the law of England and Wales even if it applied only to England. That is why the relevant clause is written as it is.

Within this jurisdiction, the Bill restricts the trust’s activities to England. NCS is a devolved matter, so that is entirely appropriate. I would not presume to give advice to Mr Speaker, but it is worth saying that the Bill is not an England-only Bill under the English votes for English laws procedure. That is because certain provisions relate to reserved matters, such as the powers of HMRC and employment law—but that is a different point. Clause 13, on extent, refers to the legal jurisdiction: that is, England and Wales.

I can assure the Committee that on this point the Bill is entirely consistent with others like it; for example, the section of the Housing and Planning Act that deals with social housing in England specifically still has an England and Wales extent. I take the points that have been made and am certainly prepared to go back to the departmental lawyers, but in the meantime I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Cope, for their contributions to the debate. When you put down a probing amendment you sometimes do not quite know what will come back, but I was slightly surprised by the range of issues raised in that brief response. For instance, we did not hear the word “Barnett” in the discussion, which is pretty odd, because the Minister cut his teeth in the Treasury in previous years so he should have had the word rammed up him many times. By my calculation, some £15 million will go to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for Barnett consequentials, which is money that they would not otherwise have received and presumably will spend wisely on matters sufficiently close to the NCS to make sure that it operates effectively in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—across the whole United Kingdom.

If it is true as the Minister said that HMRC will write only to those with English addresses, which rather reinforces the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, what would happen if somebody like my young self in the remote highlands of Scotland—near Skye, for those of your Lordships who want to know—wanted to apply to do the NCS in England? Would I be refused on the grounds that I was not English or British enough? How very strange. There is perhaps a little more here than we had thought about, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, this group of amendments covers another meaty topic. I am sure that the Committee will be aware that it is the one that has generated the most submissions from those bodies which are directly or indirectly affected by the establishment of the NCS on a statutory basis under a royal charter.

The key element to come out of the submissions is that the unique selling point of the NCS is its social mixing—the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, cited that as a main issue in our debate on earlier amendments. A subsidiary concern in the submissions we have received is that there is expertise out there on how to attract and get involved with children who are hard to reach because of their upbringing, background, location or geography. It is a worry for all concerned that sufficient thought may not yet have been given to how the scaling-up of NCS will happen as it becomes more difficult to get the attention of those people who would otherwise miss out.

Our Amendment 3 tries to get at the sense of inclusiveness necessary for the NCS to succeed by suggesting a change in the wording about children to stress a more positive “all” and not a negative “different”, as in the current wording. Amendment 5 would make it a requirement that NCS should seek—and then be judged on whether it has achieved—social integration. That might be a difficult issue to define, but the impetus is important, and it is an important point to bear in mind when the reporting cycle starts.

On the point that I made earlier about hard-to-reach groups, Amendment 7 poses some questions; I should be grateful if the Minister would respond to them. Is he confident that there are credible plans to reach the hard-to-reach groups? Has the current organisation got the expertise to do that and, if not, how will it get it? Have the Government built in additional costs for the greater effort that will have to be expended on the last few per cent, as it were, of the cohort they are trying to reach, because that will be difficult? Are we confident that disabled young people, whether physically or mentally and ambulant or not, are sure that the programme will be for them? Unless it is arranged and presented in an appropriate way for them, it will be difficult to sell. That concern about the disabled came up in a number of submissions that I have received. It might be helpful to have that in the Bill.

I think that many other noble Lords wish to speak to this group, because their amendments go in the same vein but are based much more widely. I look forward to hearing the debate and I beg to move.

Lord Shipley (LD)

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My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 18 and 26 but first, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on his amendments. I shall not repeat his arguments but they are very well made and I hope that the Government will agree with them.

I thank a number of organisations, including the National Deaf Children’s Society, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, together with Sense and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists for their advice on my two amendments. I hope that the Minister will understand that our aim is constructive, but there is a need to include the amendments in the Bill to give it the necessary statutory force. Amendment 18 would ensure that there are ring-fenced funds made available for which NCS providers may apply to meet the cost of providing the support that disabled young people may require to enable them to participate fully in the scheme. Amendment 26 would put in place regular reporting about the participation of disabled young people. This will enable the NCS Trust, the Government and all those involved in the National Citizen Service to judge the reality of the scheme’s accessibility to individuals.

The Minister may argue that the Equality Act 2010 is sufficient, but I would say two things about that. First, it is not sufficient in providing access to the education system without additional funding. This has been generally recognised by successive Governments in a range of educational areas since 2010. Secondly, the Act provides insufficient protection for disabled people to access services because many organisations simply do not make the “reasonable adjustments” required by law to enable access for individuals to participate. As an example, many deaf young people can find it difficult to access mainstream extracurricular activities which can be vital for their personal development. With the NCS scheme being Government-funded and with £1 billion of public money going to the service, there will be no excuse for failure to ensure that young people with disabilities get equal access to NCS schemes.

On the reporting requirements under Amendment 26, as an example of the problem, the NCS website has few details about the support available for disabled participants. For example, subtitles have not been created for many of its promotional videos and there are no videos in alternative accessible formats such as British Sign Language. The duties of the NCS to act as a leader in support of young people with disabilities are clear, given the level of funding it will have and the responsibilities that the trust will carry.

In conclusion, it cannot be left to NCS providers to meet the cost of any support that disabled young people may require to access the scheme. A considerable proportion of the NCS budget will be spent on marketing the scheme and unless promotional materials are fully accessible to all young people, there will not be high take-up of the scheme by those with a disability. The NCS Trust will have to deliver its responsibilities to those who have a disability. These amendments would mean that, first, a duty would be placed on the NCS Trust to ensure that funding was available to cover the cost of additional support required by an individual and, secondly, an annual report to the Secretary of the State would address the extent to which disabled young people have participated in the scheme. I hope the Minister will be willing to look at these issues carefully. If the Minister feels a meeting might be helpful, I would be happy to take part in that, but I hope that there will be a response by the time the Bill reaches Report.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)

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My Lords, I support Amendments 3, 18 and 26, and start by saying I am confident, given the dealings I have had with NCS and some of its providers, that it is absolutely committed to inclusion in its widest sense. The briefing to which my noble friend Lord Shipley referred suggests that some of the extra costs of including disabled people are perhaps not being entirely recognised. That is something we need to make sure is put right, as there are two potentially worrying outcomes: first, that there will be reduced participation by people with disabilities, and secondly, that providers will suffer if they have to carry extra costs in the way that my noble friend described. We heard about one particular sort of disability, but it is easy to imagine that there would be all sorts of extra costs.

We have to be careful about not creating a perverse incentive. It would be ironic if a local provider was very successful at dealing with the particular challenges of some disabilities and then found itself financially disadvantaged for being able to successfully recruit more from that group. We need something about recognising the costs and ensuring that they are met.

The provision for regular reporting is absolutely key. I am sure the NCS is monitoring this, and will continue to monitor it, as it would be a key part of its own performance, but there is a transparency issue. It should be reporting on what it is finding out about its own performance with regard to inclusion generally and disability in particular. That will help it to improve and see where it is perhaps falling down, and help Parliament and the outside world in judging how well the NCS is doing. This is not all negative. It is going to be tempting for some organisations to benchmark their costs against NCS and say, “Oh well, we are providing this much more cheaply”, but if NCS is working with harder-to-reach people with disabilities, and its costs are higher, it is in its interest to report that.

I wish to make two unrelated points about exclusion. First, we must always caution against models which assume that young people live in functional families where their parents do everything to support them, including for example paying the £50 and that sort of thing. It is absolutely key that, however this is delivered, it is possible for young people to access it without necessarily having to rely on parents who are supportive or even there and interested. There is a danger of imposing our model of parenthood on other people.

Finally, one group that probably needs this help more than any other but will need extra assistance is the very many young people who are carers. They lead very difficult and challenging lives, and the opportunity to get out from their caring responsibilities to be able to do something in a normal way with other young people is key. But there is no doubt they will need extra help, as if they are not there to care, someone else needs to do it. That is something that we should all recognise, and they certainly should not be disadvantaged for the role that they play.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, I support fully what the noble Baroness has just said, especially in relation to young carers. I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Stevenson and all the amendments in this group. Where young people with disabilities are concerned, it is absolutely right that it should not be up to the providers to deliver the extra money; it should be up to the NCS, and a way has to be found for that to happen. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I do not think that the Equality Act 2010—although it is a splendid Act—provides the necessary underpinning. Something extra is needed in the Bill.

I know that social inclusion is at the heart of the NCS but at present there is nothing in the Bill about hard-to-reach people or people with disabilities. There has to be something in the Bill in that respect. As has already been said, the NCS is doing some terrific things. It wrote to me about some pilots that it has in Redcar, for example, where it developed a joint programme of work with Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council precisely to increase recruitment among the hardest-to-reach. That is fantastic. The NCS is doing that now, and we need something on the face of the Bill to ensure that, as it grows and becomes more successful, the NCS continues in that way. I would not feel confident if that were not set out in the Bill.

Noble Lords will recall that at Second Reading I raised the issue of refugees. The Minister said that the Government,

“are committed to providing a place for those who want it”.—[Official Report, 25/10/16; col. 184.]

I know from a letter that I have had from the NCS that it is working with local authorities to try to ensure that refugees are able to participate in the programme when they wish to. However, I would like the Minister to say something on the record about the NCS doing everything it can, where appropriate, to assist with refugees. This is all about social inclusion and healing divisions in our society.

With regard to my Amendment 35, the noble Baroness made the case for the annual report to refer to disabilities. I think it is equally important to have something in the annual report concerning hard-to-reach people. This is not a negative at all; it is a positive. I think that there are people who are still sceptical about the way in which the NCS is working to ensure social integration and social inclusion, and I believe that including such a reference so that it is visible and transparent in the annual report will increase trust in the NCS.

Baroness Byford (Con)

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My Lords, I support the noble Lords who have tabled these amendments and I should like to reinforce one or two things that have been said. The issue of young carers is a subject very close to my heart. At Second Reading I mentioned that I was connected to Young Leicestershire. One of its clubs aims to give carers a chance to be something other than a carer for a short time each week. I am not really interested in whether the wording is right—I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if it sounds rude to say that—but the thrust of what we are trying to achieve here is enormously important.

On accessibility for the hard to reach, I have received a lot of correspondence from different groups concerned about how this will happen in practice. It sounds odd but perhaps I may put on a rurality hat. One of the big challenges is knowing how to provide the sort of service that we want for people who have to travel many miles to achieve anything. I realised when I sat down at Second Reading that I had not mentioned rurality. Obviously it is easier to get to bigger numbers of people when they live close together than it is to reach people in very rural areas. Some of the carers and young people out there who are doing a wonderful job incur additional costs in travelling to take part in such schemes.

I am very anxious that this scheme should work really well and that we should do as much as we possibly can to ensure that the hard-to-reach are reached, but with it will come extra costs, as was said earlier by other noble Lords. A challenge it is, but not one that we cannot overcome. As the Bill stands, however, it does not clarify it. A few extra words might well resolve some of the concerns felt by other groups out there.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to debate on this important part of the Bill.

I start by addressing the question of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in the previous group, and the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, about refugees. The Bill is clear: you are eligible for a place on the programme if you are resident in England or receive education or training there. That brings me to refugees, who are welcome on the NCS. Guidance has been circulated among charities on making NCS available to them.

I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott, Lady Barker and Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who have spoken about an aim that is at the heart of the NCS: that it must be accessible to all. If it is not, it is simply not NCS. It must be available to any young person who wants a place. The royal charter stipulates that the trust must ensure “equality of access” to the programme: that is a clear requirement that can never be watered down. The NCS Trust will need to take all reasonable steps to meet that obligation and to report every year on the extent to which participants from different backgrounds have taken part. This means demonstrating that individuals from varying circumstances have come together in NCS groups, and I commit to noble Lords that this will include individuals with disabilities. NCS is a universal offer, and the trust must report on how it has made this a reality. I confirm, therefore, that we want to ensure that there is a place on National Citizen Service for every young person who wants one. We are currently working closely with the NCS Trust to ensure that it is fully accessible. The trust is currently developing a detailed inclusion strategy to ensure that over the longer term there is consistent and high quality for all.

Already, many NCS providers reach out and offer support to those with disabilities. For example, the largest provider, The Challenge, has worked with the National Deaf Children’s Society and adapted the programme for young people, including providing dedicated support workers. Across NCS, young people with special educational needs have personal coaches and one-to-one support workers alongside staff members. That brings us to the question of resources. It is the trust’s job to ensure that providers can make the programme accessible to all young people. Providers can work with the trust to access more resource. The Bill puts the requirement to make NCS accessible to all firmly in the charter.

The Government mean to take seriously their duty to hold the trust to account for meeting these requirements. If they do not, they have Parliament to answer to. The Government must provide the trust with the means of fulfilling its legal duty on this point: sufficient funding to allow people with disabilities to take part. That is why the Bill also enables the trust to deliver the programme to individuals as young as 15 and as old as 24. While the core demographic for NCS is 16 to 17 year-olds, this ensures that providers can be flexible for those with additional needs, such as people with disabilities. Clause 3 provides for the Government to fund the NCS Trust. The grant agreements drawn up between the trust and the Government will specify particular requirements on an evolving basis. We can assure the Committee that the trust will continue to work flexibly to provide any reasonable additional resource or support that a provider may require to deliver the programme.

Turning to reporting, the Bill requires the trust to report on how far it has met its strategic priorities, including the requirement to ensure that the programme is accessible to people of all backgrounds. There is an additional specific requirement to report on the extent to which people from different backgrounds have worked together. We have not listed all the specific categories we intend to cover, but people with disabilities is one of them. If we mention one category, we should list all of them, and that is unnecessary detail for the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned the Equality Act. They are right that the Bill will make the NCS Trust subject to the Act. It includes far-reaching duties to consider the need to advance equality of opportunity between people with a protected characteristic and persons without that characteristic, which of course includes disability.

I note that both noble Lords expressed worries about the limitations of the Act, and of course I will go back and look carefully at what they said, but that is in addition to what I said before about it being available to all, which is in the charter.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would add to the functions of the trust to foster social integration and have special provision for the hardest-to-reach groups. The more complete list of the trust’s functions is included in the royal charter. These include an objective,

“to promote social cohesion by ensuring equality of access to the programmes by participants regardless of their background or circumstances”.

I hope that the noble Lord agrees that that covers both those points. To ensure equality of access, those with additional needs will in some cases require special provision.

His other amendment would change the requirement to enable participants from “different” backgrounds to work together to participants from “all” backgrounds. I think in this clause “different” backgrounds carries the stronger meaning. Although we want the programme as a whole to cater to all backgrounds, in each individual group we want a mix of different backgrounds.

The noble Lord asked how we expect the NCS programme successfully to achieve that in future and how successfully it brings people from different backgrounds together. Last year, 17% of summer participants were eligible for free school meals, compared with 8% of young people of the same age in the general population; and 30% were from black, mixed, or Asian backgrounds, compared with 19% of the general population. We think that the NCS Trust is doing quite well at the moment, but we certainly expect it to continue with plans in that area.

Lord Shipley

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Perhaps the Minister could clarify the point about equality of access being an objective of the Bill. It clearly is, but the draft royal charter which accompanies the Bill makes no specific reference to young people with disabilities, which is the objective of my Amendments 18 and 26. Article 3.4.a refers to an objective of the trust as ensuring equality of access regardless of background or circumstances, and that can indeed be interpreted as including young people with disabilities, among many, but the amendments strengthen the accountability of the NCS Trust in this respect.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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The charter says that the programme is available to all regardless of background, and “all” obviously includes people with disabilities.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, I just want to come back to the issue of reporting. Of course the Minister is right to say that the Bill mentions the extent to which participants from different backgrounds will work together in these programmes. I understand what he is saying: that it is very difficult if you list this group and that group—who is out? It is precisely because the raison d’être of the Bill is to ensure that everybody is included—it is all about social inclusion— that it would really help the NCS and inspire trust in it if, for example, the Bill mentioned reporting in relation to people with disabilities and the hard-to-reach, because those are the two things that are most criticised about the NCS. I do not know whether this is the right place, but somewhere in the Bill, I would like disabled people and the hard-to-reach to be mentioned. I just put that into the atmosphere and I would love it if the Minister’s team could look to see whether it could be inserted somewhere in the Bill.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I certainly commit to having a look at it.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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Soft-hearted to the end—it is wonderful. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in support of my amendments and for making additional points which extend the case that is being made here. Those concerning young carers and rurality were particularly good and need to be thought about. I think the Minister is right: you cannot list every area where you would like action, but this group of amendments, and indeed the whole tenor of this debate, is about the need for signals that send the secure message to people that this is something that they could and should enjoy and from which they would benefit.

