Volunteering Abroad

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Storey

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We need to understand how successful ACTIVE was in terms of volunteering. The VSO operated the Volunteering for Development programme and reached 5.4 million people across 19 countries in its first two years. My noble friend is right that our policy should be about volunteering across the globe, ensuring that young people are aware of how important volunteering can be in holding people like us to account.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

If we want to create opportunities for young people to do volunteering work abroad, we need to create a culture of volunteering in this country so that it becomes the next step. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, rightly said, would it not be sensible to develop stronger links with the EU? The proposal that we would have an agreement with the EU on volunteering was scrapped by the previous Government and I do not see Labour making any moves in that direction. Why is that the case?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I do not understand why the noble Lord suggests we are not moving in any direction. We are supporting the principle of volunteering and working across the globe. Our relationships with Europe are not limited to the European Union. We have bilateral relationships and we have forthcoming agreements with France and Germany. These are not exclusive things—we want to work in collaboration with a wide range of countries. As I said, the ACTIVE programme reached 19 countries and 5.4 million people. Do not underestimate the impact of that. This Government are committed to that sort of programme.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Storey

Committee: 3rd sitting Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

Are we dealing with Amendment 81ZA? I would hate to give the wrong speech on the wrong group, although I suspect that noble Lords would notice. I have been in other forums where people have not noticed, but that is another matter.

Amendment 81ZA focuses on the extension of sharing objectives to include the electoral register. A number of amendments in this group address concerns that have been raised about living in cold homes or school meals provision: basically, how we make this sharing of data more effective. I have no doubt that the Minister will say in response that the Bill will allow for this, but we want to raise on the Floor of the House the importance of these extensions of sharing objectives to the overall, broad objectives set out in Part 5.

Focusing on the electoral register, we know that the Electoral Commission has said that up to 1.9 million people could lose their right to vote as we transition to the individual registration of electors. Of course, until 2009 one person in each household completed the registration for every resident eligible to vote. It was a Labour Administration who accepted the principle, and there may be very good reasons, but the way the changes are introduced could be a disaster for our electoral system. That is why it is fundamentally important that we see data sharing as a positive way to address this potential effect on our democratic system. My noble friend Lord Stevenson has tabled an amendment to the higher education Bill that seeks to enhance the responsibility of higher education institutions to remind students of their right to register to vote—and particularly to decide where to vote. In this amendment we are trying to ensure that institutions have proper powers to share data to that end.

It must be understood that this transition to individual registration has put a huge burden on cash-strapped local councils, who need to contact 46 million people instead of 20 million. Some people have been unable to register, many of them because they simply do not have the required access that they would previously have had. This amendment focuses on people who are vulnerable, who need help, or who have not previously taken up their rights, perhaps because they do not have the necessary access or are not fully aware. That comes back to the issues—many other noble Lords will pick up the point—of fuel poverty and access to free school meals. The right to free school meals is important not only for the individual child—for the benefits the child will get—but for the funding of the educational institutions. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will accept these amendments, which are about ensuring that we can do these things and that these issues are addressed, even if he does not think that they should necessarily be in the Bill.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 82. This Bill is an opportunity possibly to enhance the lives of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in our society. The words of our Prime Minister always come to mind:

“a country that works for everyone”.

This amendment will help the country work for everyone. Currently, the parent of a child wishing to have a free school meal must apply for it. Not only does that provide a free school meal, which is hugely important for children because hungry children are not good learners, but it ensures that the school gets a pupil premium—a substantial sum of money—to help those disadvantaged pupils.

This simple amendment would ensure that local authorities automatically enrol those entitled to receive free school meals. Local authorities currently administer a number of benefits, such as council tax and housing benefit, so they are aware of families that would be eligible to claim free meals and would automatically contact the school. This would ensure that parents who, for a host of reasons, fail to claim would be able to do so.

It is estimated that a family with a child receiving free school meals can save up to £400 a year. Noble Lords may imagine that if the parents have more than one child the saving is quite substantial. As well as the family saving money and the child getting a free school meal it ensures that the school gets a substantial amount of money—the pupil premium—to help disadvantaged pupils.

The Minister will probably reply—as did the Minister from the other place—that the department’s own electronic eligibility checking system means that the clause is not really needed. That, however, is only a system which enables a school to check whether the parent is on the free meals register: it has speeded up the process but does not do the job that this amendment hopes to do.

I make a further point about this, at a time when we are all sensitive about the amount of private data that circulates: there is perhaps a fear that leads people to question why schools should have private data on pupils entitled to free meals. For that reason the amendment clearly states that parents will be notified before this information is made available and that there will be opt-out arrangements. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will be sympathetic to this very important amendment.