Communities: Charities and Volunteers

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I have had conversations with the devolved Administrations on sport and connecting communities, but I have not directly had any on that issue. I am however very happy to take that up and co-operate with colleagues across the House to work with the devolved Administrations. As a Wales Minister, I was very aware that there are particular communities that we need to make sure Westminster and Whitehall are reaching.

We are breaking down barriers to volunteering for everyone, and we are focusing on those at risk of loneliness and looking to the long term to help those people who might want to get involved and who might need a new direction and feel isolated. I am backing that again today with cash: £250,000 for new funding to do exactly that.

When communities are facing their moment of greatest need, a connected community is what matters most. We saw that in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Local charities at the heart of the community stepped up, working in partnership with national organisations and emergency services to provide support for those in need. The public responded, too, by raising over £29 million. That was unprecedented, and it highlighted that we are at our very best when we come together and help each other. This community support was invaluable in helping the Government reach the Grenfell victims and their families quickly, and we will continue to support them. We are working with our experienced charity partners to further strengthen the response and be ready for any future emergencies.

How can business help our communities? Society’s needs are at the heart of good decision making. The private sector is a great force for good, and this is a chance to address society’s most pressing issues by encouraging innovative public services to work alongside private investors, socially responsible businesses and social enterprise. From tackling homelessness to helping young people reach their full potential, business and finance can and must play a crucial role.

Through social impact bonds, we are bringing together investors who want to make a difference with charities who have the expertise to make real change. This successful model is already having a positive impact on people and communities across the country. Charities such as St Mungo’s and Thames Reach are working with the most vulnerable rough sleepers in London to help them rebuild their lives. This social impact bond gives charities the financial safety net to do this important work, and I was struck by the passion and commitment of the staff I met last week and the results they have achieved. Since the project was launched in 2017, it has helped more than 150 people to find homes. We know that this funding model works, and that is why we are investing £80 million through the life chances fund to give more support to social impact bonds that create people-focused results. People matter, and we are delivering for them.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I worked on social impact bonds prior to entering this place. One of the big barriers that social enterprises face in drawing down social impact bonds is the lack of expertise in unlocking these complex instruments. What support will there be within the fund to ensure that that money can be drawn down by social enterprises?

[Mims Davies]

In my new role in this Department, I have found nothing but complete expertise to absolutely make this work. If the hon. Gentleman would like to raise a particular issue relating to his experience, I would be happy to hear from him directly.

There is more that we can do to help vulnerable people across the country. We are working with the banks and the building societies to unlock millions of pounds from dormant accounts. Instead of gathering dust, that money is being invested in helping our young people into employment and in tackling problem debt. In 2018 alone, £330 million of dormant assets funding was announced, and by 2020, the total distribution from dormant accounts will reach more than half a billion pounds. We will expand that scheme further to help more vulnerable people to benefit. This funding is changing lives for the better, with £90 million helping the most disadvantaged young people into employment and £55 million tackling problem debt. These initiatives are led by two independent organisations.

The Government want an economy that works for everyone in every part of their life. We are building a strong foundation for social impact investing, which is bringing more capital funding to social enterprises and charities in the UK, alongside traditional forms of funding for these organisations. I am mindful that lots of people want to speak, so I shall try to commute my remarks, but I want to get these key messages out. This works in practice. Since its launch in 2012, Big Society Capital has committed more than £520 million and leveraged more than £1.2 billion of additional co-investment into this space.

The Government are building on these successes and will be using a further £135 million from dormant accounts to help further charities and social enterprises. In addition, the Government have commissioned an advisory group, and the Prime Minister has personally asked for an industry-led implementation taskforce to deliver its recommendations. We also have an inclusive economy partnership, where we work with businesses such as O2, Landsec and Accenture and with social innovators to find practical solutions and to unlock the issues on the ground. We also have the This is Me programme, an inclusive workplace programme that focuses on mental health issues, and it is working with Landsec. This is an area in which we are working with business and the community to ensure that we can deliver on the ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, 600 youth centres have closed, and all the activities that could have gone on in them have been taken away. That is a crying shame.

