Volunteers

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the contribution of volunteers.

I am delighted to speak on the theme of volunteering. The absence of a large number of Back Benchers gives me the chance to opine at length on a subject close to my heart. I thank the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), who kindly co-sponsored this debate with me; she sends her apologies for health reasons, but would like me to state her recognition of the enormous contribution of the volunteers, in County Durham and beyond, who do so much for our communities. I would like to use this debate to do exactly the same.

This may be my last opportunity to highlight the wonderful work of individuals and organisations in my constituency without the pressure of a tight time limit, Ms Nokes, so I hope that you and the Minister will indulge me if I incorporate into the debate a love letter to the wonderful people it has been my privilege to work with in the great city of Stoke-on-Trent, including the more than 70 charities and community groups who share their wisdom and provide mutual support at my charity roundtable. In a city where many people struggle with both their finances and their health, I am humbled by the work of the many volunteers who step up to help those who are less fortunate, and by how those with little look after those with less.

The resilience of my local community stems from a strong sense of place and identity, and decades of disappointment about a lack of investment after the decline of the traditional industries that were a feature of the city: the steelworks, the mines and the potteries. As the city sees a renaissance, with the growth of new creative and digital sectors, transport and logistics and new civil service jobs, there are still too many who struggle with the cost of living or with accessing services. The help that volunteers provide is essential.

Next month, charities across the UK will be celebrating 40 years of Volunteers Week, an annual campaign that starts on the first Monday of June. It is an opportunity for charities and the wider public to recognise, celebrate and thank the UK’s incredible volunteers for all that they contribute to our local communities, the voluntary sector and society as a whole. I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate in advance of Volunteers Week: it allows me not only to highlight the incredible achievements of our country as a result of volunteering, but to make a call to action to those who have got out of the habit of volunteering or may never have had the opportunity. I encourage them to look at their local community and consider how they might help out and give their time.

Volunteering is critical to a vibrant, flourishing and resilient civil society. It benefits volunteers and the organisations with which they are involved; it has transformational impacts on beneficiaries and their communities, delivering public services and building social cohesion. That support can be seen particularly clearly during crises such as the covid-19 pandemic, but community support is not simply about helping people affected by the pandemic or its economic and social aftershocks. The contribution of volunteers extends much further and deeper than unforeseen emergencies. Many people volunteer with sports clubs, youth groups—including the Scouts, the Guides and other uniformed groups—and faith communities or neighbourhoods. Others provide more specialised support, such as youth mentoring; working with prisoners or the homeless; or volunteering in a hospital or other health settings, such as through Helpforce, a charity providing volunteers in support of the NHS. In my own patch, the work of volunteers for the local hospice is remarkable.

There is a lack of robust data on the economic and wider social impact of volunteering, but it is worth noting that Andy Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, has valued the contribution of volunteering to the UK economy as being in excess of £50 billion a year, or 2.5% of GDP. Even that is likely to be an underestimate: if occasional and informal volunteering were included, the figure would probably be much higher. The latest data from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations shows that approximately 14.2 million people in the UK volunteer through a group, club or organisation, with many more volunteering informally.

Interestingly, people over 50 are most likely to volunteer and provide unpaid care. According to the latest community life survey results, respondents aged 65 to 74 were most likely to participate in formal volunteering at least once a month compared with other age groups, alongside the contributions they make to the economy through work. It is important that we recognise and value the impactful contributions that the many volunteers over state pension age make by bringing their wealth of skills and experience developed in the workplace.

The benefits work both ways. Volunteering can have a transformational impact on the lives of older people themselves. Research has shown that older people who take part in volunteering report improved wellbeing, improved life satisfaction and lower rates of depression. Older people are incredibly positive towards charities and do a great deal to support them, both financially and through volunteering. There is a real appetite among many older people to do more. Many have a skill that they would like to use to help a charity, but do not know how to get involved.

I feel strongly that more needs to be done to link older people up with volunteering opportunities, giving them the chance to access all the health and wellbeing benefits that are linked directly to community action. That is why I am hosting an over-55s fair at Staffordshire University on 31 May, to offer advice and connect people. It is a core part of my Nothing but a Number summit, which aims to make Stoke-on-Trent an age-friendly city. The importance of volunteering will definitely be on the agenda.

At the other end of the spectrum, social action has a dual benefit for young people: the positive impact for the chosen cause and the personal skill gained from the experience. It helps to improve students’ motivation at school, and is particularly powerful in developing soft skills such as leadership and teamwork, which are more difficult to teach in the classroom. Research has discovered that young people are extremely socially minded and believe that individuals have a duty to make a positive social contribution. They are committed to causes and want to use their time to make an impact.