There also needs to be a message that there will be sanctions if, for some reason, the outturns are not as good as they should be. I felt that the noble Lord’s figures—although they obviously need to be thought about in the round and are a trajectory, not a fixed point—were a bit disappointing in what one might hope to see in a fully-fledged NCS. I know that we are not at that level; nevertheless, it is beginning to acquire scale, and it would be nice to think that the issues signalled in this debate were being picked up. The underlying feeling that I have is that the sanctions are probably in the Equality Act 2010 but that the signals are not yet sufficiently embedded. There may be a case for looking at either the royal charter or the statute, or both, to make sure that the best possible attempt at including them has been made.

The worst thing that could happen in the rush to scale up would be that the target was insufficient. That would happen in particular if there were a drive towards a numeric target, which I think we have talked about before. A target of 300,000 is not sufficient. It may be necessary to scale up, but that will not be achieved if the 300,000 people are all able-bodied, white and from well-established educational institutions. We are not saying that that will be the case, but there is an issue here that needs a more felicitous approach.

I hope that the Government will reflect on this issue; the Minister seemed to say that he would. This seems a sensible addition to the Bill, even if the wording is not right, and another meeting about it might be the appropriate way forward. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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My Lords, the word “aspiration” has been used—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, used it, as did the Minister—and this is another aspirational amendment. It would make a simple change to provide for the activities of the National Citizen Service to benefit society,

“in Great Britain or overseas”,

and it is the “or overseas” that I want to focus on. I make it clear at this stage that my amendment is permissive and not prescriptive. It does not require the Government or the NCS to do anything now; it just enables something to happen in the future. Therefore, it is not “requiring”; it is purely enabling.

In my view, the possibility of developing an international perspective increases one of the attractions of the NCS and, indeed, I think it will be particularly attractive to the more adventurous sort of people who participate in the NCS. It will be a shame if, by limiting it to just a UK view—and the Bill will not be changed again—we do not have the option of giving it a slightly wider canvas in the future.

As I explained at Second Reading, the International Citizen Service—the ICS—already exists. I explained to the House at Second Reading that I have had the privilege of going to Tanzania and seeing it in operation. Slightly alarmingly, they kept referring to the ICS as ISIS. I thought, “What’s happening? Am I in the right room or should I leave quickly?”. However, ICS has operated in Tanzania for a number of years, with 140 to 160 young UK men and women going out there. I met a group of about 40 young Tanzanians and very impressive they were too. They greatly valued their involvement and links with the UK volunteers. Through social media they were sharing experiences and building links between this country and Tanzania. One or two of them were particularly impressive. A young woman in a hijab from Zanzibar, which is 98% Muslim, sought me out particularly to say that it was really good to have somebody from the UK of my age and background facing the troubles that she was facing. She said she was able to realise that people around the rest of the world were thinking about what they were trying to do and prepared to encourage and help them, making them think that they were part of a wider community when things in that country were not always going as well as they might.

In my view, the UK is going to need all the friends it can get in the years ahead. This is not a Brexit speech but a tectonic plate speech. It is about the relative power of the US, China and India, which will shift dramatically over the next 25 or 50 years. ICS, if it is built into NCS, would give us a chance to develop friends overseas and find them growing into positions of influence and power in different countries around the world. Some of the 40 or so young men and women who I saw in Tanzania will clearly rise to the top of that society, and what happens in Tanzania will clearly happen in the other countries where ICS takes place.

When my noble friend comes to reply—I can of course look over his shoulder at the notes that have been written for him by his officials—he will say, “I don’t oppose International Citizen Service; it just shouldn’t be part of National Citizen Service because, inter alia, it is designed for people still at school”. That is all very well but the Bill, as we see in Clause 1(2)(a), refers to people,

“under the age of 25”,

which obviously takes it straight into the chronological bracket of the International Citizen Service. Leaving that aside, other noble Lords have referred to the briefings we have had from the NCVO and other groups about how NCS should be a first step in a journey—a piece in a jigsaw which encourages and leads on to a lifetime of civic involvement. I would argue strongly that building an international piece into our National Citizen Service would provide another potential step, or another potential piece in that jigsaw.

With this amendment, I seek only to include the possibility of an international bit in the NCS Bill because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When the Bill has gone through, our chance of being able to introduce an international element will be gone for ever. This bus will not come round again. I therefore seek this because it fits with the aspirational nature of NCS, because the age range allowed for in the Bill would certainly encompass an ICS component and because it would represent a further step in trying to create a way whereby people became involved in voluntary groups throughout their lives. Last but not least, it would be very good for the reputation of this country. It would build our soft power and reputation around the world over a period when the world is changing fast and we will need all the help and influence we can get. I beg to move.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I do not oppose an International Citizen Service—my noble friend really was looking over my shoulder. But seriously, I thank my noble friend for his points on the potential of international volunteering. We agree that it opens minds and enhances the UK’s reputation abroad. I shall be brief because we need to make progress.

We support International Citizen Service. I am pleased to say that the UK Government are committed to tripling the size of the ICS programme during this Parliament and are working with VSO to deliver that, which means that more than 32,000 volunteers will complete placements during this Parliament. I am in complete agreement with my noble friend on that but I am afraid that I do not agree that the NCS is the place to do it. It does not malign the NCS to say that it does not have the expertise or reach. We are talking about and have been debating where NCS is going to go, how it should be accountable, how it should be controlled and how it should remain flexible. I am afraid we do not agree that to add this extra burden to it is a good thing at this time. On a positive note, however, there are already strong links between the NCS and the ICS. The ICS is already offered as a next step for NCS graduates, who are guaranteed an interview to take part in ICS if they apply when they become eligible.

As for my noble friend’s point about the age group, of course the age group in the Bill includes up to 24 year-olds, but that is simply to allow people who are outside the core group of 16 and 17 year-olds to have access to the programme if they have disabilities or particular circumstances at home. I am afraid that he is hanging too much on that allowance.

To be very brief, we want to make NCS a rite of passage for the young people of this country. This Bill, and the delivery arrangements that it creates, has that intention in mind. It would not be feasible for ICS to operate on this scale, and so the Bill focuses on NCS. I hope my noble friend will take some encouragement from the increased commitment we have made to international volunteering programmes, because we agree with him that they are important. I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment tonight.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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I am grateful to my noble friend for his answer and glad that I was able to read his notes so clearly over his shoulder. He will understand that I am very disappointed by his somewhat peremptory dismissal of this concept. International Citizen Service is run through DfID and has no statutory protection at all. If this Government or another Government, or a Secretary of State, were to change their mind and say that we will not have International Citizen Service any more and put the aid budget into something else, it would be gone. One great argument for NCS, which I entirely support, is that it makes sure that it is there for the long term. ICS may be there for the long term, but you cannot be certain of it in the way that we are clear about NCS—that is what we have this Bill for.

I will not delay the Committee any longer—because the Whip will turn around to look at me in a second or two—except to say something about the argument that NCS does not have the reach. As we have been discussing, NCS is going to use voluntary groups to reach out and find the people. The way that ICS recruits are found is by VSO reaching out—beating the bushes—to find young men and women to come forward who would like to do ICS. The process that we are using for NCS, and which will be increasing, is paralleled already by what is going on in ICS. So I do not accept the argument that NCS does not have the reach. I think it is a shame that, as a country, we are not going to use this opportunity to build our reputation. However, it is too long an argument to have out today. I am disappointed by what the Minister has said. I will read carefully what he said, but I may wish to bring this matter back at a later stage.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I say to my noble friend that my response was not meant to be peremptory or discourteous; I was just trying to be quick.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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I can tell my noble friend that I was not offended by him in the least. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Lord Lucas (Con)

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My Lords, the Careers & Enterprise Company announced in May that it was in negotiations with the National Citizen Service to develop together my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham’s enterprise passport. This is not evidently absolutely central to what the National Citizen Service does but to my mind sits extremely well with it, and is something of immense importance to England and English education. This amendment is merely intended to give that agreement and proposal a place in the Bill, or at least, if the Minister will say it, a clear place in the intentions of the Government when it comes to funding the National Citizen Service, so that we can all be sure that these negotiations can go ahead and not be derailed by someone saying, “We have just had a Bill through Parliament and no one ever mentioned it”. I beg to move.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, Amendment 10 is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Scott, for whose signatures I am grateful. As is well known, I fully support the NCS programme, which represents an important rite of passage and will make a great contribution to social cohesion, social engagement and social mobility.

However, we must never forget that it is just a part, albeit an important one, of the tapestry of other voluntary activities through which our young people can develop, hence this amendment. The amendment would enshrine a third purpose for the NCS Trust alongside providing and promoting the NCS programme. It would establish a duty on the trust to ensure that its presence made a positive contribution to the sector, enabling a coherent journey of youth social action providers—a journey about which we said much at Second Reading and on which we all agree.

The amendment would mean that the significant public funding committed to NCS would help all parts of the sector rise together and enable it to support existing provision where doing so furthered the trust’s other stated aims, avoiding any situation whereby the trust’s actions or payment-by-results model systemically undermined existing provision.

I declare an interest as a member of the advisory council of Step Up To Serve, which is the umbrella organisation for increasing and encouraging volunteering from the age of 10 to the age of 20, and as a member of the board of trustees for City Year, a charity that transforms lives by placing young adults in schools that could benefit from extracurricular activity and peer support. Opportunities such as City Year and the ICS are exactly those that we hope would be taken up by the alumni of NCS—as I am sure they will—so that they might use their new-found skills and confidence to continue making a difference for others.

I am going to be a bit naughty here, but noble Lords will recall that at Second Reading I spoke about a year of service and called on the Government to establish legal status for full-time volunteers in the UK. I will not rehearse those arguments, but ask the Minister when and whether the Government will make further information available about a review of or a commission on full-time volunteering. I well understand that the wheels of government turn slow, but it is time for a signal from the Government that an announcement will be made—if it is not to be made today.

As someone who owes a great deal to the Girl Guides, I also commend the work of uniformed organisations such as the Scouts and the Guides, which work with children as young as six on building their skills for life and an ethos of service that will last them a lifetime. The success of organisations such as the Scouts and Guides will undoubtedly lead to more young people participating in the NCS at the age of 16. However, opportunities before and after NCS are key to realising the full potential of the programme and the significant investment of public money that comes with it. It is in the interest of the trust and the taxpayer that we should think of ways of ensuring, by putting it in the Bill or perhaps in the charter, that the NCS should never undermine existing opportunities for young people. I know that that is not what it is meant to do, that it is meant to be inclusive and that it is to be a commissioning organisation while other organisations deliver, but it is necessary for this somewhere to be stated so that people have trust in the NCS and can see that its purpose is to collaborate with other organisations.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

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My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. In the interests of time, I shall be brief. We have to accept that one of the great things about this country is the way in which the voluntary sector works and the contribution that is made in local areas by many hundreds of voluntary organisations, some of which have existed for a long time.

It is quite easy to inadvertently destabilise that. I do not think a single one of us believes in any way that the NCS would do anything such as that purposely, but we have to accept that a new kid on the block on this scale could have that destabilising effect. The NCS needs to work with the sector as it exists—I recognise that it currently intends to do so—to benefit from it and to add benefit to it. For that reason, there is no harm in having it enshrined in the purposes of the organisation to make sure that as it goes forward—particularly when it starts to work at scale, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said on an earlier amendment—it never lets go of those principles that this is part of the lifetime experience of young people and part of the very rich community that we have all grown to admire so much.

The Earl of Listowel (CB)

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My Lords, I too support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. Recent research published by the University of Edinburgh highlights that members of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides have been demonstrated to have significantly better mental health in adulthood than a very similar group of non-members. Whatever happens with the Bill and this very important work, it should not undermine in any way the good work of the Girl Guides and the Scouts. There is a 15% improvement in mental health for those who have experienced the Girl Guides or Boy Scouts.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, I will comment briefly on a couple of points that have been made. It is worth recording that this was another area where a lot of submissions were received by those of us involved in the Bill. I hope this is not misunderstood, but I thought there were two significant things about those submissions.

First, the NCS itself was very respectful of this point and understood the destabilisation effect that could occur if its work was somehow just inserted into other work and no account was taken of that. I know we are not supposed to refer to anybody other those present in the Room, but it is good to see the chair of the NCS present in the audience to listen to the debate in the raw.

Secondly, those who might well have had a feeling at the beginning of this process that they had done something wrong, as they were not similarly blessed with significant support from government and the offer of a charter and statutory backing, also welcomed the NCS coming in, seeing it as an addition. My noble friend Lady Royall got it right: the intention is, surely, to make sure that all boats rise in this tide. The underlying worry is that somehow that cannot happen unless we ensure, at the level of drafting, that this is part of the Bill.

My noble friend Lady Royall has been a very successful and long-standing campaigner on how volunteers are treated in our system. There is definitely a problem here. It is not just the issue of whether they should be classified as NEETs—not in employment, education or training—but also questions about how universal credit operates, how tax systems take account of time taken volunteering and whether there is going to be a read-across to students and higher or further education fees. These are all important issues and cannot be dealt with easily. They will certainly be interesting for anybody who might take this on when they have to confront the demons in the Treasury on how they are going to relinquish any control of this area. But it is time that this was reviewed, and I hope when he comes to respond that the Minister can make some comment about the timing of that proposed commission.

The Earl of Courtown (Con)

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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their very well-reasoned arguments and their considered amendments, which I will treat in numerical order.

My noble friend Lord Lucas made the interesting point that young people who take part in the NCS should be provided with accredited online evidence of the NCS programme to help them demonstrate their impact as citizens when applying for jobs, educational courses or further volunteering.

My noble friend’s amendment takes its cue from the digital passport, an online record of young people’s learning and work experience and an accessible way for their activity to be validated and recorded. I am pleased to inform my noble friend that the NCS Trust and the Careers & Enterprise Company have launched a partnership to further develop the company’s digital passport concept. NCS teaches young people from all backgrounds the lessons they cannot learn in class, and this passport will help to ensure that their contribution is recognised by employers and universities. There is great potential for the passport to encourage NCS graduates to do even more after the programme. Given the trust’s clear commitment to the digital passport, I hope that my noble friend will feel able not to press his amendment.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Scott, have similarly sought to extend the trust’s functions. Their amendment would extend its purview to all five to 25 year-olds by requiring it to ensure that it is supporting and not “undermining” other opportunities for people in that age range that contribute to the stated objectives in the first part of Clause 1.

This amendment raises an important point. The NCS Trust does—and must continue to—work in a collaborative way with other providers of youth programmes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked. As I have said before, a strength of NCS is that it encourages young people to take up other opportunities. NCS is very deliberately a short programme, designed to complement and drive demand for other social action programmes.

However, at the same time, it is important that we are clear about what sort of organisation the trust is and will continue to be. The trust is a commissioning body for the NCS programme. Its primary functions, as laid out in both the royal charter and the Bill, are to provide, or arrange for, the delivery of NCS, and to promote it on a national level. We need it to focus on doing this well if we are to maintain the quality of the programme.

The amendment, if added to the primary functions of the trust, would change its remit significantly. It would take it beyond a pure NCS commissioning body towards something that more resembles an infrastructure organisation for the whole youth sector. This would fundamentally change the trust’s purpose. That being said, the trust would not be able to meet its primary functions without supporting and working with a wide range of organisations across the youth sector. The Government are absolutely clear on that, and we expect the trust to report back on it in due course. We can also consider further how we provide assurances that the NCS Trust will work collaboratively.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, also mentioned a review of the legal status of full-time volunteers. Long-term volunteering programmes provide many benefits not only to those whose lives are being helped but to those who take part in them. I confirm that the Government are committed to supporting social action, including long-term volunteering. We are looking at existing barriers to long-term volunteering and the appropriate way in which they can be addressed.

I think I have covered most of the points raised. I will of course read carefully what has been said by noble Lords and, if I can add anything, I will write to noble Lords, but I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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I know that the Government are committed to a commission or review of long-term volunteering. When can we expect the Government to put a little more flesh on the bones?

The Earl of Courtown

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The noble Baroness asks a very fair question. The answer is: soon.

Lord Lucas

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My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that reply and to the department for allowing my noble friend Lord Young to write his speaking notes. There could not have been anything more positive in the response. I, too, support very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, is seeking to achieve with her amendment. This is going to be a big player. It is very important that it maintains good relations and sees that as part of its purpose. I fully understand why that does not get stuck in the Bill, but it absolutely has to be there in its actions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Cormack (Con)

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My Lords, this is a probing amendment. It is also, in the words of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, an aspirational amendment. It is certainly a very serious amendment. I will pick up on some of the points that I made in my brief Second Reading speech.