Sadly, the Government have not finished with that agenda; there is worse to come. Their new so-called fair funding formula will remove deprivation levels from how funding is calculated. It will take even more away from the very poorest and will weaken the very communities in which the need to tackle poverty, youth crime and homelessness is greatest. Communities cannot organise, act or assert their voice if the Government keep ripping away the resources they need to do those very things.

The Government passed a lobbying Act that gags charities and prevents them from campaigning. Ministers individually have put gagging clauses in contracts to silence charities and prevent them from criticising their personal failures as Ministers. The Government have discouraged volunteers in the UK by not recognising their work for national insurance credits. They announced a plan for paid time off work for volunteering, but it fizzled out into absolutely nothing.

We are a month and a half away from Brexit, but the Government have still not told us how they will replace lost EU funding for charities or how the shared prosperity fund will work, despite the fact that the Opposition have been asking about it for months. The Minister trumpets the new funding—she did so this afternoon—but she fails to acknowledge that it is a tiny drop in the ocean, compared with the billions that the Government have cut. They can work out the huge financial value of what they have taken away, but the social value that they have destroyed is incalculable.

Despite the cuts and the Government’s failure to open up power, people are doing amazing things in their communities, and are stepping in to help the victims of Government funding cuts. I pay tribute to the food banks and homeless shelters which, in such a wealthy country, we should never have needed. There is a wonderful, rich, emerging practice of sharing, co-operating, collaborating and participating in this country. People’s ingenuity and the creativity in our communities cannot and will not be beaten back, but it is fragile. It needs support and protection. It is clear that the Conservatives will never offer that, but Labour will.

[Alex Sobel]

My local council for voluntary service, Voluntary Action Leeds, wrote to me. It said clearly that volunteering is not part of the benefits system, and that people are being sanctioned if they refuse to volunteer. That is not volunteering; it is forced labour. Universal credit is affecting the amount of time that people have to volunteer, so the Government’s own welfare policies are decimating the voluntary sector in this country.

[Mr Reed]

I agree. It is outrageous that the Government are actively penalising people for volunteering when we need to be encouraging volunteering. In particular, it helps people who are looking for work to develop the skills that they need to gain employment. I hope the Minister will take that away and look at it.

People are connecting in neighbourhoods and on social media to collaborate and bring about the change that we desperately need in this country. The digital revolution has opened up data, information and connectivity in the most extraordinary ways. It offers the potential to renew our democracy, making it more open, responsive and participative. This is the new civil society. It is a force for change of the most incredible potential, if only we had a Government with the vision and ambition to support it, like the very best Labour councils already do.

Barking and Dagenham’s Every One Every Day initiative has launched spaces and projects across the borough that bring people together in their neighbourhoods to solve the problems they face. It has dramatically increased participation, with projects as diverse as shared cooking, community composting, play streets and even a listening barber. It is a great example of asset-based community development—a model that is proving its power in communities across the country.

In my borough of Croydon, the Parchmore medical centre in Thornton Heath has spawned a network of more than 100 community-led projects that keep people healthier, and it has dramatically reduced the number of people who need to see a GP. There are sessions on healthy cooking for young families, mobility classes for older people and coffee mornings in the local pub, before it opens for customers, for people isolated in their homes. All of it is free, and all of it is run in and by the community. It has had an extraordinary impact on people’s wellbeing simply by getting neighbours to know each other better and to speak to each other.

Plymouth has set up the country’s biggest network of community energy co-ops to generate energy sustainably and plough the profits back into the local community. Stevenage is pioneering community budgeting, involving local community groups. Preston is leading on community wealth building by focusing council procurement on community organisations. In Lambeth, the council has set up, with the community, Black Thrive, a new social enterprise that gives the black community greater oversight of the mental health services that the community uses. In all these cases, existing or new community groups, charities and social enterprises have shown they have the power to transform lives. They open up decision making to the creativity and innovation that lies untapped in too many of our communities.