Communities: Charities and Volunteers

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is keen to speed on, but I should just like to say that she has already made a great impression on the House and on the sectors for which she is responsible in the time that she has been a Minister. In that spirit, will she take account of the rural areas such as the one I represent with regard to the things that she has said? They sometimes miss out, and it would be great if we found some means by which we could get her to come to places such as Lincolnshire to evangelise the case that she has made so powerfully today.

[Mims Davies]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we should not forget our rural communities. We should work on this through the loneliness fund and the building connections fund, and I have more to say on that. I absolutely must speed on, but we need to make sure that we can cater for everyone across the land.

Moving on to youth opportunities, we need to harness the energy of young people and ensure that they have the opportunity to contribute to their local area. Volunteering provides young people with many of the skills that they will need later in life, and we are reaching out to the next generation to give them more opportunities to get involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Sir John Hayes]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would consider the dichotomy at the heart of his argument—I used the word “argument” in the most generous spirit. The dichotomy is that he is arguing that this increase in digital communication is beneficial to community, but he must know that online shopping is destroying local shops, online media is destroying local newspapers and the virtual relationships he has described are not comparable with real relationships. Clearly, he is doubtful about his own relationships in Croydon, because he has already told us that people do not like politicians. Perhaps he should get out into the real world and leave the virtual world for a few minutes.

[Mr Reed]

What is destroying our high streets are the right hon. Gentleman’s Government’s business rate hikes.

The community and voluntary groups that are part of all of this innovation are pointing the way forward, not only to a better society, but to a new politics—not the centralised state or the marketised state, but the collaborative state, enabling an open, participative and hopeful approach. This new people-powered politics will help us find a way to tackle the great social ills of our time, one of which the Minister referred to; loneliness in this country has now reached epidemic proportions. Loneliness is the product of the breakdown of the family, the fragmentation of communities and the cuts that have taken away support services. The Local Government Association now points to an £8 billion funding shortfall in social care services, but we also see long working hours, low pay, investment and jobs deserts and the hollowing out of communities. All of that has contributed to this situation, but, sadly, no single piece of legislation can put a problem that complex right. The answers lie in our communities, in strengthening the bonds between people instead of atomising them, and in building up community assets instead of closing them down as the Government have done. Communities are already doing much, but if we had the courage to open up power and resources to them, they could do so much more.

Our country is at a crossroads. The Brexit debate has crystallised the deep divisions that separate us from each other and the anger that has driven it. We need to come back together, but that will not happen from the top down. We need a new, more open politics, one that is more participative, embracing the collaboration and kindness that all of us, as MPs, see in our constituencies. For that we need a Government who recognise and celebrate the central role of civil society and communities, and are ready to invest in them, not cut them to the bone. That is how we can genuinely let people take back control, so they can build the compassionate country we have the potential to become.