If I have a criticism of the Bill—it is an affectionate criticism—it is that it is not ambitious enough. Anything that takes to itself the word “national” must not confound its own objectives by being too restrictive. That is why I have tabled this amendment. I am ready to admit that it may not be perfectly worded. I am more than happy to discuss with my noble friends—Ministers—how it can be improved. I am, however, determined to pursue this idea.

I first became aware of how necessary such a service was at the time of those ghastly riots, when Parliament was recalled in the summer of—was it 2012? There we saw, on our television screens, young people alienated from the society in which they lived—some may say it was a self-imposed ostracism, but that is how they felt—venting their spleen on ordinary, decent people, ruining businesses, causing mayhem and fires. It was dreadful. Of course, we have had riots before in this country. I remember well the Toxteth riots, the Brixton riots and so on. Every time something like that happens I feel that we are failing many of our young people by not inculcating in them a proper sense of belonging, and a sense not only of their rights but of their responsibilities as citizens.

Part of the fault lies within our education system: we do not attach sufficient importance to citizenship. We should. This afternoon, speaking to one of the earlier amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, talked very movingly about the fact that so many young people do not take for granted what we and our children were privileged to take for granted. If you are brought up in a dysfunctional family, where do you get aspirations from?



Imagine a proper national citizenship scheme in our country, where young people from the age of 15 were obliged to do some community service. I do not mind what service. There are young people who get enormous pleasure, satisfaction and stimulation from National Trust camps. Others go and sit with old people, or run errands for them. Community service can take myriad forms. There should be not only the opportunity for but the obligation on all young people to do something like that.

Side by side with that should be a proper education in citizenship and how important it is—and how privileged one is—to live in a functioning democracy. We do not have to dwell on recent events anywhere to underline the importance of that.

It is very important that part of that is recognition of the obligation—I use that term very deliberately—to be part of the system by registering. Some of your Lordships may know that on many occasions on the Floor of the House, I have raised the subject of compulsory registration. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, has an amendment in this small group which touches on some of these things. I have not had the privilege of being able to discuss it with him, and I do not know whether his views entirely accord with mine, but I think that in the penultimate year of education, all young people should be obliged to register. That does not mean they have to cast a vote—although there is a case for compulsory voting—but it does mean that it is brought home to them how important it is to recognise that they have the opportunity.

I do not want to turn this into a Brexit argument, but two things struck me during the Brexit vote. My teenage grandchildren felt horribly let down. One of them was old enough to vote, voted enthusiastically and received the result with great sadness. The other worked very hard in the campaign but was not quite old enough to vote. What they both also said was that far too many of their contemporaries and near-contemporaries said that they agreed with them but had not bothered to vote. That is a sadness to us all. Part of the object of a national citizenship scheme should be actively to encourage young people to participate. They have a stake in a future that is theirs more than ours, and they should be encouraged.

As part of this national citizenship scheme—it is a national scheme, not just a citizenship one—we should aim to create a scheme that will allow all young people to take part and, at the end, to have the sort of ceremony that I referred to in the Chamber, which those who take British citizenship have the right to take. I attended one of those citizenship ceremonies here on the terrace of your Lordships’ House. It was very moving to see people of all ages, from the fairly young to the quite elderly, proudly affirming their British citizenship. If a similar scheme were conducted in schools, church halls, churches and public buildings all over the place, and if it were run, as I indicated in the Chamber, by the lieutenancy, that would remove any sort of political or party-political taint from it and give another role to the lord-lieutenant and his or her deputies. At the end of the day, those young people would have something of which they could be proud.

Earlier today, I was officiating at the William Morris Craft Fellowship scheme, which I founded with a group of colleagues 30 years ago. It was our 30th anniversary, and we had the chairman of English Heritage and the chairman of Historic England to present the certificates. I spoke to one young lady stonemason, who said, “I saw that document hanging in the office when I had an interview, and I was determined to get one”. I found that very moving.

I really believe that we should be more ambitious with this Bill. If, when he replies, my noble friend tells me that he does not like this amendment, I beg him to convene a meeting so that we can discuss it to see whether we can table something more acceptable. I am not inclined to give up on this. I beg to move.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20, which is on very much the same lines as those in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bird. We are talking about citizenship and we are all saying that this is one part of what we need to do but it is not enough. We clearly need to go further. We may be unable to go much further in this Bill, but the problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, is there before us in all our cities and in some of our rural areas: young people do not feel part of our society or our political system and they are deeply disillusioned. We want to encourage them to see themselves as citizens taking an active part in our political community and our society.

This scheme deals with society but not with the political community. Therefore, I tabled this amendment, which stresses that the National Citizen Service needs to be seen within a wider context of an approach to citizenship. If the answer determinedly from the Government is that they do not want to do that in this Bill, I suggest that we need to have a dialogue with them about how we take it further forward.

On a number of occasions in the past 15 or 20 years we have all talked about the need for citizenship education. I have been converted to the idea of 16 year-olds being able to vote because it would mean that in education they would talk about their citizenship and how to use their vote. I know that that is a controversial area but it is part of how one tries to get people into our political society. I repeat what I said earlier: if necessary, several of us should propose a sessional committee of the House next year to discuss the concept of citizenship and how we educate and encourage the younger generation into citizenship. That very much includes the sort of things that the noble Lords, Lord Bird and Lord Cormack, are talking about. This is a very important area.

Let us have no illusions: we have a society that is deeply disillusioned and alienated when it comes to politics. Westminster is not respected or liked. I was enormously cheered one evening last winter at a family party in Yorkshire when someone asked me what I did. I said, “I’m not sure you want me to tell you”, and she said, “Oh dear, you’re not a banker, are you?”. She told me that there are perhaps at least two professions that are further down the ranking than politicians, but not that many. For the future health of our democracy and our society, we all need to do something about that. The Bill makes a small contribution towards solving the problem, but not a large enough one. We need a large enough contribution.

Lord Bird (CB)

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My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 50. I am sorry that I missed Second Reading but I was away. In spite of appearances, I am the father of very young children. There are things that I have to do and that was the case on that occasion.

I am very interested in the concept of a National Citizen Service, and I am very interested in the idea of a rite of passage. However, I would like to see it widened into moving from our obsession with representational democracy, where we get people in the other place speaking on behalf of our citizens, and towards the participatory democracy which we are all talking about, and that is why I believe in the NCS.

We are talking about people getting involved in their communities rather than just whingeing about the failure of national or local government—by whingeing I mean just talking about it rather than doing something about it. All those people who go on demonstrations, sign petitions and do all those things are in a sense on the road towards that kind of participatory democracy. I was on a trade union march last week about defending our libraries, galleries and all that. I took my family, and I was there participating in democracy.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

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My Lords, I have one specific question and would be grateful if the Minister could write to me on it. At Second Reading, I raised the point about voter registration. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has raised it now, and indeed it is part of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bird. In the letter that the NCS wrote to me after Second Reading, it said:

“HMRC was chosen as the body best placed to send out letters to teenagers on NCS’ behalf because it has the most robust and complete dataset of 16 and 17 year olds”.

I had not known that before about HMRC. It had not occurred to me, and I just wonder whether we are missing a trick in terms of relying entirely on local registration offices to ensure registration to vote when there is an organisation that has better information. I would be very grateful if the Minister could write to me on that.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, I have a deal of sympathy with all the amendments in this group. I too think that everybody should be registered. They should be registered at birth and then opt out at some stage if they wish. I also believe in compulsory voting but that is a very personal view; it is not my party’s view.

At Second Reading there was some discussion about citizenship education, which I believe is absolutely crucial to the well-being not only of individuals but of society. As the noble Lord said, it enables people to participate, which is key. If you do not have citizenship education, you do not know how to participate, so you cannot take advantage of your rights and responsibilities.

The Minister addressed citizenship in the letter that he wrote to all noble Lords after Second Reading. In it, he said that citizenship remains a compulsory subject in maintained secondary schools, but therein lies one of the problems. I firmly believe that citizenship should be a compulsory subject in all schools and not just in maintained schools. My noble friend Lord Blunkett pointed out at Second Reading that the number of people being trained to teach citizenship has fallen dramatically, and therein lies another problem. The Government really do have to grasp the issue of citizenship if, as they do, they wish people to participate more in our democratic system.

It was suggested at Second Reading that there should be a government review of citizenship teaching and the whole issue of citizenship, but we have not had a response to that. I hope that is something that the Government are looking at seriously. I very much like the idea proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that there should be a sessional committee to look at citizenship, because I think that that would do society a good service. I would understand if these amendments were not accepted but I urge the Government to say something strong and positive about the review of citizenship teaching and about having more of a national citizenship ethos, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, suggested.

Lord O'Shaughnessy

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My Lords, this is a subject about which people feel very passionately, and it has been a very passionate debate. Perhaps your Lordships will bear with me as I talk about something with which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is very familiar, as his grandson goes to one of the schools that I founded—Floreat Wandsworth. The development of character is central to what we do at our schools. Included within that is what we call “civic virtues”, of which participation is obviously one, as is service to others, and that is one reason that I am so passionate about this area.

I completely agree with the idea that developing a sense of citizenship, participation and civic virtue should be a fundamental part of education, but there is a question about the compulsory nature of this. One of the arguments is whether PSHE—sometimes with a C or various other bits of the alphabet added on—should be compulsory. That is a conversation that we have sporadically in the House. For me, that should be part of education but it should take place within schools. Just because we think that this is an important issue, it does not mean that this is the right vehicle for it. Just because this tree is with us does not mean that we should hang the bells on it.

I strongly agree with the sentiments behind my noble friend’s amendment and those of other noble Lords. I would welcome a broad debate on service, citizenship and character development. The DfE has a character development programme. It is slightly in stasis at the moment as we have had a change of Secretary of State, but it may be one way to rejuvenate this whole process. However, to me, this is not the right vehicle for those absolutely correct sentiments.

The Earl of Listowel

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My Lords, I should like to express some sympathy with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I am very concerned about the increasing number of children—boys and girls—who are growing up without a father in the home. This scheme might offer some of those children a step towards having a father figure in their lives, especially if it connects with other services, such as the Girl Guides and the Scouts.

Back in 2011, OECD research led by Professor Melhuish at Birkbeck, University of London, found that a fifth of children in this country were growing up without a father in the home. That compared with a quarter in the United States. However, the research also predicted that in future years we would overtake the United States, and that by—I think—the 2030s a third of our children would grow up without a father in the home. This is a terribly important fact for us to keep in mind. The evidence shows that low-income boys are more likely to get involved in the criminal justice system if they grow up without a father in the home. We need to think of all possible means to keep fathers, as far as possible, in the home, and to fill the deficit—for girls and boys—when there is no father figure there. One rationale for rolling out the scheme nationally is to meet the needs of those boys and girls for some positive father figure. It is obviously a short-term intervention, and I hope very much it might lead them to other interventions such as the Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts.

I do not wish in any way to disparage lone parents. Just recently I was speaking to a father bringing up three children on his own who works very hard, washes his children’s laundry, cares for them—he says he has no time for a social life. I do not intend to disparage those parents at all; I merely say that from the point of view of so many boys and girls it is a real challenge for them to grow up without a father in the home.

Baroness Byford

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My Lords, I add my support to my noble friend’s amendment. The scheme before us —the trust—is hugely important in opening doors. It is giving all young people between the ages of 15 and 18 and, with exceptions, beyond that, a chance to have a month’s experience of volunteering. That is what the Bill is about. I fear that we have wandered away from that a bit. However, it is hugely important that we have wandered, so I hope that the Minister forgives me a little.

I take my noble friend’s point that a lot of citizenship should be done in schools: that is right, and it is what those of us who go out on the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme try to do in a very small way and confined space. It has its role, and I am delighted to be going to a primary school this Friday. I have been specially asked to go; it is good for us, too, to be with the young.

I particularly wanted to come back to my noble friend Lord Cormack’s suggestion that we could recognise participation in the scheme in a slightly better way. His suggestion was that perhaps at the end of their month, if they wished—it would not be compulsory—the young person would receive a certificate presented by somebody at the school, or wherever, to give public recognition of the fact that they had taken part in the scheme. That gives two opportunities. First, that person has a certificate, or something important, that they can take away and that makes a difference when they look for jobs in the future, by showing that they have participated. Secondly, and more importantly, it would give other youngsters better knowledge of what opportunities there are out there. So, while the debate has wandered a little widely—and I agree with everything that has been said—there are bits that we can take from the debate that would add value to what is proposed in the Bill. That is why I support my noble friend’s amendment.

Lord Bird

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I just wanted to add a point to what the noble Lord was saying with regard to schools. I agree with him 100%, but when teachers are saying, “We now have a choice about whether we teach citizenship”, and they do not, there is a profound problem. What is so interesting is that behind all this we have a Government who are prepared to spend £1 billion, or thereabouts, on something that is a great big hole in the middle of society. How do you get children to participate in democracy or learn how to participate in democracy? How do you draw people in to vote and do all those sorts of things?

It is quite interesting that the schools have let us down a bit. This is not a sticking plaster but it is taking the argument to after school: what do children do in the evening and at the weekend? I was almost saved by the National Association of Boys’ Clubs—almost. Unfortunately, they closed them down in the area that I lived in.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, until recently, I was a governor of a special school in the Chilterns, near where I live. On one of my regular walk rounds, I happened to chance on a citizenship class and was immediately seized upon as an exhibit, because they happened to be talking about the House of Lords at the time. I had the embarrassing experience of trying to persuade a group of rather terrifying young men, who were trying to make sense of what on earth democracy was and how it worked in their circumstances, which were not particularly good, why I would have anything to say that meant anything to them. I think I was successful—but then I would say that, wouldn’t I? However, it was good to see the lesson. I thought it was well-planned and well-exercised. The kids got something out of it and, at the end, I sent them away to think about what they would like me to do if I were ever lucky enough to get high enough in the Private Members’ Bills ballot to put in a Bill of my own. I will not share in this august company what they wanted but it got them talking, which was great.

Is not the problem here that this is one of the wicked issues? In all my time looking at, studying and working in government, I do not think we have ever come up with a solution to the problem in which a strong departmental wish for movement in another department has provided the necessary edge or leverage for that to happen. Here we are saying that a well-funded and thought-through programme depends to a greater or lesser extent—I would say greater—on there being a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding about citizenship, but we lack the ability in the system to impress that wish on the department that is responsible for school education, maintained and otherwise, and therefore it will not happen. I am sad about that because all the arguments being made today are absolutely right.

If the prospect facing Ministers is that a member of their own side who normally can get excited only about cathedrals and church choirs is saying that he is determined not to give up on this point, then I wish them luck. An irresistible force is coming your way, but I am afraid it will meet an immovable object in the form of the new Secretary of State. Indeed, although I know his heart is in the right place, the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, gave the game away when he said that the current work on citizenship and service more generally had gone into a hiatus because of the change of Secretary of State. There we are, you see: it will not work.

Why will it not work? It is a classic example of the sort of joined-up government that we all go on about, but we simply cannot do it. I wish there was a way of doing it. Although the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said that this is not the right Bill, maybe it is. The noble Lord is shaking his head. I was nodding earlier and now he is shaking his head. Tut-tut: he has not learned the lesson.

Lord O’Shaughnessy

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I am shaking my head because I disagree.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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That was my point earlier, but I nodded—such stupidity.

We have to give some indication. It may be that there are other ways. I like the suggestion from my noble friend Lady Royall for a Select Committee, which of course we cannot order but on which we can certainly make recommendations. Something needs to be started here today by those of us who care enough about this to make it part of what we want to do with the Bill. If it flows in different ways, all the better, because we certainly are not in a good place, and we know now that is the case. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say.

The Earl of Courtown

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My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady Byford that this has been rather a wander as opposed to a highly focused debate on these amendments, but it has also been very useful. I thank noble Lords for highlighting so articulately and passionately the ongoing importance that citizenship and citizenship education must play in our country. We agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that NCS must be, as it says in his amendment, “for all young people”, no matter what their background. As we have discussed, the functions set out in full in the royal charter attempt to capture, in the most appropriate form, what the NCS is and should always be. They include an objective to seek to expand the number of participants.