Although many young people want to make a difference, they too need information on how to get involved. People want to volunteer. Time and again, I hear about people not knowing how to make the first step. That is the biggest barrier to volunteer recruitment. Despite the overall decline in volunteering, 62% of people who have not volunteered in the past three years say that they could be encouraged to volunteer. There is huge untapped potential, which provides a key opportunity for the Government to support the sector in unlocking this good will. The Scouts shared with me that people volunteer either because they have an existing connection to the Scouts or simply because they were asked to. We should not underestimate the power of simply asking people to volunteer.

I run a local charity roundtable every month. A lovely story was shared with me by the National Literacy Trust. One of its literacy champions, Caroline, began her journey with the trust during the summer of 2022, when she supported some of its very busy Tales in the Park events. Since then, the whole family have got involved. They are always on hand to support the trust’s work. They have run activities that benefit our community, including running literacy activities on Port Vale match days, running a Hallowe’en Booktacular event outside their house, where they gave out books as well as sweets, running a community bookcase outside their house, and supporting many of our local literacy events.

At school, Caroline’s son Jayden ran Look for a Book trails for his class during Kindness Week and supported his school with book donations. He even runs a community bookcase, wheeling out his trolley of books every Friday afternoon for parents to choose and swap books. Having started as a reluctant reader, Jayden is so proud to be a literacy champion and is keen to support his peers in any way he can. He just loves helping people. That is just one example of how inspiring young people to volunteer can encourage them to invite friends and family to join in their voluntary activities.

Jayden volunteers because he loves helping people. NCVO research shows that people overwhelmingly volunteer because they want to make improvements to the communities they live in and help the people around them. When people are asked why they volunteer, the most common motivation is simply the desire to make a difference. People also gain a sense of achievement by volunteering; they make new friends, gain new skills and improve their career prospects.

Not only does volunteering have significant value to society, but a recent report by the British Heart Foundation has found that it has clear benefits to the individual, and it can play a key role in contributing to the Government’s ambitions for increasing healthy life expectancy, levelling up and tackling loneliness. In particular, 94% of volunteers agreed that volunteering had helped them feel less isolated or lonely, 92% agreed that volunteering had helped their mental health and 80% agreed that it had helped their physical health.

Volunteering can take many different forms across all settings in society. One in five recent volunteers have volunteered for local community or neighbourhood groups, the most popular cause: that might include volunteering at food banks or hostels or helping the homeless. There are also many services delivered by volunteers that are deemed essential by the public: the Samaritans, St John Ambulance and Citizens Advice, to name but a few.

I read in the news recently that the boss of the supermarket chain Iceland had said that medics saved his life after he collapsed at last Sunday’s London marathon. He was racing to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK when he became unconscious just a mile from the finish line. He came around to St John Ambulance volunteers piling ice on his chest in an attempt to bring his temperature down from a dangerously high 42°C. Volunteers like these make an extraordinary contribution to our society. They played a huge part in the successful roll-out of vaccines during the covid-19 pandemic, and they continue to support communities through cost of living challenges.

Volunteering also keeps our high streets alive and preserves the heritage of our towns. Let us consider charity shops; we know that high streets around the country could be completely abandoned without them. Without people running things on high streets, we would lose the soul of our towns and cities. Dougie Mac is a well-loved Stoke charity, and I am sure that we can all picture the shop fronts for other charities such as Cancer Research, the Salvation Army and Oxfam. Charities up and down the country are so grateful for the volunteers who run their retail, without which they would cease to exist: the vast majority of their income has to be generated through commercial activities, and without volunteers, that would be impossible. We need to maintain the community input into keeping our high streets alive, and recognise the role that volunteers play.

To come back to local heritage, I love visiting Etruria Industrial Museum in Stoke. It has the only operational steam-powered potter’s mill in the world. It is managed by Bernard Lovatt and run entirely by volunteers. If not for Bernard, this significant heritage site would most likely have ceased to operate, despite being of huge historical impact not only to Stoke-on-Trent but to the history of ceramics manufacturing in the UK. Many of the places that we value, such as National Trust properties, would not survive without an army of volunteers. Passing on our knowledge of history to future generations would be impossible. Volunteering is vital for society, and the Government need to keep recognising that.

