Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Baroness Sater Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as patron of StreetGames. I am in awe of every volunteer who has helped to tackle this unprecedented Covid-19 challenge; we owe them our deepest gratitude for their kindness, selflessness and commitment.

The financial impact of this crisis on community and voluntary organisations will be significant. The voluntary sector is so burdened that the need for these organisations has never been greater. It is right to highlight the financial challenges, but we must also recognise the need to harness effectively all the good will and civic spirit that we have seen to support this sector, not only throughout this crisis but well into the future.

The volunteering has been extraordinary, from neighbours, faith groups, local community groups, national volunteering networks and, of course, the 750,000 NHS volunteer responders. The numbers coming forward to help are unparalleled. Clearly, managing, supporting and securing a long-term volunteer legacy presents various challenges, as we saw in the 2012 Olympics, where 240,000 signed up with 70,000 were used. We must ensure that those who have come forward in recent weeks find ways to continue to volunteer in the future. Do we have the capacity and linkages lined up to include them all? Yet it goes beyond just capacity and co-ordination issues; it goes to information, legal status, incentives and the protection of volunteers, among other things.

In Britain, we have an enormous range of organisational forms of volunteering, with tens of thousands of small, medium and large organisations across multiple sectors. With the sector facing immediate challenges, and sadly more to follow soon, perhaps now is the time, when we have so many people coming forward from outside the formal frameworks to help, for us to begin to re-evaluate our current structures and to look widely for inspiration. Perhaps a task force is needed to do so. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would meet with me to discuss this further.