We know that volunteering can promote a sense of citizenship, and social engagement is one of the NCS programme’s core elements. The latest independent Ipsos MORI evaluation showed that NCS graduates give back to their communities an extra six hours per month. They feel more able to have an impact on the world around them and say that they are more likely to vote, so there are elements of citizenship there. But the NCS is not designed to establish a national citizenship scheme. It is not equipped or funded to do so.

The Government wish to put the NCS Trust on a stable and assured footing so that it may promote the NCS programme across the country to young people, parents, carers, schools and local authorities, to become a scheme that can deliver these outcomes, as my noble friend was intimating, for every young person on the cusp of adulthood who wants a place. Our manifesto commitment is clear on that, so I hope my noble friend Lord Cormack can be assured of the Bill’s aspiration. But as we expand the scheme to allow more young people to benefit, we must concentrate on our primary goals to maintain the success and quality we have had so far, to which my noble friend referred. He also mentioned an obligation to do NCS, but the NCS must remain voluntary to retain its ethos. It will fail if young people feel it is compulsory for them to do it.

The second amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would require the trust to set out in its annual business plan the ways in which the NCS contributes to citizenship education more broadly. I fear I must repeat the point that the NCS Trust must be allowed to focus its resources and reporting on its primary functions, namely to enable participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities to participate in projects to benefit society, and to enhance the skills of those participants. Although the links to citizenship are clear, it would not be practical for the trust to report more widely on citizenship education.

Citizenship education is mandatory in state-maintained schools, as part of the national curriculum. The citizenship curriculum aims to equip young people with knowledge, skills and understanding to prepare them to play a full and active part in modern Britain. The NCS is part of the citizenship landscape of this country, as are many organisations working with young people and helping them to become more resilient and informed members of society, but asking the trust to report on work wider than its core mission risks distracting it from delivering a quality programme. I hope that noble Lords can take assurance that the NCS complements an ongoing commitment to the importance of citizenship education in schools.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for making the point that the NCS has the potential to encourage democratic engagement and participation among young people. We are in full agreement. The draft charter requires that the trust must have regard to,

“encouraging participants to take an interest in debate on matters of local or national political interest, and promoting their understanding of how to participate in national and local elections”.

This will ensure that the NCS Trust keeps these considerations at the front of its mind whenever it makes decisions about how to deliver its core mission. In short, the aim here was to capture, as concisely as possible, the very point the noble Lord makes. The NCS Trust is working jointly with the democratic engagement team in the Cabinet Office to explore the possibilities for the NCS to contribute to this agenda. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Bird, not to press his amendment.

Without making any commitment, I should say that my noble friend the Minister is only too happy to hold meetings with as many Peers as he can. I have always wanted to say that. None the less my noble friend Lord Ashton of Hyde is happy to meet noble Lords before the next stage of the Bill. I also make a commitment to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that we will write to her on the issue that she raised.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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My Lords, the noble Earl has just remarked that this is a cross-departmental issue, involving the Cabinet Office, Department for Education, DCMS and one or two others. I urge him and the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, to take this back and perhaps write to us all with the suggestion that we might have a cross-departmental meeting with Peers to discuss how a broader approach to citizenship might be taken forward across Whitehall.

The Earl of Courtown

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My Lords, we will of course consider what the noble Lord has said and write to him about our final decision on that matter, but at the moment I would ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Cormack

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My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate and I am extremely grateful to everyone who has taken part, particularly to my noble friend Lady Byford, who restricted her comments to my amendment. It was very good to find so much common ground with the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Bird, and I hope that the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, can be acted upon. We have set something running and we must keep it running. This is a good Bill, which we all welcome and support, but it is not aspirational enough. That is the point. I hope we can have conversations between now and Report, as it is important that the House in general has an opportunity to discuss these things. I am certainly minded to put down a similar amendment on Report and hope to trigger an equally vigorous debate on the Floor of the House. In the meantime, with very good grace and while thanking my noble friend for his generous reply, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but just for the convenience of the Committee, I would inform Members that the usual channels have agreed that we will finish after this group.

Lord Cope of Berkeley

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My Lords, after that very wide-ranging debate, I come to an extremely nitty-gritty point. Before we leave page 1, we have Amendment 12, which goes with Amendment 44. These two amendments draw attention to the fact that there are slightly different definitions of “young people” in the two clauses concerned, Clause 1 and Clause 9. The difference is not of huge importance, but it has significance in that it will not let HMRC write to a few of the young people who may be covered by the scheme, which seems a very odd thing to have happened. After my earlier remarks, I do not want to criticise lawyers for the drafting of the thing, but one wonders whether it is a mistake or deliberate. I beg to move the amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Cope, which I am sure is nothing to do with our politics as we are completely diametric on just about everything I can think of. It must be because we are both accountants. He is absolutely right as I, too, alighted on this point and thought that it would be a good issue to raise.

It is a bit odd to read in Clause 1(2)(a) that,

‘“young people” means 16 and 17 year olds, but may also include other persons who are 15 years old or have attained the age of 18 but are under the age of 25”.

There are probably reasons for it, and I am sure the Minister will be able to explain them. I think I get what that means but if we look at the royal charter, its description of exactly the same area is completely different. It says:

“For the purposes of paragraph 1—a. “young people in England” means 16 and 17 year olds”,

which is clear, but that,

“b. the NCS Trust may, from time to time, determine that “young people” also includes one or more of the following … 15 year olds … any person who has attained the age of 18 and is under the age of 25 … any person of a particular age falling within the range described in sub-paragraph ii”.

We could try to get the same wording into the different parts of the Bill. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, that there is a different definition for the section dealing with HMRC functions, that is probably explicable in terms of what records it has and can therefore rely on. Again, however, it is confusing if we are to get this sorted out.

That is the issue which I wanted to raise. My Amendment 13 also bears on this point. If we are to muck around with the ages, that is something which Parliament ought to be involved in. The current arrangements would be that if the Bill is true, it must be something set in statute but if the charter is true, it can be changed by the NCS Trust. If either of those is wrong—I do not agree with them—I would rather see that Parliament had affirmative regulations.

To be serious about this, we hope that who qualifies for the service will be quite a hot ticket. It is important that we know from the start whether 15 year-olds qualify, whether over 18 year-olds qualify, whether the upward age of 25 is fixed and what exactly the rationales are for having different ranges and the flexibility that goes with them. It may be to do with getting to hard- to-reach families and individuals. To pick up my noble friend Lady Royall’s earlier point, that would be a good thing. However, it may just be an aspiration to do something on a much wider scale that we do not know about. If we are sticking to the arrangements in the current Bill, Parliament needs a better handle on that.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Cope and to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. They both rightly observe that Clause 1, in defining the NCS Trust’s functions, defines young people as 16 and 17 year-olds, but says it may also include other persons who are 15 years old or have attained the age of 18 but are under the age of 25. Clause 9, which confers a power on HMRC to write to young people, then sets an age range of 15 to 17. The amendments would make the age range in Clause 1 apply to Clause 9. I can assure the Committee that the difference in age ranges between the two clauses is deliberate.

Clause 1 makes a distinction: first, it defines young people as 16 and 17 year-olds but allows a degree of flexibility, both for 15 year-olds and those up to the age of 25. NCS should be focused on 16 and 17 year-olds. The majority of participants now are of those ages. Most do NCS in the summer after their GCSEs; some do it earlier in spring and others in the autumn of the following academic year. People with summer birthdays can conceivably do NCS after their GCSEs when they are still 15, so the Bill allows for that.

The upward age range to 25 is to allow flexibility for those with additional needs or in particular circumstances. Someone might miss out for a particular reason or it might be more appropriate for someone with a learning disability, for example, to do the programme a little later. Those older than 17 can therefore take part if the trust agrees but the programme is not openly advertised to older age ranges. For NCS to have its rite-of-passage feel, we want to keep it focused on a tight age range. Those doing NCS outside that age range would be the exception rather than the rule. The focus of marketing the scheme must therefore be on 16 to 17 year-olds, or those approaching that age.

The definition in Clause 9 has therefore been set more narrowly so that HMRC letters go out at a time that targets the core age group. If a young person is unable to go on the programme at that age, and might need to wait until they are older for practical reasons, this can be agreed with the NCS Trust. They will none the less have had the letter already, so the clause is not restricting anyone from hearing about NCS. They will all hear at the same time and can decide when to do the programme later if necessary. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will see that the difference in the specified age ranges serves an important purpose and will feel able to withdraw his amendment. We want the programme to be flexible but the marketing needs to be focused so that no one is misled.

Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would require the Government to make a statutory instrument which received the express approval of both Houses before amending the age ranges outlined in Clause 1. The noble Lord is absolutely right that the age range is critical to the definition of NCS and must not be allowed to change lightly. NCS should take place at a formative period between childhood and adulthood—the juncture between compulsory education and the freedom to make life choices.

That is why we have explicitly stipulated the age range of participants in the Bill, while allowing flexibility for those with additional needs. I can confirm that primary legislation would be required to amend the age range. This is important, and we would want to do so only for the very best of reasons: that a future Government deemed it necessary to change the core NCS demographic. Such a change could alter the fundamental character of NCS and therefore should require the full scrutiny of Parliament.

I hope that the noble Lords can take confidence in the Bill’s current drafting and will not press their amendments.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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I do not think that the Minister answered my point about the wider drafting of the royal charter. Of course, we have no locus in the royal charter, but can he commit to looking at the wording on page 7 of the draft charter and commit to making the wording of the two documents the same?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I will certainly commit to looking at it but it is important to note that a Bill in Parliament always trumps a royal charter. There is no doubt about what the age ranges are; they are as set out in the Bill. As I said, I will commit to looking at the two documents to see what can be done, but there is no doubt about what the age ranges are—they are as set out in the Bill.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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I must be going crackers. The Bill says that,

“‘young people’ means 16 and 17 year olds”,

and that is followed by a variation. The charter says,

“‘young people …’ means 16 and 17 year olds, but … the NCS Trust may, from time to time, determine that”,

it includes others. I do not think that you can have it both ways. If the statute trumps the charter, which is what I think the Minister is saying, then the statute must stand and the charter is wrong. I am asking him to look at the wording of the charter and to try to align it more with the statute. I hope that that is not too great an ask, even at this late hour.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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It certainly is not and I have already said that I will do that.

Lord Cope of Berkeley

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My Lords, I am mildly disappointed to realise that the marketing to those with difficulties and so on up to the age of 24 will not be quite as wide as the marketing to others. Nevertheless, I understand my noble friend’s response. I am glad to know that it is deliberate and I am grateful for his reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)

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Does the Minister want to move that the Committee stands adjourned?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I move that the Committee adjourns.

Baroness Finn (Con)

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My Lords, Amendments 19 and 23 are in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Maude of Horsham and Lord O’Shaughnessy. Their purpose is to insert the word “primary” before the reporting requirements on the exercise of functions for both the business plan and the annual report. While I appreciate that this is a small word change, we argue that its insertion is critical for two reasons. First, it would prevent the new organisation drowning in excessive bureaucracy; secondly, it is consistent with the draft royal charter which refers in Article 3 to the primary functions of the NCS Trust.

One of the main reasons for the success of the NCS thus far has been its flexibility to respond rapidly and positively to feedback on the programme and to adapt quickly to change. This flexibility is essential when engaging with teenagers. To mire the trust in excessive bureaucracy will hinder, and potentially kill, its ability to adapt quickly and innovatively to new challenges. If the trust is expected to produce a business plan every year about every one of its activities, that would have the regrettable effect of stymieing the NCS’s ability to innovate and to engage with emergent trends, platforms or partnerships.

The new body should of course publish a business plan that lays out the primary functions of delivering the National Citizen Service. This will allow transparent scrutiny of the unit cost of delivery as well as its broader stakeholder engagement. Such scrutiny, which will permit proper accountability, is completely appropriate. However, to insist on more onerous reporting requirements, which would be inconsistent not only with the draft royal charter but with other public bodies, including other royal charters, would detract from the NCS’s ability to deliver a quality and engaging programme.

If the NCS is to achieve its hugely ambitious programme to grow threefold in the next three years, it is vital that it sticks to its core vision while retaining the ability to be nimble. To allow this, the reporting requirements should be kept as straightforward as possible, not weighed down by ever more onerous obligations. I beg to move.

Baroness Barker (LD)

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My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, whose purport is somewhat different from that set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn.

When this legislation is passed, the National Citizen Service will no longer be a start-up; it will be a sizeable body with a very sizeable budget. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that its reporting requirements will be different from those which it currently has as a very small community interest company. As such, and not a charity, the NCS has a lower level of financial reporting requirement than many of the organisations with which it has to do business and from which it has to commission its services.

I make no apology for the number of the amendments in this group which deal with accountability. I appreciate that we are talking about a royal charter body but the voluntary sector has had one of the worst years on record and has suffered a great deal in terms of its reputation and public support, precisely because it has not been living up to the higher standards of reporting which it should demonstrate—way above the public sector.

These amendments stem, to a large extent, from the acknowledgment of the noble Lord, Lord Maude, on Second Reading, that the NCS was deliberately set up to sit apart from the rest of the voluntary sector while being almost entirely dependent on it for the delivery of its outcomes. The NCS is, and will be in the future, a central commissioner of services from the voluntary sector, and as other resources diminish that will become increasingly important as a larger percentage of the money available for volunteering will be tied to this scheme. The greater freedom of action a body has, the higher standard of accountability it should aspire to. That is why the level of detail we require about any charity’s accounts is much higher than for anywhere in the private sector. The lack of competition to the NCS makes it wise to require a greater degree of transparency and detail in its reporting than we might have otherwise. Recent examples like Kids Company and Work Programme show that the lack of a requirement for proper accountability can be extremely damaging. It is with that in mind that we have proposed a number of amendments.

Given its purpose and set apart though it is, this organisation cannot deliver co-ordination with other voluntary organisations unless it has good relationships with them. It therefore does not seem unreasonable to ask it to set out how it will establish those, and, after a financial year, to report back. It is claimed that this organisation has an important, and, in the view of some noble Lords, unique contribution to make to the lives of young people. It is therefore important to require it to show that it sits alongside the main trends within the voluntary sector. For example, many people working in community organisations serving the Muslim community are saying to the Government— consistently and in many different ways—that the Prevent agenda is not working. It would therefore be remiss of us not to require the NCS—if it does have the role being described by its advocates—to actively work with those charities to ensure that community cohesion and diversion from extremism are part of its achievements.

Amendment 31, which requires that the NCS’s annual report includes its efficiency and effectiveness, is justifiable given that it is not up against competitive challenge. It is also not unreasonable to require diversity among its trustees. But of all these amendments, the two that matter the most are Amendments 28 and 29. It is right that Parliament should know the extent to which the trust has collaborated with and resourced the rest of the voluntary sector given that it will be one of the few sources of money for volunteering. It is also right that its report should include comparisons with alternative provisions. I have not yet been able to find a report giving the unit cost of the NCS including its overheads. Will the Minister give us that figure in his response? There is a suggestion from a number of other voluntary organisations that it is a very costly programme in comparison to them. I would very much welcome a response on that because before we commit this large resource to a body which is going to be set down in stone we should have some answers about the level of accountability that we can expect.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)

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My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 27 in this group. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, it adds to the reporting requirements of the NCS. In my experience, having to provide a detailed business plan and reporting back mechanisms does not have to stifle innovation. Most of the most innovative organisations and businesses around the world have detailed business plans and they report to shareholders, so I find the argument quite difficult. Indeed, I shall go further and say that business planning tools used properly can generate innovation and the reporting requirement can make an organisation focus on the things that those who are funding it believe are important. They can be a driver for innovation, not a barrier to it. The NCS, like any body in receipt of quite large sums of public money, will find that it will be overwhelmed with freedom of information requests if it does not willingly provide the information at the beginning.

In my amendment I am seeking to introduce to the business planning and reporting requirements measurement against the implementation of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. When it was passed, the Act was based on two thoughts. The first was that public procurement generally tends to be at scale and cuts out SMEs and smaller organisations, and the second was that the cumulative spending power of public bodies could be much better used in the economic development of local areas than is usually the case. A review carried out last year by the noble Lord, Lord Young, suggested that the Act had those impacts. It has worked well, but it is underused. I was very pleased that the Government more or less accepted those arguments when they accepted my amendment to the Bus Services Bill and included a reference to the Act in the statutory guidance.

Evidence to the Select Committee on Charities currently sitting in your Lordships’ House has contained many references to the difficulties faced by small charities in participating in public procurement exercises, and a number of them have specifically referenced the Public Services (Social Value) Act as a useful vehicle for being able to do that, and they would like to see it more widely used.

