Active Citizenship

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a typically interesting and high-value House of Lords debate and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Maclennan on securing it. I am sure that he and the whole House will agree that it has been a particular pleasure to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Bannside and Lord Blair of Boughton. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for what I believe is his debut on the opposition Front Bench. I am sorry that he cast a somewhat uncharacteristically jaundiced eye on the case for voluntary participation. He should be more upbeat.

It is clear that there is a great deal of support for the notion of active citizenship—individuals and groups taking it upon themselves to get involved in their communities and to tackle the issues that they face. It is right to point out that active citizenship is strong in this country and always has been. I see examples of it all the time. We have been able to see it for ourselves this week in this House. As we have walked along the West Front Corridor, officials in the Government Whips Office have so far raised more than £1,000 for Children in Need. The House should commend that effort.

I thought of giving examples from my own experience. However, that is not necessary in this place because, as the debate has shown, noble Lords have experience of their own. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford graphically narrated how the community from which he takes his title has, against the odds, demonstrated active citizenship. So did my noble friend Lord Greaves, who also combines the right sense of idealism and scepticism, founded in practical experience, from which it is important for government to listen and to learn.

However, many of us recognise that, over the years, the state has overextended itself. Much of this has been well intentioned but it has begun to erode individual and social responsibility. It can seem that society is increasingly looking to the state to solve its problems. I think the whole House will agree that my noble friend Lord Tyler made an excellent speech analysing this conundrum. He emphasised the need for consistency and a “voice to the voiceless”, not the amplification of those already with a voice. There can be no future in the state walking away from its responsibilities. I note his comments on the citizens advice bureaux, what an asset that organisation is and the need for local government to maintain its support for it.

Of course, the Government continue to have a major role in providing core services and supporting the most vulnerable. I was grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for telling the House of his support for the work of my honourable friend Tim Loughton. He pointed, quite rightly, to the considerable pressure being felt by local government in its children’s support services. I was grateful also for the tribute that the noble Earl paid to foster carers and foster parents, which I think the whole House would endorse. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Wei, was unable to speak on his project. I will make sure that the House is provided with an update on it. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, reminded the coalition of the important and essentially different roles of both government and voluntary organisations.

It is clear that active citizenship is not spread uniformly across areas or groups. There are places where community participation and social capital are very low. There is a danger that it becomes the exclusive preserve of those who have the commodities of time, money and mobility. I hope that noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, can be reassured that the Government are very much aware of the need for the big society to recognise those inequalities. It was useful to be reminded by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford of the role that adult education can play as an agency for developing a sense of self-worth and for giving people, especially those with a disadvantage, an opportunity to engage in active citizenship. I share her applause for the skills policy developed by my honourable friend John Hayes.

In order to play an encouraging and enabling role, it is important that we develop our thinking on what we really mean by active citizenship—or social action, as we describe it in the big society vision. In recent years, active citizenship has been conceived in a relatively narrow context, such as political engagement, attendance at public meetings and volunteering. However, in introducing this debate, my noble friend Lord Maclennan showed how much broader should be the vision of active citizenship. I will note his positive ideas.

Active citizenship is of key importance in reinforcing the essential values of a society. The big society vision brings all these ideas together, but it goes much further by working to establish an environment where people feel that they can and should get involved. It does this by proposing a more integrated partnership between society and the state. It reduces the dominance of the state in public services, devolves real power to the local level and establishes mechanisms through which people can take more control over their lives. I was interested in the contributions of both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester and the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, on how faith is the foundation for much active citizenship and how important that foundation is in encouraging individual and collective commitment to voluntary involvement in community activity. The noble Lord, Lord Bannside, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford reinforced those views. If we are to bring about real change, it is also important that we are not half-hearted in our intent. We must make active citizenship a central part of the Government’s mission.

My noble friend Lady Barker sought to define a good society, reminding the Government of the need to apply consistency of effort to sustain the big society over time. This is not just a project for now or for the next day; it is to be durable over time. We have therefore defined social action as being one of the three key principles of the big society. They include community empowerment, giving local councils and neighbourhoods more power to take decisions and shape their area. I assure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester that the Government are aware that localism and empowerment mean what they say—devolving power and leaving decision-making at a local level, accepting the responsibility for delegating power down to local communities. The principles also include opening up public services, enabling charities, social enterprises, private companies and employee-owned co-operatives to compete to offer people high-quality services, and social action, encouraging and enabling people to play a more active part in society. Together, these will put more power into people’s hands and represent a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities.

