National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

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)]

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]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

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]

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]

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.