Community and Voluntary Sector

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, on initiating the debate so very well. Basically, we are concerned with exploring the relationship between civil society and the state. Civil society represents the idea of persuasion and the state represents the idea of compulsion. The question for any kind of civilised society becomes: what is the role of persuasion and what is the role of compulsion? Which areas of life are best left to persuasion and which to compulsion? Once you have formulated it in this way—I find it easier to handle—you begin to see how it applies to our own situation.

This is a problem that every society faces, because every society involves both coercive machinery in the form of the state and a voluntary set of institutions in the form of associations. One could say, for example, that the two should be merged, as is the case in Germany. In Germany, the state collects taxes for churches. In France, it is the opposite; the two are totally separate. The state has little to do with civil society.

Our approach has been mixed. We rely on the state in certain cases, on civil society in other cases. We expect the state to intervene in certain areas of civil society. This mixed approach has been a source of much beneficence, but also much unease. I will briefly point out why it has led to some degree of unease.

First, when you talk about civil society, will you support organisations concerned with protest—for example, against Israeli actions in Gaza, the Indian occupation of Kashmir or whatever? The state would say that it is not going to support that; it is against its policy. What happens to the issues concerned? As we have not been able to handle this question, the result is that we periodically hear issues about people not being allowed to protest and why.

Secondly, the state draws a conventional set of lines. Within those lines and that framework, civil associations are supposed to function. That is all right, but it leads to the bureaucratisation of civil society, and that bureaucratisation does not allow associations to function properly.

The third difficulty is that it concentrates on certain material things. A philanthropic activity is one where you give money, but what about those societies where money is not given or prized, but time or concern is given? I come from a society where per capita philanthropic contributions would be rather low, but per capita time or attention would be far greater. Would you therefore say that one society is more philanthropic than another? Our society, by and large, has been concentrating on money and matters other than personal sympathy and concern for rehabilitating individuals. This can be seen in relation to prisoners.

Lastly, the relation between civil society and state is not ultimately a matter of ad hoc contestation and compromise. It is a matter of culture, and a culture has to develop that allows that society to throw up responsible civil associations.