Citizenship and Civic Engagement (Select Committee Report)

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, first I must declare a non-pecuniary—although I can never say the word—interest in a number of areas relating to this debate and to the Select Committee report. One is the National Citizen Service which I shall be leaving in a matter of weeks as it becomes a royal chartered body.

I will spend a little of my short time paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, whose excellent chairmanship managed to coalesce the committee—on occasion overcoming conflict with a little judicious bullying—and who showed great tolerance in seeing through what I believe to be a cross-party and no-party report. If it had a wider audience, I believe it would be seen as a way of conducting ourselves in politics and public life that might at the moment be measured elsewhere. In other words, we came together, and that in no small measure is down to the noble Lord’s leadership.

I pay tribute as he did to Michael Collon and his team, to Dr Tim Stacey and to Professor Matt Flinders—who was almost equalled by members of the committee in sparkiness and controversy. We dealt with a diverse area of debate under the title of citizenship and civic engagement, but it encompassed the very essence of our democracy. I say to the Minister—for whom I have a great deal of time and who I believe agrees with the vast majority of the recommendations—that it is important that when committees of this sort make recommendations cross-party, they are taken extremely seriously. His boss and others in Cabinet must realise that our democracy is in deep distress. We are in a very bad place. Many of these recommendations would aid in the long term the glue, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to it, that pulls and ties society together.

When a Government are in difficulty, or are dysfunctional or diverted—I leave noble Lords to decide which applies at the moment—it is even more important that civil society fills the vacuum; that in our situation at the moment we engage people at every level in being part of the solution. I want tonight, briefly, and not from a social-democratic standpoint of mutuality and reciprocity but from what I believe are the historic views and values of the Conservative Party, to question why the Government have not wholeheartedly, across departmental boundaries, been prepared to accept and then implement the bulk of the recommendations. It is beyond me why a party that surely believes civil society is an antidote to the overbearing, oppressive state, would not agree that civil society should encouraged.

This is about encouraging young people to understand and engage with democracy; it is about encouraging those who enter our country and want to be our citizens to be able to understand our language and participate fully in our society; and—in even the very small recommendations—it is about those who have major challenges being able to enter public life. Why should we not fully restore funding to those seeking to enter public life and to be elected, who have severe challenges such as disability? And would it not be sensible to exclude funding of that kind, both public and from the parties, from the ceilings laid down by the Electoral Commission? On little things, such as implementing the promises that have been made since this report was published in April, for example to specialist leaders of education, why not just do it? Why not mention citizenship education on the website? What is the blockage?

I understand why the Government have a particular view about character and resilience. I too am in favour of character and resilience being a subset of the wider citizenship curriculum and report. In recent weeks there have been three round tables on character and resilience by the Department for Education. Maybe someone was calling in the Prime Minister. After all, she has shown the most incredible character and resilience herself over the last few weeks. But that is no substitute for a wider understanding of how citizenship education at its best, with the right curriculum materials, can do the job that is essential to young people engaging. Surely the Conservative Party wants young people to be an engaging and well-educated group as they grow; after all, there is real concern in the party about the number of young people who are likely to vote for it in the coming years.

There are loads of reasons why, right across party, instead of kicking things into the long grass—paying lip service and then doing nothing—the Government should engage with this report centrally. I hope the Minister replying tonight, with the support of his Cabinet colleagues, can get a grip on and co-ordinate what happens across this area. One overriding message came through in the nine months that we sat, from both verbal and written evidence—and those who contributed it deserve to be thanked profusely. The message was that the Government had no collaboration or co-ordination across departments, which is why this important area was so often kicked into touch and seen as the soft underbelly.

I will say a word on things that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was not able to discuss. From recommendation 75 onwards: please get to grips with this; it is really important. On citizenship education and on National Citizen Service, let us collaborate between citizenship in the classroom and citizenship in terms of active work outside. Why is NCS not seen as a citizenship programme? Why will the Government not use the word “citizenship” in relation to NCS? NCS has its problems, but I have been proud to be a member of the board and to see it change, improve and expand. I hope, under the new guise, it will go forward with greater strength, crucially by collaborating with schools, other voluntary organisations and those working in civil society to make our democracy and our country function better. We do this best when our citizenry is engaged with us and our citizenry are part of the solutions for the future.