Who knows where volunteering can lead? My good friend Danny Flynn, the head of North Staffs YMCA, began his career in the charity sector by moving to London to work as a community service volunteer at a day centre for homeless people. He now runs one of the most successful YMCAs in the country. Under his leadership, many young people are given a helping hand. The monthly community meal encourages volunteer teams from across the city to cook a meal for 100 people in the community. A few months ago, I enjoyed taking the challenge up myself.

Every volunteering journey is different. Danika started volunteering as a community champion with Thrive at Five, a national charity that attends my roundtable. Supported and given the chance to learn new skills, she set up a club to support parents over the summer holidays. She now has a paid position walking alongside parents in their journey through the early years—all because she volunteered.

We know the profound benefit that volunteering has on the individual, on communities and on society, but there are still many barriers to overcome. When I spoke to volunteers at my local branch of St John Ambulance, I was surprised to learn that they have to purchase their own uniforms. That, plus the cost of travel, can be a barrier. I am grateful that the Government have already invested a lot of money in removing some of those barriers and getting people involved. In March 2023, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport launched the Know Your Neighbourhood fund with up to £30 million to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England. However, we can still do more.

Volunteers are not valued enough by society as a whole, and the UK does not even measure the work of volunteers and voluntary organisations, so we cannot fully credit their contribution to society. That said, the scale of the voluntary response to the pandemic was undoubtedly amazing: millions of people looking after their neighbours reconnected the social fabric, but the effect did not persist because people had to go back to their jobs and had less time on their hands. Mid-covid, I wrote an article discussing the importance of supporting the voluntary sector in which I predicted that many of the vast army of individuals who came forward to help neighbours and neighbourhoods would disappear once everyone went back to their pre-covid life. Unfortunately, that is precisely the situation we now face. Levels of formal volunteering have declined and remain well below pre-pandemic levels. In 2017 17% of people had volunteered in the past 12 months; by 2023 just 13% had. That is an estimated 1.55 million fewer people volunteering over the period.

The long-term trend toward greater reliance on a smaller civic core is troubling. It is a real concern for charities: 40% report that the lack of volunteers has prevented them from meeting their main objectives. Small charities in particular, which make up 80% of the 165,000 registered charities in England, are facing huge problems with volunteer recruitment and retention, but this issue has been raised with me even by national charities, such as the Scouts, which make invaluable contributions to the voluntary workforce across the UK but are currently facing challenges in volunteer recruitment. That has led to unprecedented waiting lists and a worrying decline in their workforce.

The increase in need is not being matched by an increase in volunteering capacity. In fact, many charities are victims of their own success. They often deliver vital services that the public value but are not currently or fully delivered through public sector bodies. The voluntary sector is often asked to do more, but not given the funding to match.

Volunteers also need training and support. During the pandemic, an incredible volunteer army helped on every street by delivering shopping for neighbours who were shielding and aiding with the vaccine roll-out. Volunteers who go into people’s homes and work with the most vulnerable need training and support. I became aware of the professional requirements often required of volunteers when I visited one of my local organisations, Birches Head Get Growing, which is a wonderful group that collects and distributes food, clothing, household items, books and toys to tackle issues relating to poverty and waste. Co-ordinating a group of 30 to 40 volunteers and leading workshops and courses is a full-time job.

The belief of local charities and, most significantly, faith groups that we hold the solutions to the problems we face locally and that we can work together with the resources we already have to make an impact that will be an endless legacy for our communities, is truly inspirational, but it is becoming ever more challenging. Interestingly, we are seeing changing trends in the kinds of volunteering people seek: there is a preference for shorter term, more flexible or one-off opportunities. That is a shift from the traditional pattern whereby people provide large amounts of time to one organisation over many years. Although that poses challenges for organisations delivering services, it provides opportunities to attract new and more diverse volunteers.

Interestingly, 53% of new British Heart Foundation volunteer recruits between January and March 2023 were 16 to 24-year-olds, compared with 42% before the pandemic. Perhaps this is an opportunity to think about how we can retain engagement with a younger generation of volunteers, but in doing that, we also need to make sure that we address the fact that younger volunteers in particular are worried about being left out of pocket. Only half of volunteers surveyed by the NCVO said that their organisation would reimburse them for their expenses if they asked. The increasing financial barriers to volunteering are very likely to mean that even fewer people from deprived areas volunteer. The NCVO, which does an incredible job of supporting the voluntary sector, has done a lot of work with MPs through the all-party parliamentary group on charities and volunteering, and we will be publishing a report at the end of May that takes a deeper look at the “Time Well Spent” data on deprivation and volunteering.

