Rural Communities: Prince’s Countryside Fund

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I am honoured to address this House for the first time and delighted to have the opportunity to do so in support of my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble, who has initiated this timely debate on the challenges facing rural communities.

With my background in human resources and recruitment, I have naturally taken a degree of interest in the induction programme for this House. I am most grateful for the professional help and support that I have received.

As the fifth viscount, I am acutely mindful of the profound shift in priorities that our nation has undergone as I look back on the maiden speeches of my immediate forebears. They chose traditional ground, my grandfather in 1963 raising the subject of British industrial policy, and my father in 1992 speaking of the challenges of defence and the impact of Options for Change—a theme that resonates today in this most difficult fiscal climate. It is a measure of our changing priorities as a nation and of how the Conservative Party itself has changed that I wish to indulge your Lordships’ time today on the more untraditional but topical subject of the big society.

I believe that the ideas from this new Government that have brought this theme to the public’s attention are important and relevant, not just to our inner cities but to our rural communities. I hope and believe that we are at the beginning of the cultural, moral and behavioural shift that is required to rekindle the community spirit in Britain. The big society, and the examples of its work around the country, will inspire and persuade responsible adults to open their front doors and reach out to help their neighbours and their neighbourhoods. Individuals are being liberated to rebuild their communities and to wield once more the power of voluntary association. Within my own political area of Buckingham there are examples of volunteers funding and building a youth centre. In Milton Keynes, food banks have been set up whereby donations from the public provide funds for emergency food preparation and distribution to the vulnerable.

Voluntary work and self-help are hardly new, though; the philosopher Edmund Burke spoke of “little platoons” that long formed the bulwark of civil society. Today there continue to be unsung heroes who work for no pay. They make up less than half the UK population, but surveys show that 11 million more would do so if only they were asked. This response may seem paradoxical in a supposedly time-poor society, with numbers of dual earners and long-distance commuters on the rise. However, there is also a growth of home workers and the part-time self-employed, which provides a countercyclical trend and a potential well of opportunity for the voluntary sector.

For decades now, many of our Burkean subdivisions and little platoons have suffered the negative impacts of technological progress and consumerism. Community work has waned. We have been increasingly persuaded to stay inside our homes by ever more complex and compelling communications gadgetry. We are, to borrow the title from the writer Neil Postman’s prescient book from 1984, “amusing ourselves to death”. Recently published figures show that the average Briton spends more than seven hours a day—almost half their waking hours—watching television, e-mailing, browsing the web or texting. Those volumes have jumped fourfold since 2004. There are now 12.5 million BlackBerrys, compared with 5.5 million just two years ago. Electronic social networking can be made to benefit local communities. However, it is as important to restore the physicality of community work, along with the personal, interactive and local bonds that stimulate creativity and action.

The remote areas of my native Scotland provide some examples of how the big society continues to operate well where infrequent or no local services prevail. Post offices—even islands—are self-governed, even as they struggle to overcome a host of rural challenges. To speak of the big society is to question fundamentally how we should lead our lives. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister emphasised yesterday, for too long now we have looked to the state for answers in providing services. The time has now come to look to one another and those closest to hand. The resources and funding can be found, whether through the generous pledges made by businesses in the Prince’s Countryside Fund, the release of funds in dormant bank accounts or the careful redirection of lottery funds. What we need are local leaders and champions who can step forward to translate ideas into action and form individuals into powerful groups. A cohesive group engenders trust—a trust that leads to harmony, action and results.

The big society is not about reducing expenditure for its own sake; it is a long-term process of behavioural change in the mindset of the individual that allows for taking responsibility. I hope that the growing debate on this subject can help us to reawaken, one “little platoon” at a time, our national community spirit.