The Big Society

Lord Bishop of Norwich Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, you cannot make people more altruistic by telling them to be so, and you cannot make them more neighbourly by instructing them to be better neighbours. We tend to learn these things by participation in intermediate institutions, larger than the family, of which churches are a good example but far from the only example. Not long ago, I commissioned 24 street pastors in the city of Norwich, who joined an already large body of volunteers. They are on the streets late at night, well into the early hours, particularly at weekends when many young people are often at risk and some are in danger. They simply offer friendship. They have been appreciated by the police, who value the assistance that they give to the distraught and the disorientated, the lost and the scared.

I use the street pastors to illustrate two important things about participation in the big society. The first is that they already have experience of being part of a body of people seeking both to care for each other and to serve the common good—in their case, of course, within a church. Secondly, they work in teams and with others; they do not operate as atomised individuals.

We learn to value ourselves and others in our families, of course, but we know too many families are broken and unloving. You cannot love your neighbour, as we were told a very long time ago, if you do not love yourself. So we need broadening communities where we learn to value ourselves and others—not only churches, but voluntary groups and societies, uniformed organisations and, indeed, any group not focused simply on itself. Do we do enough to nurture these intermediate institutions? Have we sought to liberate them from unnecessary bureaucracy? Do we truly invest in them? I guess that most of us in this House are inspired to service within such institutions—churches, trade unions, local political parties—and that is where participation in the big society is fed.