The NCS is going to be a huge provider. On our previous day in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, talked about the problems of scaling up. I worry about that too. The NCS has written to me very fully and outlined the work that it has been doing with small local providers in a pathfinder scheme. It has given an undertaking that it wishes to widen and deepen its approach. I welcome that, but the recurring theme in this debate is about protecting the commitments currently made by the NCS into the future because it can commit only with its current board and current chair. Unless we have something in the Bill we cannot accept that those commitments will go on for ever.

There are a number of reasons why the Government should accept this amendment. The use of public money to support small and medium-sized charities will add to their sustainability and begin to avoid what someone has described to me as the growing Tesco-ification of the charity sector. There is also an issue about larger providers squeezing out smaller subcontractors. The NCS can use its considerable purchasing and contracting power to ensure fairer treatment. That would be the right message to send out to the sector, which is feeling a little beleaguered and unloved by government. It would help to ensure that more cash is used locally, generating local jobs. It would also help to create genuinely local solutions with providers which understand their neighbourhood. Anyone who does school visits regularly knows how very different areas can be, even those that are geographically quite close together.

Finally, there is something about risk. A larger number of smaller contracts is inherently less risky in terms of collapse or mismanagement than putting all the eggs in just a few baskets. One of the keys to innovation is size, and smaller local providers would be much more innovative and at less risk than the large ones.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)

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My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in my name. I understand the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that the organisation wants to put all its energies into ensuring that it maximises the number of young people going through the programme—that is absolutely right and proper. But I do not regard reporting on the various measures that we wish to be reported on as onerous in any shape or form. When the report comes before Parliament every year, which is a very welcome measure, Parliament needs to be able to judge what is happening and judge the impact of this very important initiative. Unless we have a breakdown of the impact in various ways, we shall not be in a position to judge or to celebrate all the success—nor will we be in a position to say that the NCS is doing a great job but it needs to flex this and that and do things slightly differently. So I am not trying to impede the work of the NCS in any way; I am trying to build trust in the NCS and, unless we have measured impact, we are not going to build the trust that we want to build. It is important that we know the number of participants who have fully completed the programme, which is the subject of one of my amendments, and the extent to which participation targets have been met. They are just measures, and they are sensible and basic ones.

Amendment 30 says that the annual report must compare the extent to which the NCS Trust obtains value for money and talks about,

“comparison with other youth related provision”,

by organisations with similar aims. There are other organisations, such as the scouts, which provide fantastic value for money. I know that the NCS will also provide fantastic value for money, but I want to enable organisations such as the scouts to be able to deliver for the NCS. In due course, the NCS will have to flex how it works to some extent to ensure that the scouts can be a provider, as it were, for the NCS.

Amendment 37 says that the annual report must address,

“the extent to which young people have been involved in setting the strategic priorities of the NCS Trust”.

I do not know the extent to which young people are involved in setting the priorities at the moment, but yesterday I went to a terrific event organised by Step Up To Serve, because it is “I Will” week. It has so many young people on its board, which is fabulous, and they really are setting the agenda for quality volunteering for those between the ages of 10 and 20. I would like to know that young people are really going to be involved in setting the priorities for the NCS, because it is their programme and they know what is best needed for them.

My Amendment 38 says that the annual report must address,

“how many young people have gone onto participate in other social action opportunities, and … the extent to which the NCS programmes impact the wider youth … sector”.

I shall not bang on again about City Year and all those things, but it is part of the journey, so I want to ensure that the report can demonstrate each year that the NCS really is part of the social action journey for young people from 10 to 25.

I am very grateful to the Minister, who in his letter after Second Reading said that the Government agreed that a “longitudinal study” of the life outcomes of NCS graduates was an excellent suggestion and that he was looking to see how such a study could be developed within the work already done to get evidence about the NCS’s long-term performance. That is really important because in a few years’ time, we want to be able to demonstrate that the NCS is making a qualitative difference to young people’s lives.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)

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My Lords, I have one amendment in the group, Amendment 47. It is the last in a group of 18. The prior 17 would impose various duties on the NCS Trust. Some of these seem to be entirely sensible. Measuring the impact of what is being achieved is good, so I very much support the thought behind Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on how many individuals complete the programme, although an annual report that did not contain that would be a sad one. I am less enthused by Amendment 39 about the open-ended requirement to consult the voluntary sector. That seems to be a recipe for a talking shop and would not necessarily achieve very much.

I do not doubt the good intentions behind the amendments in the group, but as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Amendment 47 attempts to go beyond hope, expectation or intention to the reality of what has happened. It would do so by requiring an independent review of the whole of the NCS Trust’s commissioning process. We would thus be able to examine its performance in areas a number of which are the subject of the other 17 amendments in the group.

Amendment 47 focuses widely but particularly on those issues that have been the subject of a good many discussions and comments at Second Reading: how easy is it for small providers to obtain contracts? What barriers have been identified that stop them? What additional benefits have been found for our society arising from the whole process? That last issue has been commented on in the last few minutes, so I will not repeat it, but the Committee needs to be aware of the level of risk aversion among commissioners. It is something we need to guard against for the NCS Trust.

A number of voluntary groups are invited to bid. The fact is that if you ask 12 to bid, there are 11 losers. Therefore, the amount of time wasted on that can be very great. My noble friend Lord Maude has had a valiant blast against the use of pre-qualification questionnaires, or PQQs. That is another hurdle for smaller groups to get over. His weed killer has worked pretty well in central government, but PQQs seem to be alive and well and living reasonably persistently at local government level. Perhaps we need to think about that. There are then lengthy tender documents that take a lot of compiling. Then there are the monitoring processes, which can be very lengthy and extensive, and can be changed in the middle. All those issues and features combine to deter, to put off, to disadvantage smaller voluntary groups.

The day before our meeting last Wednesday a small charity came to speak to me, because I have been involved with this process. It said that it had an example where the commissioner clearly believed it was unsuitable and that it should not be given the job. The charity was persistent, in a rather brave way. It went on to complete the process, against considerable odds and adversity. Then it was disqualified because, in the final contract, where it had to sign the document at the end, the words said, “Sign inside the box”. The signature had touched the side of the box. That was sufficient reason for the commission to say, “Sorry, you haven’t declared, you’re off”. One thinks that this is an extreme example, but these sorts of things come up again and again. We need to ensure this does not take root in the NCS commissioning process and that these non-tariff barriers, if you like to call them that, are identified and dealt with.

The purpose of the amendment is to make sure that we can find out what has actually been happening. It is supported by the NCVO. It provides this important independent overall review, with some special focuses to it. On reflection, I probably would not have chosen a review after 12 months—that is probably a bit too soon. So it might be a review after 24 months, to give more time to see how things settle down, but that is a detail. I hope my noble friend will accept that there is a principle here of something worth pursuing, which deals with some of the other concerns raised by noble Lords on both sides of the Committee, and we can explore how to build it into the Bill at the next stage.

Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)

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My Lords, I was pleased to put my name to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Finn. I support everything she said about making sure that the bureaucratic workload is kept to a minimum so that the NCS Trust can focus on its primary role.

I have great sympathy with the idea of the annual reports and the business plan focusing on particular areas of interest, such as diversification of intake, performance, and so on. But there are a couple of reasons why I think it would be a mistake to put it in the Bill and why this more elegant solution from my noble friend is a better approach. First, we cannot possibly anticipate all the things that the NCS, as it succeeds and flourishes between now and whenever—into infinity—could need to focus on from year to year. Inevitably, those challenges will change and we cannot possibly anticipate every single reporting requirement that might be needed to focus on the issue or the challenge of the day. Today, it might be disability; in three years’ time, it could be ethnic minorities, or anything. To put in a small number of things that we can think of now might focus the attention of the board on reporting things that actually in future years might be less important than others. That would be a mistake.

Secondly, all the issues that have been brought up by noble Lords as important focuses for the business plan and the accounts are covered in the royal charter. In the interests of brevity, I will not read out all the relevant bits of the royal charter but pages 7 and 8 talk about the primary functions,

“enabling participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities”.

The charter says:

“In exercising its primary functions, the objectives of the NCS Trust are … to promote social cohesion”,

and,

“to expand the number of participants”.

The trust is also to,

“have regard to the desirability of … promoting social mobility … personal and social development … ensuring value for money”,

and so on. I think that all the good points that have been made about the sorts of things that the NCS should be reporting on in its annual report and planning for in its annual business plan are covered—perhaps not completely and that is worth a look—in the royal charter.

Having the Bill say that the NCS should report and plan for the primary functions in relation to what is in the royal charter is the correct balance between making sure that the things that we care about are reported on and leaving flexibility with the board to focus on those things that are perhaps more important from one year to the next, rather than putting in the Bill things which might just narrow attention on to a small number of issues, which may not be the most important things in any given year. That is why I think inserting them as primary functions is helpful in clarifying what is important and what we should hold the NCS accountable for, but allowing some flexibility for the board to report on the things that are most pressing in any given year.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, much of what the noble Lord has just said is eminently sensible. Clearly, things change from year to year and the Bill is going to last in perpetuity, as it were. I will retable some amendments on Report. I hope that the Government will look at the charter to make sure that every aspect we have been speaking about today is truly covered. We will see what happens with amendments on Report but I would like the Minister to say what issues the Government and Parliament would expect the report to cover in 2017, 2018, 2019 or 2020—for the foreseeable future. Yes, priorities can change but I want to ensure that my priorities are covered in the annual report.

Lord Blunkett (Lab)

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I have no amendments in this group, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for speaking briefly. It is unarguable that we should have the maximum transparency for the new body and sensible measures of comparability. We should be able to take account of value for money and impact, although those are two separate things: value for money is crucial in the wise use of public expenditure, whereas impact—this is why the longitudinal study is so important —is what happens down the line. I just caution the voluntary sector to be careful what it wishes for in terms of other organisations receiving varying amounts of public funding while requiring for others what they might find difficult for themselves.

To put that in context, in the last Parliament I was asked and was happy to be the transitional first chair of Youth United, which sought to bring together the uniformed organisations to increase impact in areas of deprivation. The need to do that, pressed by His Royal Highness Prince Charles, was that, on the whole, those areas of great deprivation were not covered in the same way and the impact was not as great as would be expected or desired. Some of the money that went in came from the LIBOR fines. When those fines are levied, they become public expenditure, albeit, as we might describe it, as “the Chancellor’s slush fund”, where there is as little transparency and openness as I have ever come across, in bidding processes or in acknowledgement of what has happened to the money down the line.

I just counsel that we build in the necessary requirements to ensure that money is used extremely wisely and we do not, to use the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, go down the road of Kids Company. We need to be clear what we expect of the outcomes. As I tried to say on Second Reading, that is not just about numerical targets; it is about outcome measures as to how the impact is held on to, in terms of those young people—where they have come from, where they go to and their participation post the NCS experience. I just repeat: for big and small organisations alike, be careful what you wish for.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)

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My Lords, those are wise words and they will ring in the ear long after my noble friend Lord Blunkett has uttered them. We should bear them in mind throughout this debate.

I do not want to say much about this, because the purpose of these probing amendments is to invite the Minister to reflect on how he wishes to take this forward and we should listen to him carefully. I will make two points. First, what is decided about the reporting functions must be the corollary of what we have decided about the structure. Rather than repeating the debate on the first amendment last week, I think that it is obvious that, if the structure adopted is the royal charter body, for example, it will bring with it the implications of a non-departmental public body. Therefore, the auditing by the NAO will be brought to the Public Accounts Committee and there will be a virtuous cycle of accounting and reporting, which we are well used to and will probably cover one aspect of this.

On the points that have been made more generally, this organisation will serve a much wider public purpose than simply to operate a number of courses or to commission those courses. The report is to Parliament, which raises much wider questions about what you would need to do. As has rightly been said, many of these measures are not numerical, so it would be interesting and challenging to see how one could frame that in a way that would both be a formal account—a measure of the consumption of resources and the impact of those resources in terms of diversity and reach—and provide information that will allow those who have to engage with this body to anticipate and work closely together with it. I echo the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, about the need for a broader cut through this—not just an annual report, but a commissioned report looking at some of the wider indices. That might be annual, but I agree that it perhaps needs to happen a bit later. That might be a way of framing this. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the matter.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)

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I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. A large number of amendments in this group are to do with reporting requirements or the business plan. In the interests of time, I will be brief in my response. I hope I do not come across as negative, because I do not mean to be. We are grateful for suggestions of improvement to the Bill, which has received almost unanimous support, and I realise that these are meant to be constructive. We are listening and will take careful note of all the points raised. As I agreed last week, there are some areas which we can explore further, such as reporting on disabled participants.

There was a recurring theme in many noble Lords’ contributions: there are many other things they would like the NCS to do. I want to make the point at the outset—because it goes through the whole of Committee stage—that we are very keen that the NCS concentrates on what it is meant to do and is doing well and we do not want it distracted. From my experience, this is a fatal temptation in business and in government programmes. As I said at the beginning of Second Reading, we want the Bill to set up the NCS in perpetuity so that it is able to do, and to continue to do, what it has been doing well.

Nearly 20 amendments have been tabled specifying additional reporting requirements for the trust, in addition to the seven requirements already in the Bill. I hope that the Committee sees that this risks being excessive, bearing in mind that some noble Lords have argued cogently that we must not stifle this enterprising and growing organisation. There must be a balance between the reporting essential to maintain public confidence in the NCS and allowing the trust space to focus on quality delivery. While we think that we should keep the mandatory reporting requirements in the Bill at a high level, I propose that the Government write to the trust to seek its assurances that its reporting will be thorough and will take into account the views of this House, as expressed in the various amendments. I am happy to commit to doing that.

Amendments 19 and 23, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble Lords, Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy, would restrict the NCS Trust’s annual report and business plan to refer only to its primary functions. On the one hand, for understandable reasons, the noble Lords want to minimise reporting requirements; on the other, it is clear from many other noble Lords, who would like to add reporting requirements, that they feel that the report and business plan should refer to the full breadth of functions as set out in the royal charter. These are the tools through which Parliament and the public can hold the NCS to account. I hope noble Lords will see that we have tried to strike a reasonable balance with the reporting requirements in the Bill.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for their amendments. Amendments 21, 28 and 39 relate to how the trust consults and collaborates with the voluntary sector. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about the cost. In 2014, the average cost per participant was just over £1,500. This does not include overheads and we do not have a combined figure for those. Of course, value for money is one reason why the NAO is involved under the Bill. The NCS does not, and should not, exist in isolation. NCS graduates already have access to an online opportunities hub, which promotes volunteering opportunities. The trust’s primary functions require it to ensure that the NCS is accessible to all. If it is to do this, it will have to collaborate with other organisations with the right reach.

That being said, the NCS Trust is being established to arrange for the delivery of the NCS programme—to commission services. It is not being established as an infrastructure body, or representative body for the voluntary sector. Therefore, it would not be right to mandate the trust to report on how it has resourced the voluntary sector, as Amendment 28 would prescribe. The trust works with more than 200 providers, over 80% of which are public or voluntary sector organisations. They are resourced by the trust by entering into a contract with it, but the trust’s purpose is not specifically to resource the voluntary sector. Asking the trust to report on this, therefore, is not appropriate.

We agree that the trust’s relationship with the voluntary sector is vital, but we believe it is the trust’s job to report on its performance to Parliament. Other organisations would have a perception of the trust’s performance based only on their interactions with the trust or the programme. That will, in every case, be limited in some way. We do not believe Amendment 39 to be an appropriate ask of the trust as it is not necessary to require it to consult with the sector before completing an annual report. Furthermore, the trust does not contract with voluntary sector organisations alone; it oversees many relationships across the private, public and voluntary sectors to achieve its core aim: the provision of the NCS in England.

Amendments 29 and 33, as well as Amendment 30 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, consider how the NCS sits alongside other programmes. The NCS has a specific structure. It is two or four weeks long and while different providers bring different approaches, all of them have to deliver the core components of the NCS as co-ordinated by the trust. Whether or not it is unique—I realise that there are different interpretations of that word in relation to the NCS—it is a short programme, designed to be accessible to all young people. It cannot be compared with much longer or part-time programmes.

Having said that, the trust must always look to learn from the youth sector, in this country and abroad. Where there are programmes that deliver outcomes similar to those of the NCS—social cohesion, social engagement and social mobility—it is the trust’s job to draw on best practice and shared learning. This year has been a case in point. The trust is co-ordinating an autumn pathfinders project, working with 18 organisations that are trialling innovative methods of delivering the NCS to help extend its reach into local communities.

