National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Bird Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20, which is on very much the same lines as those in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bird. We are talking about citizenship and we are all saying that this is one part of what we need to do but it is not enough. We clearly need to go further. We may be unable to go much further in this Bill, but the problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, is there before us in all our cities and in some of our rural areas: young people do not feel part of our society or our political system and they are deeply disillusioned. We want to encourage them to see themselves as citizens taking an active part in our political community and our society.

This scheme deals with society but not with the political community. Therefore, I tabled this amendment, which stresses that the National Citizen Service needs to be seen within a wider context of an approach to citizenship. If the answer determinedly from the Government is that they do not want to do that in this Bill, I suggest that we need to have a dialogue with them about how we take it further forward.

On a number of occasions in the past 15 or 20 years we have all talked about the need for citizenship education. I have been converted to the idea of 16 year-olds being able to vote because it would mean that in education they would talk about their citizenship and how to use their vote. I know that that is a controversial area but it is part of how one tries to get people into our political society. I repeat what I said earlier: if necessary, several of us should propose a sessional committee of the House next year to discuss the concept of citizenship and how we educate and encourage the younger generation into citizenship. That very much includes the sort of things that the noble Lords, Lord Bird and Lord Cormack, are talking about. This is a very important area.

Let us have no illusions: we have a society that is deeply disillusioned and alienated when it comes to politics. Westminster is not respected or liked. I was enormously cheered one evening last winter at a family party in Yorkshire when someone asked me what I did. I said, “I’m not sure you want me to tell you”, and she said, “Oh dear, you’re not a banker, are you?”. She told me that there are perhaps at least two professions that are further down the ranking than politicians, but not that many. For the future health of our democracy and our society, we all need to do something about that. The Bill makes a small contribution towards solving the problem, but not a large enough one. We need a large enough contribution.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 50. I am sorry that I missed Second Reading but I was away. In spite of appearances, I am the father of very young children. There are things that I have to do and that was the case on that occasion.

I am very interested in the concept of a National Citizen Service, and I am very interested in the idea of a rite of passage. However, I would like to see it widened into moving from our obsession with representational democracy, where we get people in the other place speaking on behalf of our citizens, and towards the participatory democracy which we are all talking about, and that is why I believe in the NCS.

We are talking about people getting involved in their communities rather than just whingeing about the failure of national or local government—by whingeing I mean just talking about it rather than doing something about it. All those people who go on demonstrations, sign petitions and do all those things are in a sense on the road towards that kind of participatory democracy. I was on a trade union march last week about defending our libraries, galleries and all that. I took my family, and I was there participating in democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I add my support to my noble friend’s amendment. The scheme before us —the trust—is hugely important in opening doors. It is giving all young people between the ages of 15 and 18 and, with exceptions, beyond that, a chance to have a month’s experience of volunteering. That is what the Bill is about. I fear that we have wandered away from that a bit. However, it is hugely important that we have wandered, so I hope that the Minister forgives me a little.

I take my noble friend’s point that a lot of citizenship should be done in schools: that is right, and it is what those of us who go out on the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme try to do in a very small way and confined space. It has its role, and I am delighted to be going to a primary school this Friday. I have been specially asked to go; it is good for us, too, to be with the young.

I particularly wanted to come back to my noble friend Lord Cormack’s suggestion that we could recognise participation in the scheme in a slightly better way. His suggestion was that perhaps at the end of their month, if they wished—it would not be compulsory—the young person would receive a certificate presented by somebody at the school, or wherever, to give public recognition of the fact that they had taken part in the scheme. That gives two opportunities. First, that person has a certificate, or something important, that they can take away and that makes a difference when they look for jobs in the future, by showing that they have participated. Secondly, and more importantly, it would give other youngsters better knowledge of what opportunities there are out there. So, while the debate has wandered a little widely—and I agree with everything that has been said—there are bits that we can take from the debate that would add value to what is proposed in the Bill. That is why I support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Bird]

I just wanted to add a point to what the noble Lord was saying with regard to schools. I agree with him 100%, but when teachers are saying, “We now have a choice about whether we teach citizenship”, and they do not, there is a profound problem. What is so interesting is that behind all this we have a Government who are prepared to spend £1 billion, or thereabouts, on something that is a great big hole in the middle of society. How do you get children to participate in democracy or learn how to participate in democracy? How do you draw people in to vote and do all those sorts of things?