When looking for other opportunities to open doors to volunteering initiatives, we should consider the workplace and businesses’ commitment to corporate social responsibility. Many businesses already excel at supporting volunteer efforts and collaborating with charities to leverage employee volunteering to address social and environmental issues. I recently heard from Amazon, which encourages employees to participate in a global month of volunteering to support causes that they are passionate about. Tens of thousands of Amazon employees in the UK will volunteer alongside their peers, adding to the company’s efforts to support its local communities throughout the year. In 2023 more than 43,000 hours were spent volunteering by Amazon employees in the UK.

I am always delighted to hear about everybody who volunteers, even in this place, and my own staff get involved with local initiatives too. Matthew Bridger has pioneered volunteer projects since he was 16, including setting up the Little House Project homeless shoebox appeal, and Izzy Kennedy from my office often volunteers in her local primary school to mentor children who struggle to engage in the classroom. Even in this place, we can encourage our small teams to use their talents and play their part.

People, particularly the younger generation, are increasingly conscious of companies’ reputations and corporate responsibility records. They want to shop with businesses that they see as ethical and are determined to work for organisations whose values they share. We should make it easier for businesses to do this, and work with employers to make volunteering easier. Voluntary organisations need a regular commitment, not the usual three volunteering leave days offered by employers. Will the Minister consider—or has he already considered— introducing a right to request paid leave for volunteering, or amending section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to enable reasonable time off for trustee duties? School governors, for example, are entitled to time off work under section. Trustees play a vital role overseeing charities, but there are currently an estimated 100,000 trustee vacancies.

We could make volunteering affordable by reviewing and uplifting the approved mileage allowance payment. The approved rate has not changed since 2012, despite the costs associated with motoring having increased substantially. While it is primarily aimed at employees, AMA is also used to reimburse volunteers who use their own car as part of their activities. To enable more people to give their time, might the Minister consider a fair, transparent review of the approved rate?

We should do more research into the potential impact of the cost of living on the ability of university students to participate in volunteering. I spoke to Birches Head Get Growing in my constituency, which provides extensive placements for university students as part of the work placement and site supervisor schemes. More attempts to get students to volunteer like that are needed, but the changed situation following the increase in student fees and the cost of living crisis means that students have become less able or less motivated to volunteer.

I have spoken in the past about social prescribing, which is another popular concept, but does not seem to have had the necessary funding attached at the delivery end. The idea is great, moving us away from medicalising every person’s needs and toward helping in a different community-based way. Examples include helping people to tackle obesity by signing them up to healthy activities, or loneliness by promoting participation in group craft activities; but the organisations that run those activities have costs to meet, and those need to come out of the budgets of prescribers. NHS England should work with the charity sector to increase social prescribing of volunteering, to improve people’s health and reduce pressure on GPs and other healthcare services. Departments should better capture and share information about Government-placed volunteers and the onward journey of those referrals. Again on the topic of data, we need to maximise the impact of the third sector “satellite account” within Office for National Statistics data to better understand and demonstrate the value of the charity sector and volunteering.

We should explore specific policy measures, such as the ones I have briefly mentioned, that support and promote volunteering. Alongside that, we should consider how broader policy choices and broader socioeconomic factors affect volunteering. There is currently no effective strategy for volunteering in England. How much does the Minister consult other Departments about the impact on volunteering of policymaking across a wide range of issues? Will he partner with organisations such as the NCVO and draw on the learning, experience and evidence of the sector to set a strategic direction for volunteering?

I am a great believer in trusting the people, so I am keen for those in our local voluntary sector, who work so closely with our local communities, to articulate a strong vision of a collective approach in order to develop a volunteering strategy that works for Stoke-on-Trent. I look to the Minister to develop a strategy that will work for the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Gideon]

It has been an absolute pleasure serving under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I think that we have had a very positive debate. We have all had the opportunity to praise some of our local charities, volunteers, and organisations that work with volunteering. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, volunteers come in all shapes and sizes.

I have to slightly disagree with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) about the mileage allowance. Some people can afford to pay for their own petrol, or diesel or whatever, but if they cannot, that should not be a barrier to them being able to volunteer when they want to.

We have covered a huge range of topics, and I do not want to delay people longer, so I will just say that this has been enormously positive. To misquote Dylan Thomas, I do not plan to go gentle into that good retirement, so this is something that I will continue to fight for into the dusk. I very much thank everybody who has taken part. And thank you, Ms Nokes, for your chairmanship.

Question put and agreed to. 

Resolved,  

That this House has considered the contribution of volunteers.