Amendments 29 and 30 would require the trust to compare its value for money with that of relevant programmes. We have to be careful that anything we ask of the trust in statute is a duty it can reasonably be expected to fulfil. It would not be practical to mandate the trust to compare its outcomes with the value for money of other programmes. It would need to have significant amounts of information about other schemes to accurately compare value for money. This is not information that the trust can or should be expected to gather.

Amendment 31 would require the trust to report on its efficiency and effectiveness. I will respond also to Amendment 36 from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, which would require the trust to report on how it has met its targets. I can be clear on both points. While the trust will report on its performance with rigour, the National Audit Office will become its auditor. The Bill will ensure that the NAO has the power not merely to audit the trust but to conduct reviews into its efficiency and effectiveness. This will include the extent to which it has achieved its targets. The NAO will undertake these reviews robustly. Therefore, we do not think it necessary to require the trust to report on this as well. Its accounts will be open to sufficient scrutiny by the NAO and Parliament.

Amendments 32 and 34 concern reporting on the trust’s board. The Government agree that the make-up of the board is very important, but the trust does not entirely control board appointments. It is the monarch, acting on the Prime Minister’s advice, who makes the final appointments, following a competition run by the chair. It would therefore not be reasonable to expect the trust to report on something over which the Government have the final say. The Government will, of course, have to comply with the public sector equalities duty when making these appointments, so they will need to take the considerations raised here firmly into account. Independence and integrity are requirements under the public appointments code. Appointments will be made after competitions that are fair, open and merit-based. The royal charter provisions will ensure that the Government have sufficient oversight of the trust’s members, meaning that they will not have to rely on the trust’s self-reporting each year. They will, on a continual basis, be able to ensure the diversity, independence and integrity of the board.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her contribution. Her Amendment 25 raises a useful point of clarification. It asks that the reporting on the number of participants includes those who have completed the programme. The Bill specifies that the trust will have to report on the number of participants for each year and I assure the noble Baroness that this will include the number of young people who graduate from the NCS.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, may I ask a question about the opportunities hub? I think the Minister said that the graduates of the NCS have access to the opportunities hub. If that is the case, it would be very good if all young people, even those who were not NCS graduates, had access to an opportunities hub so that all young people, not just those who were fortunate enough to go through the NCS, could see what the possibilities of volunteering were for them.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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Yes, I can see the point there. I believe, but could not swear to it, that it is open only to graduates at the moment. But I am certainly happy to look at that. We can come back to it later.

Baroness Barker

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Perhaps the Minister could consider one point, which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, when he said that it was important that the NCS be subject to comparison with other charities. Having listened to what the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said about the charter, does the Minister accept that some of us understand that it is quite possible for the NCS to be evaluated in the terms set out in the Bill, but that nowhere in any of this is there a requirement for there to be a comparison with any other service? Could he therefore explain, perhaps in writing, where it should be possible for anyone who wishes to to compare the work of the NCS Trust with the rest of the sector to find out the data on that? Is it the National Audit Office?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I will certainly consider what the noble Baroness has said and will write to her if there is anything more. I think this goes back to what the noble Baroness said at the beginning of the previous day in Committee about the uniqueness of the NCS Trust. The NCS Trust is unique and therefore a direct comparison, especially with the charitable sector, which has been referred to a lot, is not necessarily appropriate. This is not a charity. I take the point that it uses a lot of taxpayers’ money and it must be held accountable but I do not think there is a direct comparison with it as a commissioner of work from the voluntary sector. It is not part of the voluntary sector itself. That is off the top of my head, but of course I will go back and check with my officials that I have not said something awful.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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The Minister gave a very thorough and lengthy reply to all these amendments. I am seeking clarification. Is he saying that the Government believe that an internal letter written by the Government to the NCS Trust and a no doubt very worthy investigative body at DCMS answers all the points that have been made in this group of amendments, that the Government do not intend to make any movement towards any of the points that have been made this afternoon, that in the Government’s view the situation as presently described provides a perfectly adequate balance and a perfectly adequate way of ensuring that small groups of charities are not squeezed out, and that we are going to depend on an entirely internal process with once a year an overview at the very high level from the National Audit Office? Is that where we have arrived?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I do not think that is exactly what I said in the course of my very lengthy remarks, but we are in the middle of two different views here, possibly represented by my noble friends Lady Finn, Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy on one side and practically all other noble Lords on the other. I may be miscategorising that. We think there should be value for money and accountability. That is part of the point of the Bill and why the National Audit Office will come in, why parliamentary committees can hold the NCS to account and why we have asked it to report in these seven categories. They are not just numeric; they include more qualitative things such as the quality of the programmes provided or arranged by the NCS Trust.

On my noble friend’s point about where we leave it, as I said in my remarks, we think this is a good balance. I said that we would write to the NCS Trust because we expect it to report on relevant provisions, but we do not want to mandate it in the Bill with a host of extra reporting requirements.

Baroness Finn

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I am grateful to the Minister for his remark that the NCS should not be distracted from its core purpose and should continue to do what it has been doing so well. It should stick to its knitting, as it were. I also thank him for his other reassurances on reporting requirements. I am delighted that he will write to the trust board to ask about priorities for annual reporting requirements. In the light of the Minister’s remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, we have just had classic probing amendment debate which is being replaced by the debate on my group which is, of course, a series of laser-like pounces on the drafting of the Bill. I apologise for dealing with such nitty-gritty, but they reveal one or two other things behind them. I will make the points very quickly and look forward to the response.

My first point is on the timing of the business plan. Business plans are business plans and they will change and vary as we go forward, but as the business plan is in the Bill, attention is drawn to it. The Bill currently states:

“The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the published business plan before each House of Parliament”.

That is presumably because it is the intention of the Secretary of State to get the views of Parliament, if any, on the business plan.

That sets up my next point, which is that the business plan has to be published before 1 June in the financial year concerned, which seems slightly odd. First, why June? The peak of the activity of the NCS will usually be over the summer period, which gives rather a short period to allow anyone to comment on the content of the business plan. Secondly, most people would want to comment on a business plan before the year in which it takes place, so to do it in the June of the financial year of the programme suggests that two months will have already elapsed and the money will already have been spent, so it limits the effectiveness of the comments. I suggest to the Minister that there is a problem here, in which case the dates might be changed, but if that is the intention, then a slight change in the phrasing to suggest that the business plan must be published no later than 1 June of the year in question might give us a better chance of making sure it is available in time to have some serious comments available to the organisation.

We are now all too well aware of how easy it is for royal charters to be changed by Ministers. Amendment 48 would restore balance to the process. The Bill would state that the charter may be amended provided that no amendment contradicts the NCS Bill once it has gained Royal Assent. I understand that the Bill is meant to be superior to the royal charter, but it would surely be bad practice to have a Bill that says one thing and a royal charter that says another, although I have discovered one mistake to that effect. I therefore suggest that a change should be made so that an amendment can be made to the charter only if it does not contradict the NCS Bill. I look forward to support for that idea.

I am concerned about the transfer scheme in the schedule but not because there is anything wrong with it. It is good that the schedule provides the proper requirement that good consultation takes place, but it goes on to state in paragraph 5(3),

“it does not matter whether consultation takes place before or after the passing of this Act”.

That seems a little cavalier to the staff interests which might be involved. I know it is a small organisation and it may be that there are other procedures that I am not aware of, but in this case I wonder whether the Minister might take this back and consider again whether the consultation should be completed before the Act is concreted, because it will set out the arrangements under which the staff are to be employed. In a parallel way, Amendment 54 asks that the unions, should there be any involved in this, and I hope there are, should also be involved in that process. I beg to move.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for raising those points. To take them in order, on Amendment 22, the fact that the business plan is being published before June in the financial year with which the plan is concerned is intentional. The business plan needs to cover the forthcoming work. I agree that ideally we would want it as early in the financial year as possible. We have allowed the NCS Trust a reasonable period of time to produce the plan, but the requirement to publish it before June will ensure that it will precede the bulk of the year, to include the trust’s busiest time, as the noble Lord mentioned, which is overseeing the programme during the summer holidays. I will think about the noble Lord’s suggestion of “no later than June” as opposed to “before June”. I cannot see that it makes a huge amount of difference, but I will certainly think about it, without any guarantee of doing anything about it.

The noble Lord’s Amendment 48 mirrors what is in Article 15.1 of the charter by making it explicit that amendments to the charter must not contradict the provisions of the Bill. The noble Lord could not resist mentioning that he had found a difference between the Bill and the charter, but I acknowledge it. It is perfectly reasonable for him to mention it yet again. I assure the noble Lord that the Bill, when enacted, will have primacy in law over the royal charter, as he said, which is an essential legal principle. However, given that the charter governs how amendments to its own contents can be made, I argue that the requirement need sit only there.

Amendments 53 and 54 concern Schedule 1, which outlines the transfer scheme for the trust. The Government and the current NCS Trust agree that conducting a proper consultation prior to Royal Assent, which we hope will be early next year, would not be practical. We would want to make sure that it is exactly that: an open consultation, which gives all relevant stakeholders the time to give their considered views. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, have been clear that the transition between old and new bodies will need time. The Government agree. I agree to write to the noble Lord about transition arrangements. We expect this to take between 12 and 18 months. The staff consultation is a critical element of this. We should not be rushing into it now before the rest of the transition has begun.

We agree with the noble Lord’s point on Amendment 54. Schedule 1 requires the Secretary of State to consult with those persons considered likely to be affected and those that appear to them to represent their interests. I can clarify for the noble Lord that the existing clause is designed to capture, in the usual way, staff and unions as appropriate. I hope I have laid out the Government’s ambition clearly and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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I thank the Minister for his consideration. I am sorry that there was a 0-4 scoreline, but these things happen. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Cromwell (CB)

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My Lords, before I speak to the amendment, I draw the Committee’s attention to the wonderful painting on the opposite wall, showing Daniel who would, no doubt, have been a graduate of the NCS, had he been able to. Is it my imagination, or is he pointing a rather admonishing finger at the Minister? Noble Lords can be the judge. I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss the amendment. I give my overall support to the Bill and what it seeks to achieve. Indeed, I have already proposed to my twin sons, who were 16 last Monday, that they should sign up to the programme.

The most obvious feature of the Bill is that it enables the NCS to gain access to very substantial amounts of public money, both to expand its own work with young people and to subcontract a network of other bodies also working with young people. Given the financial implications of the Bill, there is provision for an immediate report to the Secretary of State if the organisation gets into financial difficulties. That is appropriate and seeks to learn the lessons from other bodies that have received substantial public money and ended up in an unhappy situation. One such has been referred to repeatedly in the Committee’s discussions today and previously.

Amendment 40 simply seeks to introduce a similar requirement should allegations or evidence occur of other forms of impropriety or inappropriate behaviour with young people. This would learn the lessons from the distressing cases of other organisations charged with looking after young people and children where abuse and other criminal acts occurred which were tolerated, ignored or, indeed, covered up, sometimes for decades, while wrong behaviour continued unchecked. Although we hope it will never occur, it would be naive to suppose that a network of organisations and people working with children will never give rise to such incidents or allegations, whether well founded or not.

The acid test is whether, should such an allegation or incident occur in one of the organisations being funded, the Secretary of State would want to know immediately. My strong belief is that the Secretary of State would want to know at once. When the Minister and his officials met me recently to discuss the amendment, there was some suggestion that the requirement might already be covered more generically somewhere in the documents of the NCS. I look forward to hearing further from the Minister on that point. My strong view is that, even if there is some clause deep in the NCS text that could be interpreted as enabling the NCS to be held to account post facto if it eventually emerges that something has occurred or been alleged, it would be far more helpful to have in the Bill, in clear, unequivocal terms, a responsibility to report to the Secretary of State as an automatic and immediate action so that the matter is put beyond doubt. This would make it far more likely that such matters would be addressed promptly, rather than emerging painfully and traumatically later. There is a great temptation for any organisation, particularly where funding is at stake, to believe that such matters are better dealt with—or, perhaps, contained—locally rather than shared upwards. As noble Lords will know, there is an inquiry struggling to get under way in the other place into areas where such lapses of judgment in the care of children have occurred in the past.

Finally, I am wary of anything in the Bill which will burden the NCS, or those with whom it works, with any additional administrative burden or cost. The amendment will not do so: it is a simple requirement to notify immediately in the event of an occurrence and not a regular or time-consuming administrative task. There is much to support in the Bill, and I hope that my straightforward amendment will enable a modest but important enhancement. I beg to move.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, makes the case that, in the same way that the Government should be informed in the case of serious financial issues, it should be informed in the event of a criminal allegation or investigation. We absolutely agree that the Government must be informed should an investigation or allegation of this kind occur. It is important to note that the royal charter, the trust’s constitutional document, specifies that it must,

“treat the need to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of participants as the paramount consideration”,

so we are in evident agreement about the importance of the trust’s responsibilities in this area.

I understand that the noble Lord’s intention here is to make these responsibilities explicit. We agree that such important matters must be absolutely clear, so perhaps we might discuss with him later how we may go about doing just that. For example, the noble Lord’s amendment does not distinguish between different types of criminal behaviour; he does not mean safeguarding alone. We would need to give some consideration to proportionality here and to which offences government needs to be informed of. With that commitment to consider this further, I hope the noble Lord is satisfied that he can withdraw the amendment.

Lord Cromwell

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I thank the Minister for his comments and look forward to a further chat with him and his officials. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Barker

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My Lords, the Minister and I have differed on whether the term “unique” is applicable. In this regard it certainly is, because the NCS will have the unique privilege of being advertised to every 15, 16 and 17 year-old by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I thank the Minister for the explanations that he gave to noble Lords not just at Second Reading but in meetings about how that will happen and about the rationale for choosing the HMRC, which is the body with the most accurate information about 16 and 17 year-olds. He will know, because we had a discussion, that I have a reservation about a very small group of 16 and 17 year-olds for whom this may present a problem—that is, transgender young people, who may be written to using names that are no longer appropriate, and so on. That issue is not to be solved within the Bill; it is a wider issue than that, but I hope that it is one that, given the universal nature of this contact, the Government might give some consideration to.

The value of being able to contact every 16 and 17 year-old is immense. Quite how valuable it is we will come to know only in years to come when we have the annual reports, which will tell us whether the body has achieved the universal coverage of young people expected of it. In the meantime, it might be valid to know the cost of doing this, so we have come forward with the amendment. It is, again, a matter of reporting to high standards. Charities are often required in their annual reports to make declarations about help that they have had in kind. I know that it is not intended that the body be a charity, but none the less it seems to me that government could be open about the extent to which the trust is having this additional, not to say unique, promotion to young people, so that we and all others who will watch this organisation intently can see how well it performs, given the unique nature of its support. I beg to move.

Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)

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My Lords, I am unhappy about Clause 9 standing part of the Bill. I should make it clear straightaway that this marketing ploy—I think it was described as such by the Minister, or he may have used a similar phrase—is a brilliant idea as far as the NCS is concerned, but it is a rotten idea as far as HMRC is concerned. That is the basis of my opposition to this clause.

HMRC has for centuries guarded its data on individuals passionately and with great care. That is, after all, statutory. That is why we have to amend the law in order to allow this to happen. However, it is more than that. It believes that it is essential for the collection of tax. I was a Treasury Minister in the Commons, and I remember very clearly that sometimes there were clauses in Finance Bills which were designed to catch particular things that were happening in the tax system where a fiddle was going on or somebody was trying to do something that HMRC did not like. It would never disclose, even to me, the Minister who was going to have argue about it in the Commons, the names of the taxpayers, even if they were great companies, that might be involved in the tax arrangements. That is how carefully it guarded its data, yet they are to be used for this marketing ploy.

I am concerned, not least about the slippery slope argument. If HMRC is pushed into doing this for the NCS, there are all sorts of messages that the Government constantly want to put out to the population and to particular members of the population, such as road safety or health issues such as stopping smoking or having a flu jab. There are all sorts of matters where it is very desirable that the Government should put out those messages, but if they are all allowed to be put out by this mechanism—my goodness. When you get a letter from HMRC you will have to empty it into the waste paper basket just as you do with magazines nowadays with all the sales literature and charity appeals that fall out of some of them. That is why I am very cautious about whether we should allow this clause into the Bill. In particular, I want to put a peg in the slippery slope to try to ensure that it does not happen in other Bills for quite other purposes.

There is one other point about the drafting of the Bill. This is what I think of as the Portia point. HMRC and the NCS will be able to send messages to young people, carefully defined and, as we discovered the other day, defined more narrowly than Clause 1 and the scheme as a whole, or to their parents or carers. If HMRC sends a message of this kind to an 18 year-old, that is illegal and HMRC will be committing a crime. If it sends it to a childless couple, a grandparent or someone else, it will be going beyond what is allowed in this clause. I suggest that some consideration might be given to that by those who draft these things. However, my major point is to try to make sure that if this goes through—and I shall not oppose it, of course—it should not be a precedent for HMRC sending out messages to all sorts of groups whom the Government wish to influence or to sell something to.

