Voluntary and Charitable Sectors

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this debate. It is important to recognise the work done by these organisations. Work nowadays is more important than ever. Everyone knows that we have an ageing population. Often there are older people who are alone and isolated, and they need help. The excellent volunteers provide that necessary assistance. Not only that, the organisations and their volunteers bring to the attention of the Government issues affecting older and disabled people—things that they feel need to be put right.

A recent case concerns the change from the disability living allowance to the personal independence payment. Many disabled people are confused and worried about this change and the reassessment that is apparently required. The volunteers are there to help and reassure people who are troubled. Counsel and Care reports that it is receiving many requests for help from vulnerable people on those matters.

I myself have had reason to be grateful for the assistance provided, in particular by the Alzheimer’s Society. My sister has recently been diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. She is a retired teacher, a widow living by herself. The organisations have been so helpful, arranging for her to be seen regularly, checking that she does not feel alone and isolated and arranging for her to be taken out and to lead a fairly reasonable and civilised sort of life, despite her illness. I am very grateful to the Government for their recent statement to the effect that they understand that dementia sufferers have to have more support. I believe that they have reached that decision as a result of the excellent campaign run by the Alzheimer’s Society, which in fact is having a meeting in this building next Monday as part of its continuing campaign.

There are also voluntary organisations that do very good work for individual members, but their value is rarely acknowledged. I am referring to trade unions, which between them have 6 million members. A lot of the work is done by volunteers. Of course unions have the obligation to represent their members’ best interests but they also provide a range of individual benefits to members. In an era when employment rights have been disappearing as a result of government policies, it is necessary that legal assistance should be provided to individuals, and this is what many unions do. Under current legislation, such assistance is not available for employment issues as a result of the introduction of what we now know as LASPO, but unions provide that assistance to their individual members. They are involved in training and education, providing support to those who may have missed out earlier in training and educational chances. Ruskin College, Oxford, supported by the unions, has provided higher education to many, including some parliamentarians. The Government should be more willing than they appear to be to consult the unions. This happens in Germany, to the great benefit of productivity and industrial progress generally.

I have referred mainly to issues concerning older people and disability, which I know something about, but I have also been involved in the past with a number of excellent organisations concerned with children. For a number of years I was a trustee of Save the Children, an organisation that does magnificent work, particularly in Africa, for families living in terrible poverty. I am very proud of the work that I have been involved with in that respect and I am sure that many of us are aware of some of the work that that charity has done.

I thank my noble friend again for introducing the debate. It has revealed a fair amount of knowledge and experience on the part of Members of this House. I hope that the Government will listen very carefully to what we have all been saying as we continue to press for these organisations, which we all support, to receive the respect that we think they deserve.