Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Mountevans Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this important debate at this time. I will make a few points about charities in the maritime sector. Now, more than ever, we are dependent on the seafaring community to maintain the supply lines for food, medicines and other essentials. I note my numerous involvements across the sector, as listed on the register.

Help is needed right across the seafaring community. With severe restrictions in place in ports around the world, many seafarers working on merchant ships are trapped on board without access to shore-based help, with leave cancelled or getting home extremely problematic. Seafarers are often thousands of miles from home and worried about their own health and mental welfare and those of their families, so support from the charity sector is needed more than ever. Fishermen are suffering too, with the market for the catering trade at home and abroad all but dried up and incomes severely impacted.

We have heard in most eloquent terms of the enormous challenges facing the nation’s charities. I would like to highlight the scope and need for charities in the same sector to co-operate and work together wherever possible to maximise effect and benefit. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, developed this concept most effectively when she spoke about the context of her county.

We are very fortunate in the maritime sector that 10 of our leading funders have got together in the Maritime Charities Group to identify and address the most serious need and to drive best practice. This is done through sharing information, commissioning research, education and so on. From Seafarers UK to Trinity House, member charities of the group are digging deep. Some are raiding their reserves to ensure that seafarers and their communities are supported during the crisis and to sustain the infrastructure of seafarer welfare support around the world. As someone heavily involved in maritime affairs, I think that the Maritime Charities Group operates very successfully to the benefit of the communities it supports. Its example can be relevant for other sectors.

To conclude, and on a separate point, I request that the Minister supports the request from across the uniformed youth sector, including the Sea Cadets, which I know well and where I serve as a vice-president, for early release of money from the Youth Investment Fund to ensure that young people from all backgrounds can continue to benefit from the full breadth of experiences in these invaluable organisations. Without support, these organisations may, I believe, be lost or severely damaged.