National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Bird Excerpts

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

[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.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I support the spirit of both these amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bird, I think that character building and civic responsibility go together and that both are essential for democracy. I deeply regret that the teaching of citizenship, which was introduced by my noble friend Lord Blunkett in the early 2000s, is not taken as seriously as it might be. A lot of schools fail their pupils because it is not taken seriously, but I well understand that this is the responsibility of the Department for Education and it might not want the DCMS to try to push this through the back door. Yet it is a hugely important issue that we should progress.

I am very pleased that the charter says that the NCS should be,

“encouraging participants to take an interest in debate on matters of local or national political interest, and promoting their understanding of how to participate in national and local elections”.

When the noble Lord writes to the NCS, he might suggest that when participants do this specific part of their learning, not only are they encouraged to register to vote but forms for them to register—they can register well before they are 17—are made available by the NCS. This is not political in any way. This is empowering young people to ensure that they are able to use their vote because they registered.

I rather like a lot of things said by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about civic engagement. The department she referred to could do a lot more on that. I found the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the pilot programme quite attractive. It is certainly a lot less than he asked for last time. I do not know what the Minister’s views are but if it is not accepted in this Bill, we should continue to discuss it. The NCS will be a national scheme but it would be excellent if all young people had to do something. I support the spirit of Amendment 3 and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, although I can see that they perhaps do not quite fit into the Bill.