Volunteers

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Ms Nokes, there could not possibly be a better way of spending this afternoon than taking part in a debate under your Chair. As you pointed out to me earlier, it is not just a privilege, but a massive privilege to be sitting here taking part in this debate with you in the Chair. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for bringing us to this debate.

However, I am scandalised by every single one of the contributions so far, because the largest number of volunteers who are out today are probably volunteering for political parties, and they have not even got a mention yet. They are the people who go out in sun and rain, in foul weather and fine. They sometimes get spat at—I have been shot at on one occasion. They get abuse, and sometimes they get people giving them a thumbs up, but they do it because they believe in the political system and in democracy. We all know that not one of us would ever be here if it were not for the contributions of volunteers in our political parties up and down the country. They will be far too busy today, but I put on record on behalf of us all, I am sure, our tribute to the volunteers in our political parties who do it for no other reward than the things that they believe in and trying to make a better world and a better country, in their individual ways.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) and for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I think we have all had the same briefing note from the Scouts, so I will not repeat anything; that would seem rather otiose, and you might rule me out of order, Ms Nokes. I disagree, however, with the Members who said that they are not going to list all the volunteers in their constituency, because I will refer to some from mine. I represent one of the poorest constituencies in the land and, one could argue, in Europe, according to some socioeconomic indicators.

The truth is that there are politicians who believe that private is always good and everything should be left to the market, and that public is bad and we should try to shrink the state. There are also those who believe that private is always bad because it is based on profit, and they want everything to be done by the state. I have never subscribed to either of those views—it is horses for courses—but I believe that the third sector is absolutely essential in making either of the other two sectors work. In fact, most of what we would consider as the welfare state—schools, hospitals and so on—sprang out of the churches and the voluntary sector originally. The NHS simply would not be able to function in most parts of the country without the support of volunteers. I do not necessarily mean people fundraising for scanners, running events locally or whatever, but all the additional bits that make the recuperative process possible for so many patients. Once they have had what they get from the NHS, they need that extra bit from the voluntary sector. If I look at my patch, organisations such as Valleys Kids have probably made more of a difference than any other organisation to the life opportunities of some of the kids in the most difficult families and parts of the country.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Yes, Bath calls!

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Member agree that the charitable sector is so good at making the most out of every penny and doubling and tripling the amount invested by capturing the volunteering effort? However, they need a bit of seed funding and not to always be under threat of that funding being cut.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. One of the difficulties comes when they end up with a memorandum of understanding, or some kind of contract with the local authority, or the local health board as we have in Wales—it is a different structure from England. They are then effectively part of the state sector, which makes them less flexible and less able to adapt to situations around them. That has been a worrying trend over the past 20 to 25 years. Maintaining that sustainability for them is the real challenge. That is one of the problems facing Valleys Kids at the moment: trying to make sure that they have a strong financial future.

There is also Sporting Marvels. Sometimes we refer to “charities”, which is quite a strict definition. But actually, lots of people volunteer for things that are not charities, but that, none the less, have a charitable end result, such as all the sporting bodies in my patch. That includes people who turn up as coaches on a Saturday and a Sunday morning for the football teams or for Ferndale rugby club. I will not go through all the rugby clubs in the Rhondda, but I am a patron of Ferndale rugby club, which has its presentation dinner in a few weeks.

So many of these organisations do not get any financial support from the state. Many do not even get charitable status and, for them, it is an even more complicated process. As has already been alluded to, the rules about what people can do—quite understandably, if they are working with children and so on—are onerous, complicated and difficult. Having done work on acquired brain injury, I am conscious that we want any coach working in football, rugby or cycling to have a full understanding of how the new rules and protocols work and when they should take a child off if they have had a concussion. All these things make people think twice about whether they should be engaged in volunteering. That is why the state sometimes has a role in trying to make sure that the process is as simple as possible and that the charities and all the different organisations have access to good, easy and readily understandable advice.

I will mention one other organisation, the Rhondda Polar Bears, of which I am also a patron. The charity teaches kids with a variety of different disabilities how to swim. I will probably see them later this evening at Ystrad sports centre, if I get back to the Rhondda in time.

[Richard Foord]

Given that the shadow Minister is a trustee of a charity, does he recognise that it can be beneficial for employers, including those in the private sector, to release staff for work in the voluntary sector?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Yes—the next word of my speech was going to be “trustees”. That is a very important point. Obviously, school governors, magistrates or reservists in the armed forces have specific rules about what they can expect from their employers. Many employers are absolutely delighted to be able to support the work of their staff, although it is obviously much more difficult for those working in small companies. However, the point is made about trustees as well.

I was actually going to make a slightly different point about trustees. For all I know, it may be easy to find lots of trustees who know how to deal with the banking system or charitable law or whatever in Surrey; it is more difficult in some of the areas that most need that support. That is why organisations such as the NCVO and the Prince’s Trust have been really important in providing mentoring and support in areas such as mine in the south Wales valleys, where we would love to have more trustees. We often end up getting the same people to be the trustees of all the different charities and organisations, such as the Rhondda Arts Festival, which is coming up at the end of June. I am a trustee of that as well. Although I do not have any financial interest in that, I should declare it none the less.

There are also the individuals. Stan Power is no longer with us, but he was a veteran—he served. He took it upon himself for many years, as a member of the Royal British Legion, to make sure that anybody with whom he came into contact who had ever been in the armed forces in the Rhondda knew of every single type of support that they were entitled to claim for. He did that entirely off his own bat, but obviously with the support of the Royal British Legion. He was an absolutely wonderful man who made life-changing possibilities for dozens and dozens of people in my constituency. The more we can enable a few more of those people in every constituency in the land, the better.

