Big Society

Debate between Jon Cruddas and Robert Halfon

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Just to let the hon. Gentleman know, the Select Committee on which I sit, the Select Committee on Public Administration, is responsible for civil society and is doing a lot of work on it as we speak.

[Jon Cruddas]

I take it then that the plan for a Select Committee on civil society is suspended for the time being because it is covered by the Public Administration Committee.

I have to make an admission: I quite like the notion of the big society. It returns us to issues of duty, obligation, service and contribution that should be the hallmark of all political parties, so I do not think that a monopoly is obtained by any party. Moreover, I resist the simple notion that the big society is a sham and simply a veneer for ideologically driven cuts, not least because, as the hon. Member for Dover said, the Prime Minister’s attachment to that agenda predates the economic crisis and the onset of the cuts. I have read a number of what are supposedly the key texts in the big society debate. I refer hon. Members to the pamphlets of the hon. Member for Hereford and South Hertfordshire on compassionate conservatism and compassionate economics—his big society book.