The Big Society

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. In my brief time, I want to make two points. First, the big society has not just been invented. While I understand the thrust of the argument that we must get as many new people to participate as possible, let us not forget that it is just as important to recognise and value those who have been participating in what we now call the big society for many years. I always think, for example, of the 6 million family carers who it seems to me are the absolute epitome of the big society, providing care willingly and with love to their relatives and friends, care which is valued at £87 billion a year—and I understand that figure is about to be reviewed and will come out massively more. Their contribution to the big society is immense and vital and we neglect support for them at our peril. It is good to see that the Law Society report today calls for more recognition of their rights.

We must also continue to recognise the contribution of volunteers. Again, I remind your Lordships that volunteering is a long established fact in the UK. It is worth in excess of £20 billion to the economy every year, has a huge breadth of activity and builds social capital, binding people together in a two-way relationship which benefits the individual and society. But we must beware of thinking of volunteers as cheap labour or that they are cost free. That is my second point. Spending cuts are having a considerable effect on volunteering, at both local and national level, because of not just the fact of the cuts themselves but also the speed at which the cuts are being made. The infrastructure organisations which support volunteers and their contribution to the big society are prepared to change their business models and do things differently, but they cannot do this overnight. Some transition money has been provided by the Government, but nothing like enough, and the danger is that once the support networks for volunteering have disappeared—and many of them are disappearing; we hear horror stories every day—how long will it take to re-establish them, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said? We have to think about the effects of cuts on a community transport scheme, for example. Older people cannot get out to the day centre or to their hospital appointments, which in itself is sad; but think of the longer-term effects on the health and mental well-being of those older people and their carers and the consequent higher costs which will be incurred down the line if we cut things now.