National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Finn and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

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

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

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)]

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.