A lot of work is going on around each of these pillars. For example, on community empowerment, our planning reforms will replace the old top-down planning system with real power for neighbourhoods to decide the future of their area. We will de-ring-fence more than £1 billion of grants to local authorities in 2010-11, promoting greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. I agreed totally with my noble friend Lord Shipley in his determination that community activity needs to support local services and neighbourhood planning. I like his concept of neighbourhood problem-solving and his advocacy of local government and democracy working together. Those were points that were similarly picked up by my noble friend Lady Barker. On opening up public services, the welfare to work programme will enable a wide range of organisations to help get Britain off welfare and into work. Commissioning reform will enable the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to realise its potential role in public services.

Turning to something more central to the theme of today’s debate, I shall proceed by giving more detail on what the Government are doing to support social action. I start with the national citizen service. I am pleased to hear of the widespread welcome that the project has received from noble Lords. The service will help to build a more cohesive, responsible and engaged society by bringing 16 year-olds from different backgrounds together in a residential and home-based programme of activity and service. As part of the experience, participants will spend two weeks away from home to give them the opportunity to develop life skills and resilience and to serve their communities. This will be a life-enhancing experience for all those engaged in it. We are planning to run two years of NCS pilots, starting in summer 2011, and, building on that, to learn from another pilot in 2012. Some 10,000 16 year-olds will have the opportunity to take part in summer 2011, and 30,000 in summer 2012.

A theme that ran through this debate, which I shall have to take away and reflect on and discuss with my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford, was that of citizenship education. Many noble Lords mentioned this in their speeches, and I have had a letter from my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who could not be here today, reinforcing this point of view. I reassure the House that I will communicate the sentiments of this debate to my noble friend.

Over the lifetime of this Parliament, the community organiser programme will train and support 5,000 people who want to make a difference to their community. The organisers have a strong understanding of local needs and will catalyse social action through creating and supporting neighbourhood groups. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester should know that the Government are currently procuring a national partner to run the programme and to train community organisers. That will maintain the integrity of the programme and we imagine that, in time, the programme will indeed take on a life of its own. The Government will also develop a match-fund programme, targeted to communities with high deprivation and low social capital. The targeted Community First fund will encourage more social action by new and existing neighbourhood groups, and enable areas to articulate their needs and influence decisions made about their community.

Of course, volunteering is a key part of social action. We know that bureaucratic burdens can sometimes create barriers to volunteering and other forms of social action. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts is therefore leading a government task force to help cut excessive red tape in this sector. We are also reviewing the criminal records regime to ensure a more suitable balance; several noble Lords referred to the enormous burden which that can have on voluntary and community organisations.

It was very useful to get other points from my noble friend Lady Neuberger, who asked specifically about Criminal Records Bureau checks and talked about the citizens’ survey. CLG is consulting on the potential impact of cutting the survey; concerns should be put to it before the deadline of 30 November, but the Government are aware of the importance of gauging levels of volunteering and the Office for Civil Society is talking to CLG about appropriate ways to measure social action. On access to volunteering, which the noble Baroness also mentioned, that programme was always intended to end at the end of the current spending period, but we are looking at new ways to encourage social action. Learning from the access to volunteering programme will be fed into the development of programmes to ensure that disabled people are enabled and, indeed, encouraged to volunteer.

Volunteering levels in this country remain high and we have one of the highest rates of volunteering in the world. However, more can be done to move us towards a culture where volunteering is the norm and, indeed, to raise the numbers of people. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred to that in his analysis of some figures that he had from his experience in Newcastle. In particular, we want to encourage and enable people from all walks of life to be a part of this. The giving of money is also an important form of social action. We will be publishing a Green Paper shortly to set out a vision for how we can boost already high levels of generosity, both in the giving of time and money, among the British public. It will incorporate insights from behavioural economics to examine ways in which we can incentivise giving.

I was grateful for the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. I acknowledge that she has enormous knowledge and understanding of the subject of this debate. She emphasised the degree to which the Government have to be constantly aware of their role in encouraging active citizenship.

Several noble Lords talked about the impact of the CSR on the voluntary sector. We acknowledge this, and a transition fund has been announced as part of the spending review. It will provide a £100 million grant over this and the next financial year, funding voluntary and community organisations, charities and social enterprises in England. This will give them the breathing space that they need to help them manage the transition to a tighter funding environment and take advantage of future opportunities presented by the big society. I was grateful for the welcome that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, gave to the big society bank.

I turn to a few points that I have not covered in the general text of my speech. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton; it is important that we recognise that professionals are an essential part of an effective volunteering structure. I liked the points that the noble Lord, Lord Bannside, made about responsibility in society.

Once again I thank noble Lords who have been present for today’s debate. Active citizenship is incredibly important to our society. It is at the heart of the big society, and I encourage all to draw on their understanding of society at its best and use their creativity to help to build the stronger society that we are all keen to see.