National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

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)]

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.

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[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

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.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment on citizenship. I am interested in the difference of opinion that seems to be developing on whether the NCS is a means of building character or a means of building democracy. I am interested in the idea that we have to build democracy within our young people. The ideal of building character is all well and good—the boot camp-type argument: “Go out there and have a wonderful time and get very wet and cold, and work with your comrades and come back and enjoy the experience and join with other people”. That is really interesting, but it lacks an understanding of what democracy is. Democracy extends only to a very small part of our nation, because if you live in poverty you do not live in democracy. Democracy and poverty do not go together.

If we are trying to reach down into the innards of society to help people build a basis in their early years so that they can develop not just literacy but social, political, cultural and democratic literacy, we need to look at opportunities of talking about citizenship whenever they present themselves.

Citizenship is one of the most profound ways we have of bringing many things together. I backed the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, because I believe strongly that we need to unite character building—I am grateful for that and I have done it all; I am the result of a lot of character building—with citizenship, in which we really need our children to participate. Schools are failing in the arguments around citizenship. Many schools do not teach it. If we can, we must build a basis on which our young people get the opportunity to come together and break down class differences, which is of vital importance in building a different world from the one we live in at the moment.

I suggest that the Government need to get behind citizenship and the very idea of why we started the NCS in the first instance. We were worried by the fact that children were not participating in democracy and that between the last election and the previous election, the number of young people voting fell from 60% to 40%. All these things are very much related to the arguments around citizenship.

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[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Before the Minister sits down, I say that I cannot recall whether during our various discussions we have ever discussed redress. The commitments the Minister has made tonight are very welcome, but I wonder what the redress of an individual or the parents of an individual is and to whom they complain if they think that these things are not being dealt with. We need to approach this from two angles. One is strategic—as Parliament we want to see these figures—but the other is at an individual level, and I am not sure that we have ever discussed that. If the Minister cannot reply this evening, it might be helpful if he could write to us before next week.