Lord Lucas (Con)

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My Lords, since this is HMRC and it refuses to use email, presumably this is printed material. If it is sending it out to this group of kids, that is a couple of million kids a year and their parents, at £1 a time when you include the postage and the printing. This is not cheap stuff. I read the wording of this clause to allow the National Citizen Service to include anything in here. It says what is in here. It can include advertisements for other charitable services or perhaps for a bank to raise a bit of money for itself. This seems a very widely drafted clause, and I am not at all sure that it achieves the purposes that have been set out for it.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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My Lords, I have an amendment in this group. This is one of my favourite topics. I have raised it in every Bill I have worked on, with no success at all, usually to substitute “must” for “may”. On this occasion, I noticed rather late in the day that there are two “mays” in this clause, and I have to be careful that it is not the first one, because that would play directly into the hands of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, who has made quite clear his reservations about this arrangement, which is going to provide the necessary oxygen to try to fuel the excitement that will be felt right across the country when letters drop into the houses of those who might be eligible to join. He might want to hold his choler a little longer because the Digital Economy Bill, which is coming down the track very shortly, contains swathes of permissions for data to be shared, not only within Whitehall, which is perfectly understandable, but wider, to local authorities and others. The noble Lord ain’t seen nothing yet. It is going to be quite interesting to see how that plays here.

I am sorry to have taken up the Committee’s time. My amendment deals with Clause 9(3) in the context of communicating information. I think it has probably come from the draftsman’s pen because “may” and “must” are drafted as “may” throughout. There is probably a word processor instruction to make sure that no “musts” ever appear. But surely on this occasion we are talking about information that has to be derived by the NCS from its own resources, and it must be that information that goes out. Therefore, it is right on this occasion that it should be “must”.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for bringing us to Clause 9 and the new power for HMRC, which has caused a lot of comment in the course of the Bill. I reiterate that this is not the only marketing measure the NCS Trust will use. Your Lordships need only to look at its Twitter account to see its social media presence. However, this power is a means of ensuring, as far as government can, that as many young people as possible have the opportunity to hear about the NCS. HMRC will send on the information but it will not feel or look like an HMRC communication. My speaking notes say it will be colourful and exciting—I am sure it will—and it will be written by those at the trust who know how to communicate with young people effectively.

Amendment 42 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, alludes to the importance of ensuring that the cost of HMRC writing to young people is value for money. The charter specifies that in all it does the trust must have regard to value for money and I think this is a principle that we all agree on. HMRC will recover the costs it incurs from the use of its staff, time and resources. These costs will therefore be met from the budget allocated to the NCS rather than from HMRC’s own budget. It is HMRC policy to do so and therefore, as an operational matter, it will need to inform the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The expenditure will therefore be included in the NCS expenditure listed in DCMS’s accounts.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raised the subject of who will be the author of the information HMRC sends out to young people or their parents or carers. I made the point that HMRC will act almost as a delivery service for the NCS Trust—a post person, if you like. The noble Lord’s amendment is in keeping with that in changing the ability for the trust to determine the content of the communication into an obligation to do so. Although “may” is one of my favourite words, we agree with him. This is something I intend to return to on Report.

On my noble friend Lord Cope’s wish to omit the whole clause, I understand his point. As a humble Treasury Whip, I too stood at the Dispatch Box and argued for the need for confidentiality of HMRC information, because it has been shown to aid taxpayer confidence and therefore increase the tax take. However, I respectfully disagree with the argument that this will open the floodgates. HMRC is using the data—only names and addresses—on the NCS’s behalf specifically to prevent it leaving HMRC custody and to keep it confidential. It will maintain its centuries-old commitment to keep confidential all information about individual taxpayers. In fact, this is about not taxpayers, but child benefit recipients. HMRC suits this purpose because it has central government’s best data on young people because of child benefit data. At the age of 16, young people receive their national insurance number from HMRC, which marks the transition to adulthood. At the same time, they become eligible for the NCS, an experience we want to become a rite of passage. The same is not true of road safety or flu jabs, which are ongoing concerns and have a closer affinity with other parts of the public sector, such as the NHS and the DVLA.

With those explanations, I hope noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

Baroness Barker

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I thank the Minister for his response. He will appreciate that, because no other organisation is given this benefit in kind, it is something which noble Lords will look at with considerable care in future years, not least to see its efficacy. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Lucas

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My Lords, this amendment is about openness. It sets out all the ways in which the National Citizen Service should be open with us and others involved, in particular parents and carers, as to what is going on, the standards that it expects and how it enforces those standards. It is set in the context of a proposed new clause that says, “If you are open in these ways, then that is enough to satisfy your duty of care to the children concerned”.

The NCS is bound to be on the end of endless lawsuits. You cannot have this number of children in odd situations without things going wrong. The NCS is the obvious organisation with money. Charities never have enough money to make them worth suing; the NCS has pots. Giving the NCS some degree of protection seems worthy to me, but the main purpose of the proposed clause is openness.

The easiest thing for me to do is to ask the Minister to reply, then I will pick up on anything he says that I disagree with. I beg to move.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I thank my noble friend for briefly taking us through the amendment, the intention of which relates in part to the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. As I have said, the trust’s draft royal charter stipulates that the NCS Trust’s paramount concern is the well-being of young people participating in the programme. To fulfil this obligation, it must ensure a proper duty of care to those young people. The Bill leaves the trust with the operational freedom to determine how best to do this but the Government and Parliament can hold it to account for how it performs.

I am pleased to confirm to my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that we support a longitudinal study as a means to evaluate the NCS and have done some work in this area, monitoring certain participants year on year to track benefits. We have, however, avoided going into this level of detail in the Bill to allow the trust scope to innovate in the future—evaluation practices and terminology might change. When I responded to the first group of amendments I made the point that we have to allow the trust as much freedom as possible to use its own expertise. We agree, though, that it is essential that it reports on the quality of the programme and Clause 6(2)(c) makes this a requirement. I hope my noble friend will be satisfied with these commitments for the time being and feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Lucas

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My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)

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My Lords, I apologise to the Committee and to the Minister for tabling Amendment 50A so late, but it has taken a while to establish whether or not my objective can be accomplished by the addition of a new clause. I am extremely grateful to the Public Bill Office for advising me on the wording of the amendment.

Like every other noble Lord who has spoken, I warmly endorse the Bill’s objective of encouraging the participation of young people in projects and programmes that benefit them and our society in general. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that in one particular sphere of activity these objectives and programmes are not unintentionally placed in jeopardy by the Bill. That sphere of activity relates to the operation of heritage railways and tramways.

I declare an interest as president of the Heritage Railway Association, a not-for-profit body which serves as a trade association established to support the 200 or so preserved railways—many operated by steam—and heritage tramways that exist in the country. The sector makes a considerable contribution towards tourism, leisure activities and local employment. It also plays an important part in encouraging young people to serve as volunteers, so making a material contribution to the running of these enterprises. In return, the railways and tramways provide young people with training and work experience, and help to instil in them teamwork and leadership skills, which is very much in line with the objectives of the National Citizen Service Trust.

In the circumstances, your Lordships might wonder why it is thought necessary to add this new clause to the Bill. The Heritage Railway Association has been advised by leading counsel that existing legislation—specifically, the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920—throws doubt on the legality of engaging young volunteers in the running of heritage railways and tramways, as it expressly excludes the employment of children in an industrial undertaking. The definition of “industrial undertaking” includes railways, and “child” is now defined by Section 558 of the Education Act 1996 in effect to mean an individual who has not yet reached 16. It had long been assumed that “employment” had its usual meaning of “work under a contract of employment”, but counsel has advised that it extends to include work carried out in a voluntary capacity. So the 1920 Act, passed to prohibit the exploitation of women, young persons and children in an industrial setting—an entirely worthy objective—has been found to make unlawful the voluntary engagement of youngsters on heritage railways, which of course did not exist in the 1920s.

Given the highly appreciated input made by young volunteers to the operation of heritage railways and, more importantly, the need to continue to foster such input for the benefit of the youngsters themselves, and for the future of the railways, we need to secure a resolution of this dilemma. Having explored other ways around the problem, the only feasible solution would appear to be to seek an amendment to the law. I hope that, in any such legislation, the applicable age limit could be set somewhat lower, as a child’s interest is said to crystallise at about 12. Parental approval would be mandatory, of course, and the railway would need to keep a register of the children involved, as the 1920 Act already stipulates. The standard safeguarding, health and safety, and supervisory requirements would necessarily apply.

I believe that an amendment such as this would be looked on favourably by the Office of Rail and Road as enforcing authority. I further believe that, as a result of an exchange of correspondence that I had with Nicky Morgan when she was Secretary of State for Education, that department is also sympathetic to the need to resolve this issue by amendment to the law. Hence the reason for this proposed new clause, to make it clear beyond doubt that the Bill is not to be interpreted in this way. One such issue that might give rise to uncertainty could be the fact that, while the rest of the Bill provides for a lower age of 15 for its application, the clause reflects the heritage rail sector in favouring a minimum age of 12 for its volunteers, in the belief that, on the basis of expert opinion, a person’s interest is more likely to endure at that age.

I wish to make it clear that the proposed new clause would in no way limit the application to children and young people of standard health and safety, safeguarding and supervisory requirements of existing general legislation. The rest of the proposed new clause is self-explanatory. I beg to move.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his amendment. He reminds us all of the value of heritage railways to this country and how important their upkeep is. I agree that many heritage railways are reliant on volunteers for their maintenance and operation. I also agree that volunteering for a heritage railway can provide young people with many of the skills that the NCS wishes to instil.

On the noble Lord’s concerns about the existing law, I agree that there should be no barriers to young people volunteering their time to support heritage railways. NCS participants work with the local provider delivering the programme to choose a local cause, or charity, to work with during the social action phase of the NCS. Sometimes the provider will invite local charities to present to the young people; sometimes the young people themselves have a clear idea about what they want to dedicate their efforts towards. We agree that it would be wonderful if a group of young people were to choose a local heritage railway as the focus of their efforts—either to fundraise for it or to spend time on site.

I understand the noble Lord’s reasons for tabling this amendment—to seek to amend the law in this area. While it may not be appropriate to do this in this Bill, which does not identify particular areas in which the trust should or should not intervene, I commit to take away the points raised today and to engage with the noble Lord to explore the issue further. There are other things that we need to look at, such as what we mean by “young people” and making sure that it is consistent across the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord accepts my points on this and my commitment to look at the matter further, and feels able to withdraw it for the time being.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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I had not cottoned on to this issue before, but I have been listening to this debate. There is, of course, the Canal & River Trust. I am not sure whether a canal would fall within the requirements of the 1920 Act as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester

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Yes, my understanding is that canals are also regarded as industry, so they would be covered by the 1920 Act.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

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That is an important area, where there is a lot of work going on. It is an important charity and it gathers together a lot of volunteers. It is working very hard with regional groups—so if this conversation goes on, could its requirements also be built into the discussion that the Minister is having with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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The noble Lord makes a good point which also illustrates why it takes time to go through all the ramifications; for example, this would not be just canals. I am sure there are many other organisations which might fall foul of the Act that the noble Lord talks about. That is something to consider, and it may therefore be why it is not possible in the time to add it to this Bill, but I will take that on board and I accept the point that it could apply to more than just railways.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester

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I am most grateful to the Minister, who has gone considerably further than I feared he might be able to this afternoon, particularly in reinforcing the point that there should be no barrier to young people volunteering their time to work on heritage railways. That sentence is extraordinarily helpful. I accept with great gratitude the offer to discuss this further with him before Report. I would love the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, to be part of that discussion so that we can talk about volunteers on canals as well. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Blunkett (Lab)

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My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. In moving the amendment in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the noble Lord, Lord Maude, I want to put on record my appreciation and thanks to the Minister for his considerable courtesy and his preparedness to listen and have a dialogue with his own ministerial colleagues in relation to this and other amendments today. In passing, although this is not a gripe against the Minister in any way, it is unfortunate that his noble friends who are responsible for business have not heard of something called the “dinner break”, which neither is a dinner break nor allows people to have dinner.

I shall try to set an example and be brief because we debated this at Second Reading and we debated the issues at length in Committee. There was considerable consensus that it would be right to allow the Government to have a nominee, which would fulfil the objectives that the Government laid out in relation to the remuneration to be offered to staff working on the National Citizen Service and, subsequently—I agree with this—on the audit and risk committee in relation to avoiding the misuse of substantial sums of public money. It is in that spirit that I move the amendment. Again, I recognise the care with which the Government, in the form of the Minister, have been prepared to respond to this and to my noble friends on other amendments on the Marshalled List today. This would mean a fair, open and merit-based competition for non-executives and the ability of the Government to get their own way in terms of having a nominee on the committees of the NCS, but would not place the National Citizen Service in the erroneous position of being seen by families, young people and providers as presenting a government scheme determined, directed and therefore shaped by the Government, rather than the actual position of the NCS.

In the debate on Monday on the size, shape and nature of this House the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said that it was at its best when dealing with—I paraphrase—non-controversial legislation. I hope that I will be able to say on Third Reading that the House has been at its best in shaping this non-controversial legislation in the interests not of the Government or Opposition, but of young people. I beg to move.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)

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My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in support of the amendment, to which I have added my name. Its purpose is to encourage the Government to bring forward some firm plans on how to address some of the points raised in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Maude, and others, who were firmly of the view that the Government had got it slightly wrong in terms of its overall structure—so much so that it would put people off from joining the NCS, which would be a bad thing. I hope to hear proposals from the Minister that might resolve that problem.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful for the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his brief remarks. I am thankful to both of them for making themselves available for meetings to discuss this, and I think we can agree a way forward.

We must, I believe, strike a balance. On the one hand we agree that we must give the organisation all the independence we can. It needs freedom to innovate, maintain its strong brand among young people and forge its own path. Young people must not feel the NCS is something that government does to them; they must want to go on it. At the same time, the Government have a duty to protect public money. Unsatisfactory or wasteful use of public money could kill the programme as surely as too close an association with the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made a helpful suggestion in Committee for how we might strike this balance. He suggests that we do not have a government representative on the board but that a government representative is involved where appropriate and necessary for the Government to exercise oversight.

The provisions on the government representative are in the charter, so I can commit to amending article 5 to remove the requirement for a government representative on the board. All board members will be appointed through a transparent and open process in line with OCPA procedures. Article 8 of the charter will retain the existing provision for a government representative on the remuneration committee of the organisation. As article 5 will no longer include the government representative, article 8 will be amended to state that the government representative is to be appointed by the Secretary of State in consultation with the chair. The government representative will have to approve the pay policy—not individual awards—of the trust, as included in the current draft. A sponsoring department always needs to have the ability to approve pay policy, in accordance with Managing Public Money.

We will also add an additional article to the charter. This will specify that there must be an audit and risk committee and that there must be a government representative on that committee. We want to be ambitious for the NCS and this necessarily means that the trust will handle a significant amount of public money. To fulfil its responsibilities towards public money, the Government need to be satisfied that the right procedures to manage that money are in place. We must also ensure that all board appointments meet the high standards expected of public appointees. The Prime Minister is responsible for recommending appointments to the Queen, and the Secretary of State will ensure an appropriate level of government involvement in the recruitment process, including government representation on recruitment panels for board members, in line with the code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies.

Together these measures will ensure sufficient government oversight, while allowing the NCS the freedom to have an independent board to lead the organisation. I hope that, with these commitments to amend the royal charter, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

Lord Blunkett

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My Lords, I ought to have declared an interest as I did at Second Reading and in Committee as a non-remunerated member of the NCS board. I am grateful to the Minister and I consequently beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)

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My Lords, in moving Amendment 2, I shall speak to Amendment 4. I am also grateful to the Minister and the Bill team for their co-operation throughout this Bill.

I am delighted by the level of support that the NCS enjoys cross-party and throughout the sector. Even when legitimate concerns have been expressed, few argue that investing in the development of young people at such a formative age is the wrong thing to do. Ministers and the trust must and should be congratulated on their determination to make this new service succeed: to broaden horizons; instil confidence; change lives and benefit society. However, we must remember that what we are discussing is not just how the NCS operates in the here and now, but for the years to come. We are creating something very special in a royal charter body and we hope that it will be enduring. Therefore we have to future-proof it.