It is quite interesting that the schools have let us down a bit. This is not a sticking plaster but it is taking the argument to after school: what do children do in the evening and at the weekend? I was almost saved by the National Association of Boys’ Clubs—almost. Unfortunately, they closed them down in the area that I lived in.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Bird Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I want to put on the record my thanks to the Minister for picking up the point I made at Second Reading and then again in Committee about the database held by HMRC being the most complete for this age group. I asked him at that point whether he would consider how we might use that to encourage electoral registration. I was very pleased to hear that something called the democratic engagement team in the Cabinet Office has taken up the idea and is looking at it. The Minister also said in his letter to me, rather cryptically, that,

“I am not in a position to announce anything at this stage”.

I look forward to hearing if not from this Minister then from another how that is going.

I was also pleased to read in the letter that the royal charter will address the question of encouraging participants to take an interest in local and national politics. That is very important, because otherwise this would be just a volunteering Bill. The Bill uses the word “citizen” and is therefore relevant to matters such as registering to vote or participating in local and national politics. I suggest to the Minister that it is worth the democratic engagement team having a conversation with the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as a vice-president—about the work it does in recruiting people who may be interested in becoming councillors, as well as with the local and parish council tier, because young people become parish councillors and make a really good contribution to their local community.

Finally, your Lordships’ Select Committee on Charities, of which I am a member, has heard that there are very few young trustees of charities. This is another area where it would be worth the team looking at whether civic engagement could be extended to becoming trustees.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment on citizenship. I am interested in the difference of opinion that seems to be developing on whether the NCS is a means of building character or a means of building democracy. I am interested in the idea that we have to build democracy within our young people. The ideal of building character is all well and good—the boot camp-type argument: “Go out there and have a wonderful time and get very wet and cold, and work with your comrades and come back and enjoy the experience and join with other people”. That is really interesting, but it lacks an understanding of what democracy is. Democracy extends only to a very small part of our nation, because if you live in poverty you do not live in democracy. Democracy and poverty do not go together.

If we are trying to reach down into the innards of society to help people build a basis in their early years so that they can develop not just literacy but social, political, cultural and democratic literacy, we need to look at opportunities of talking about citizenship whenever they present themselves.

Citizenship is one of the most profound ways we have of bringing many things together. I backed the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, because I believe strongly that we need to unite character building—I am grateful for that and I have done it all; I am the result of a lot of character building—with citizenship, in which we really need our children to participate. Schools are failing in the arguments around citizenship. Many schools do not teach it. If we can, we must build a basis on which our young people get the opportunity to come together and break down class differences, which is of vital importance in building a different world from the one we live in at the moment.

I suggest that the Government need to get behind citizenship and the very idea of why we started the NCS in the first instance. We were worried by the fact that children were not participating in democracy and that between the last election and the previous election, the number of young people voting fell from 60% to 40%. All these things are very much related to the arguments around citizenship.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I support the spirit of both these amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bird, I think that character building and civic responsibility go together and that both are essential for democracy. I deeply regret that the teaching of citizenship, which was introduced by my noble friend Lord Blunkett in the early 2000s, is not taken as seriously as it might be. A lot of schools fail their pupils because it is not taken seriously, but I well understand that this is the responsibility of the Department for Education and it might not want the DCMS to try to push this through the back door. Yet it is a hugely important issue that we should progress.

I am very pleased that the charter says that the NCS should be,

“encouraging participants to take an interest in debate on matters of local or national political interest, and promoting their understanding of how to participate in national and local elections”.

When the noble Lord writes to the NCS, he might suggest that when participants do this specific part of their learning, not only are they encouraged to register to vote but forms for them to register—they can register well before they are 17—are made available by the NCS. This is not political in any way. This is empowering young people to ensure that they are able to use their vote because they registered.

I rather like a lot of things said by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about civic engagement. The department she referred to could do a lot more on that. I found the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the pilot programme quite attractive. It is certainly a lot less than he asked for last time. I do not know what the Minister’s views are but if it is not accepted in this Bill, we should continue to discuss it. The NCS will be a national scheme but it would be excellent if all young people had to do something. I support the spirit of Amendment 3 and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, although I can see that they perhaps do not quite fit into the Bill.