I want to refer to a charity that works across the whole country, because it exemplifies the kind of problems we have at the moment, as alluded to by others, and that is Headway. The Minister knows about Headway, which is a charity that works with people who have had an acquired brain injury.

One of the great things we have done in recent years, because of the Government’s brave decision in some cases to create major trauma centres, is that we have saved the lives of many more people when they have been in an accident, many of them with brain injuries. However, getting them the quality of life that we would be able to bring them if they had full rehabilitation is very difficult. All the different therapies in hospitals are very stretched, which is often why we rely for rehab on charities such as Headway, up and down the country.

Most constituencies will have a Headway group. Headway has 1,100 volunteers helping with rehabilitation, 500 more working at setting up branches and 400 working in the retail shops. That is an important part of the network that enables people to get back a quality of life, which is important for the whole of our economy. This is not a partisan attack, but unfortunately the Government do not know how many people in the UK are living with an acquired brain injury—it is just not a known fact. We reckon it is somewhere in the region of 1.4 million, and the charitable sector probably has a better idea than others.

Headway, however, is struggling financially. Many of its branches are worrying about whether they will be able to continue, partly because of a lack of volunteers, but mostly because of a lack of finance. Rehabilitation and the kit needed is often expensive. I hope that at some point we have a major review of how charities end up with their funding, and how we can ensure that they are sustainable into the future.

Several Members have referred to the fact that volunteering is good for people. We can certainly see that in Headway. Often, the person who takes someone to their Headway group will have had a brain injury 10 years ago, was looked after and had rehab, was re-socialised, found a family of people, and then volunteered, volunteered a bit more and a bit more, got a few days’ work, and now is the full-time staff employee. That is rehabilitation and volunteering at its absolute best. We could repeat that of every other kind of charity that we have been talking about.

Volunteering is good for people. It makes them feel useful. It allows them to gain skills, especially because they might have to retrain in areas where they did not have the skills at all in the past. It re-socialises people and makes them feel happier. I note the point made about people in their retirement—I am 62 and some in the room are slightly older than I am, and perhaps thinking about what to do in retirement—and volunteering is an important part of still feeling that we have something to contribute. Often, important skills can be fed back into the community by older people.

There are problems. The significant collapse in the number of volunteers has been referred to, from one in four people of working age to one in six in the past few years, and that is problematic. In 2022, 40% of charities reported that a lack of volunteers meant that they could not progress, could not grow or could not even commit to the projects that they were already engaged in. Some areas, as I said, have found that particularly difficult, because of the financial barriers. If someone is struggling financially and economically to put food on the table for their kids, then the cost of the bus or train fare—even if it is only £2.90, £4.60 or whatever—is prohibitive. Many people will feel reluctant to ask the charity for the money, so they end up not volunteering at all. I would love it if there were some form of bank where all that need could be met. Perhaps that is a project for someone for the future—a particular charitable venture.

Local authorities have been facing enormous financial struggles. In my own patch, Rhondda Cynon Taf has found it difficult to maintain its financial commitments, let alone increase them in line with inflation, as has been needed over the past few years. That has meant that lots of charities have struggled. On top of that, people are not using charity shops so much, which has also had a knock-on effect on their income.

As I think has already been referred to, the Scouts have something in the region of 100,000 young people on waiting lists. Would it not be brilliant if we could get every single one of them into the Scouts? I am a scout from many years ago—I have a few badges, which I will not go into. We would love it if we could have more troops in the Rhondda, because there are kids who would like to do it. The same goes for the Sea Cadets and a whole series of other organisations. Those organisations give kids a sense of purpose and an idea of themselves; they provide a set of extracurricular of activities that offer a different form of learning. They give them confidence. In many ways, they are very similar to some of the creative industries. I would dearly love for the Scouts to be able to recruit far more volunteers.

I have a few final points. The first is about philanthropy. I sometimes look to other countries. On Tuesday night, I had dinner with Edward Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer and an absolutely wonderful artist. He said that in Canada, it is axiomatic that, if someone becomes a billionaire, they will become a massive philanthropist, set up a charity and give to a wide variety of different charities. That has not become the norm in the UK in the same way as it has in America, Canada and some other countries. There is still room for us to explore how we can incentivise that even more, so that it is part of our national psyche.

The second point is about companies. Several hon. Members have referred to the importance of companies being passionate about their local communities. They know that they derive their wealth from those communities, and if they want to incentivise their staff, they will want to play an important part in their local communities. Some companies have been financially strapped, because of energy costs and things like that. The more we can praise those companies that make a radical difference in their local communities, the better. Perhaps we need to think of new ways of badging and thanking them for the extraordinary things they have done.

My final point is about the role of the state in all this. At this particular moment in British politics, I sometimes feel quite depressed, because it feels as if so many parts of what we relied on in our past just do not work as well as they used to. Some people will say, “Let’s try to recreate the social fabric of the 1950s,” but I do not think that that works. The world has moved on: the internet, social media and so on have completely changed things. However, I do want to return to that sense of public engagement—the sense that we achieve far more by our common endeavour than we do by going it alone. I could make the party political point that, if we press the reset button in a general election, perhaps some of that will be achieved. But what is even more important—and politicians and the state play a role in this—is ensuring that the whole country feels engaged in the national project, and that the whole of the local community feels engaged in the local project. We cannot do that without people volunteering for the common good.