Noble Lords will recognise the intention behind my amendments from my previous interventions at Second Reading and in Committee. I have consistently made the point that, with such substantial public investment at a time when funding for local youth provision is in terminal decline, there is a real risk that the presence of the NCS skews the environment for existing youth provision. We want the NCS to be a key feature of a healthy youth sector. It is not, and will never be, the only means of helping young people to develop and give back to their communities. I am not suggesting that the Government or anyone else think otherwise. My amendments should be taken not as a criticism but rather as a common-sense assurance that the trust, which relies solely on public funding, will not find itself undermining existing youth provision that already delivers on the stated outcomes of the National Citizen Service.

I listened carefully to the legitimate concerns of the Minster and fellow Peers during Second Reading and in Committee. My previous interventions called for additional reporting, something that I do not believe unreasonable, but I understand the reticence with regard to additional bureaucracy. I have asserted that the trust must have a duty to support existing provision that delivers on similar aims. Again, I do not think that that is unreasonable, but I hear the concerns that that could move towards an infrastructure body approach for the trust, which is not my intention.

The Earl of Listowel (CB)

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My Lords, I support Amendment 2 from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to which I have added my name. It provides an important protection to avoiding any inadvertent damage to the very important charities working in the youth area.

In Committee, I drew the attention of your Lordships to the recent research into the impact of the Scout Movement on the mental health of adults; a significant difference in the mental health of adults has been demonstrated in research recently. As vice-chair for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers, I am very well aware of the chaotic lives that too many of our children experience. Yesterday with Gracia McGrath, the chief executive of Chance UK, a mentoring organisation working with primary school children, often those with behavioural difficulties, I discussed the experience of too many children in this country. They may not have a table at home at which they can sit down for meals together; there may be very poor communication in the family, and no consistency about rules. A parent may say, “I will punish you for doing so and so”, and then the child will not get punished but will then find themselves being punished all of a sudden for something that they know no reason for. Often there is violence in the home; that kind of violence becomes normalised, and when such children go to school they find it hard to make friends, because friends do not understand when they get hit all of a sudden for no reason. I remember working with an eight year-old Traveller boy many years ago, blond and blue-eyed and much younger than the other group of four boys with whom I was working at the time. He was full of obscenities, hitting me and the others, but in an affectionate sort of way; it was the only way in which he really knew how to communicate affection towards us.

Going back to my discussion yesterday, Gracia McGrath talked about how she started to help these children, mentoring five to 11 year-olds and how she would often encourage them to join the scouts or cadets. There they would get the solution that they needed, a sense of purpose, a set of rules, maybe a father figure, and a uniform that they could be proud of. So I strongly support the noble Baroness’s amendment. The NCS is a giant already and is going to be even greater; we must take every precaution that it does not inadvertently disturb the delicate ecosystem of youth charities working in the area already. I hope that the Minister can accept this amendment and I look forward to his reply.

Baroness Barker (LD)

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My Lords, Amendment 8 in this group stands in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said that this legislation was not controversial. The purpose and aim of this legislation is not controversial; there is agreement that the outputs such as those the NCS exists to deliver are ones that we all welcome. However, as I said at Second Reading, the decision to make this organisation permanent, to make it a royal charter body and to invest so much money in it is highly controversial. What this House has done, or what we have certainly tried to do from these Benches, is to draw to your Lordships’ attention the very many flaws within the basic design of this legislation and in its detail. We do so because we have seen in recent memory programmes of this kind, such as the Work Programme, fail to deliver in their own terms as well as doing damage to the rest of the sector.

I know that, on the one hand, the Minister wants to establish the NCS as a body that is completely insulated and isolated from the rest of the voluntary sector, not bound by the same rules and accounting obligations. On the other hand, he has to accept that if the NCS as a commissioning body is to deliver on its objectives, it will have to work very closely with the rest of the sector. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is absolutely right: at this size, the new body will have a profound effect on those other organisations. The Minister has, all the way through, elegantly batted off any suggestion that this organisation should be required to be accountable and report in any greater detail than that which is set out in the original Bill, but I put it to him that the requirement in my amendment to report on how many young people have gone on to participate in other social action opportunities and the impact that the NCS programmes have had on the wider social action sector should be fundamental parts of the raison d’être of the NCS. If it cannot do that, then we as parliamentarians have to question why so much money is being invested in it.

I think that this is a very modest requirement. If the Minister says that this is too much of an imposition upon the NCS Trust, I am afraid that, yet again, we will be forced to wonder whether the NCS is being overrated and overstated as an organisation and whether it really is safe to invest this much money in it. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment.

Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)

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My Lords, before I address the amendments in this group, I thank the Minister for his comments on the previous group. I did not say anything because I did not think anything more needed to be said, but the amendment is very welcome and a sensible compromise on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

There are two definitions at play in this group of amendments. The first is around the intention of the trust, as it were, in its impact on the wider social action sector, as addressed in Amendments 2 and 4. The other is more about reporting the consequences of those actions, as addressed in Amendment 8. I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I think we all want the NCS to be a spur rather than to crowd out wider social action. Like her, I am extremely committed to promoting the idea of a journey of service.

Whether these amendments are needed is in question. The evidence on the NCS so far is that it is acting as a spur through its commissioning work. It is not a direct delivery agent itself. I forget how many new and established agencies it commissions through its work, but it is clearly already providing income and capacity for the sector and it is difficult to imagine that it will not do more of that as it grows. If my noble friend the Minister were to give a commitment on a review, I hope that would satisfy the intent of Amendment 4.

Amendment 8, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is a bit more difficult because it is about what happens afterwards as a consequence of the action rather than the intention. It would certainly add to the reporting burden. I am also not sure whether it is the sort of thing on which the NCS Trust would have the capacity to report. It strikes me that the noble Baroness is asking for something that is more properly the work of the sponsoring department, rather than the delivery agent itself. Therefore, although I understand why she has tabled the measure and I understand the concern in all the amendments in this group to make sure that the impact is positive rather than one which crowds out other provision, I am not sure that the suggestion in Amendment 8 is proportionate in terms of the functions and purpose of the NCS Trust, nor would it be productive.

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)

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My Lords, I shall detain the House for just one minute to say a few words in support of Amendment 4, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke. Those Members of your Lordships’ House who were present in Committee will recall that I was concerned to try to involve international citizen service in the National Citizen Service as part of a seamless whole. My noble friend the Minister was having none of this, and has continued to do so, although he has continued to assure me and others that it is not intended that the two should be anything other than locked closely together, but that it would nevertheless be inappropriate for that to be stated in the Bill. That is partially, I think, for reasons of precedent—always the weakest argument in my view—but, more significantly in my view, because international citizen service has a slightly larger target audience. I have accepted this argument and have therefore not retabled the relevant amendment, but the concept of NCS being part of a journey of involvement in civil society and the voluntary movement is important. If I heard the noble Baroness aright, that is the philosophy behind Amendment 4. Since I think ICS would be part of that further journey, along with participation in a lot of other organisations before and after it, I consider the points she made on Amendment 4 worthy of consideration.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)

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My Lords, I had not intended to comment but something the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said prompts me to add that one of the issues that we have struggled with a little throughout our discussions is an assumption that because NCS as currently constituted is doing something, it will always continue to do so. I think that assumption lies behind many of the amendments that were moved in Committee and those that will be moved today. The noble Lord was right to distinguish between Amendments 2 and 4, which are about intent, and Amendment 8, which is about consequences. It would be very helpful if the Minister could give an undertaking that his department will continue to take into account impacts on not just young people themselves but on the wider sector as time goes on.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I think we can find a way forward on this. The issue here is twofold: what impact does the trust have on the youth sector, and what impact should it have? Amendment 2 would require the trust to have “due concern” for its impact on existing youth provision. Amendment 4 would require it to achieve positive impacts by promoting the youth social action journey. Amendment 8 would require it to report on both topics.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, I have been clear about what the NCS Trust is here to do. Its sole job is to provide NCS in England, so its “due concern” is just that. The primary functions of the trust must relate only to the trust’s promotion of NCS, and its job to arrange for the programme’s delivery. On that, we have to remain firm. However, this is not to say the trust exists in a vacuum, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, implied I was implying. A national programme such as NCS will have a significant presence in the youth sector and will work with many youth organisations. I agree that the trust must take this presence and these relationships seriously. It would benefit nobody, not least the NCS, if the trust were not to put these considerations to the fore of its strategic priorities.

That is why I can commit to a change to the draft royal charter for the NCS Trust. The charter will be the trust’s constitutional document; the trust must hardwire every element of it into its day-to-day operations. I hope this will enable me to dispel the rumour that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, gave out, that I want to isolate the NCS. At the moment, as I have said many times, it deals with more than 200 different organisations, and we expect it to do that, continue to do that and expand that relationship.

Baroness Barker

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Perhaps I owe the Minister an explanation. I do not ascribe that view to him. However, I have to refer to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, at Second Reading, when he talked about the design of this programme and the deliberate intention from the beginning to make it a body separate from the rest of the sector. The fact that that is a founding part of its design, which is perpetuated in the Bill, is the source of wide concern in the voluntary sector.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I am grateful for that explanation and I accept what the noble Baroness says. It is absolutely true that the trust is set up as a separate organisation for the reasons we mentioned. But let me come to what I was about to say and we will see whether that will satisfy her.

We propose to add to the preamble of the charter a formal recital that outlines our belief that, “it is desirable that other organisations supporting young people should benefit from the actions of the National Citizen Service Trust”. This answers both issues. The trust’s royal charter now makes explicit that the trust should always be mindful of how it is impacting on the youth sector and should look at the benefits for that sector of any activity or decision it undertakes. As I have said, the trust will have to report on how it arranged for the delivery of NCS. It will report naturally on its relationships with the youth sector by outlining how it has worked with NCS providers and other partners. With this addition to the charter, Parliament can now even more readily expect the trust to consider how it has sought to benefit the youth sector when self-reporting each year.

The NCS Trust acknowledges its role in developing a coherent youth social action journey for young people. It is a founding member of Step Up To Serve’s #iwill campaign, and its chief executive sits on the board of Generation Change. Government has a role to play in ensuring that those overseeing the trust share a passion for improving the opportunities available to young people before, during and after NCS. This change to the charter sends a clear signal that, through the governance arrangements in the charter, the Government will do just that, now and into the future. This should provide noble Lords with the reassurance that we agree with their core argument—that the trust must be aware of its presence in the youth sector— and that we have moved in an appropriate way to accommodate this.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about the social action journey and volunteering and so on. The noble Baroness specifically asked me about the government review of volunteering and social action, and I acknowledge that she has been very patient. During the course of the Bill I said that we will be able to talk about that “in due course”. I think we then moved to “soon” and perhaps even “imminent”. I can now say that it is very imminent. I hope—although it is not in my power to guarantee it—that we will be able to see something before Third Reading.

On the basis of that and my commitment to amend the royal charter, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister both for the imminence of an announcement—that sounds absolutely terrific—and for his proposed amendment to the royal charter, which I think should, as he put it, hardwire into the trust’s day-to-day deliberations and actions both the journey, as it were, and the relationship between the NCS Trust and the other organisations. I hope it will be a very firm signal to the NCS Trust that it must respect and empower other organisations that are part of that journey and that nothing it does should endanger the viability of those organisations. Indeed, it should be a catalyst for ensuring that those other organisations have vitality and life. I am very grateful for that.

There is one thing that I would ask. Can the words that the Minister quoted be put in the body of the charter rather than in the preamble to it? It is great to have them in the preamble but, as I understand it, if something is in the body of the charter, it is given more substance than if it is in the preamble.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s earlier remarks. We are putting this in the preamble because it is trying to create a mindset in the NCS’s board that it should be considerate of the wider sector. We are not talking about a specific function to carry out impact assessments or anything like that; we are putting it in the preamble to make sure that the board is aware of it and that it takes account of some of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, spoke about. We are not doing this lightly. We do not ask the Queen to put these benefits into her words. There is a technical difference between the body of the charter and the preamble but it is more appropriate to put it in the preamble to get the mindset right. We think that the NCS Trust board members will be fully aware of that and it will be a signal to the wider world about their duty.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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I thank the noble Lord for that explanation, which satisfies me. I hope it will satisfy my colleagues at the other end but we shall have to wait and see.

The other thing I would say to all noble Lords—for whose support I am very grateful—is that we should be very mindful of this issue when we have the first report from the NCS Trust next year. We should make sure that it is acting in accordance with the words of the charter—its preamble and its substance—but also of course with the words of the Bill.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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On that subject, I remind the House of what I said on the previous occasion. We will write to the NCS Trust with the suggestions that noble Lords have made—for example, in relation to reporting—so that it is fully aware of the issues that have exercised your Lordships.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

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I appreciate that this is not Committee and that we should not engage in over-extensive dialogue but the exchange on the question of the Royal Charter raises a substantial issue and I wish to intervene briefly on that. There was an engagement in Committee on the question of whether the Royal Charter should have a clause inserted into it to prevent changes being made to it which were not in accordance with the statute, so as to mirror the Bill’s provisions on the charter arrangements. The Minister is talking about adding to and changing the draft charter, which we have had an opportunity to look at—we are grateful for that—and it would be helpful if we could track it a little more closely so that, as well as receiving reports as and when and knowing that a letter will be sent to the NCS trust invoking the spirit of the charter, we can see what the wording is before we get to Third Reading. Can the Minister arrange for a further draft to be made available to us, so we are fully informed at that point?

Lord Ashton of Hyde

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It is reasonable that when I say we are going to make changes to the charter, we should tell the House what they are, rather than just reading them out. I am certainly happy to do that.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

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With that, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Lord Cormack (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who was willing to move this amendment on my behalf at a time when it appeared that the Bill would be taken when I could not be here. I am grateful, too, to all those who spoke in support of a similar, slightly more ambitious amendment that I moved in Committee. I would like to put on record my thanks to the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Bird, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Byford, who is not able to be here tonight.

I have felt for a long time—I raised this on Second Reading and again in Committee—that we are in danger of missing a great opportunity here. There is enormous value in having a national citizenship scheme open to all 15 to 18 year-olds, under which they would have a proper programme of community service and a more far-reaching citizenship education than, sadly, is often received in our schools, at the end of which they would be able to go through a kind of graduation ceremony as a recognition of not only their rights but their responsibilities.

I detected a fair amount of support for this in Committee and when I have raised it on numerous other occasions in the House, I have always had support. Indeed, at one stage I took a group of colleagues from all parts of the House to see the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to discuss this in his department. Now that we have this Bill, I would like to see some acknowledgement of the worth of such a scheme.

However, because I detected in my noble friend’s reply and in the comments of others that I was being too ambitious and placing too much upon this new scheme, I have worded this amendment to propose that we have a pilot programme. This could be carried out in one or more areas of the country and need not involve a large number of schools initially. My native county of Lincolnshire or the county I had the honour to represent for 40 years in another place, Staffordshire, would, I know from conversations, both be willing participants. I commend it to your Lordships. It could bring great benefit and profit.

I have before said that such a scheme could be administered at little cost, with no party-political tarnishing, if it went through the lieutenancy. We all have in our counties a lord-lieutenant and a considerable number of deputies—I have the honour to be one myself. It could be done as the ceremony is done for those who take British nationality.

This is a much more modest amendment than I moved in Committee, but I hope that my noble friend, who has given great encouragement to colleagues up to now, can give me a crumb of comfort as well. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

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My Lords, I want to put on the record my thanks to the Minister for picking up the point I made at Second Reading and then again in Committee about the database held by HMRC being the most complete for this age group. I asked him at that point whether he would consider how we might use that to encourage electoral registration. I was very pleased to hear that something called the democratic engagement team in the Cabinet Office has taken up the idea and is looking at it. The Minister also said in his letter to me, rather cryptically, that,

“I am not in a position to announce anything at this stage”.

I look forward to hearing if not from this Minister then from another how that is going.

I was also pleased to read in the letter that the royal charter will address the question of encouraging participants to take an interest in local and national politics. That is very important, because otherwise this would be just a volunteering Bill. The Bill uses the word “citizen” and is therefore relevant to matters such as registering to vote or participating in local and national politics. I suggest to the Minister that it is worth the democratic engagement team having a conversation with the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as a vice-president—about the work it does in recruiting people who may be interested in becoming councillors, as well as with the local and parish council tier, because young people become parish councillors and make a really good contribution to their local community.

Finally, your Lordships’ Select Committee on Charities, of which I am a member, has heard that there are very few young trustees of charities. This is another area where it would be worth the team looking at whether civic engagement could be extended to becoming trustees.