Social Policy

Lord Chartres Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, hats off to my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for initiating the debate and to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, for speaking with such clarity, courtesy and wisdom that it was difficult to believe that it was a maiden speech.

In his history of the 20th century, AJP Taylor suggested this:

“Until … 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and policemen”.

That is a measure of how far we have come. Clearly, things are very different at the beginning of the 21st century. The big society, as I understand it, is an attempt to reassess the relationship between the state, the individual and the “little platoons”, whose importance in developing the possibility of a creative and democratic society is appreciated and was mentioned by my noble friend the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. Your Lordships will remember Burke’s dictum:

“To love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of publick affections”.

I think that the Prime Minister is aiming at the same target when he says:

“Big society demands a broad culture of responsibility, mutuality and obligation”.

The massive expansion of state provision in the 20th century happened for very good reasons and I believe that we should be proud of it. Charity provision was very unevenly spread and it was gradually accepted that basic services such as health could best be provided on a universal basis. However, now there is a need to rebalance the contributions made by the state and civil society. It is a matter not simply of removing controls and bureaucracy but—this is the crucial point—of empowering community action.

Your Lordships have already heard of the proposal to establish 5,000 community organisers to assist people to establish and run neighbourhood groups. The noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, referred to that. There is a suggestion that these organisers will be part-time and responsible for fundraising to raise at least part of their salaries.

I declare an interest as bishop of a diocese where there are hundreds of church-sponsored social projects and, in particular, a number of community development workers who have proved their worth in recent years. Marlon Nelson, for example, who works in Brent, was recently nominated as a community hero for his work in setting up the Brent night shelter for the homeless. In our little platoon, our aspirations are defined in what we call our London challenge commitments as a diocese, which include the pledge,

“to maintain our presence in every community with a particular bias to serving the poor and vulnerable”.

There is no short-termism here; we are determined to stay for the long term. As is envisaged in the plan to establish 5,000 community organisers, our workers have helped local people to identify their own needs and to enhance their aspirations. I take very much into account what the noble Baroness said about aspirations. They have helped people to take action to exert influence on the decisions that affect their lives and to improve the quality of their lives, the communities in which they live and the societies of which they are part. As a result, the volunteers with whom these community development workers have worked have been energised and given confidence to take action and to get involved.

The crucial point, however, is that part of our experience is that there is a considerable cost to volunteering. Charities, churches, synagogues, mosques and temples cannot simply expand their volunteering without also expanding the infrastructure to provide support, advice, training and, crucially, management of volunteers. In the evaluation that we have done of scores of projects over the past 10 years, we have to confess that failures in management are the most common cause of ineffectiveness. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, has already referred to the fact that state support is crucial in assisting to build infrastructure and to enhance capacity. It is unfortunate that this is precisely the area where fundraising is so unglamorous and problematic. As Muhammad Yunus has argued in Building Social Business, the key is in uniting framework, good will and passion. Good will and passion alone are not sufficient. I should be grateful for assurances from the Minister that this point is really taken on board, as other noble Lords have said.

I have two further points to make, rather more briefly. Incoming Governments are understandably attracted by what is fresh and innovative, but I know that Ministers will be aware that, in addition to the many bodies with a track record in stimulating community action at a local level, there are useful allies in the business of channelling corporate social responsibility and capitalising on the networks that exist.

I speak once more from my own constituency and declare an interest as a council member of Heart of the City, an organisation based in the City of London that provides free support and stimulus to businesses, not only in the City but in the surrounding boroughs, five of which are within the 10 per cent of the most deprived local authority areas in England. The intention is to develop the corporate social responsibility programmes of the businesses in those areas. Communities are of course not only geographical but expressed in networks; businesses are among the most significant of such networks. In the past four years, Heart of the City, funded by the City of London Corporation, has advised 800 businesses, large and small. One thing has become clear, which is crucial to the message of the big society: active participation in volunteering programmes can develop the skills and competencies of employees in a way that assists the reputation of the business, staff recruitment, retention and motivation. Aligning self-interest and the common good has moved corporate social responsibility in the best companies from a tick-box add-on to a board-level concern and a key part of corporate strategy. That will be immensely enhanced by appropriate government rhetoric.

Finally, I declare another interest in my too extensive portfolio: I am chairman of the Church of England’s buildings division. The UK, as we all know, ceased to be a confessional state in 1829 and thereafter successive Governments have rightly been committed to a free market in religious ideas. Frequently, however, where public policy and the aspirations of all the faith communities coincide, there is great potential for partnership. This is true for all the faith communities represented in your Lordships’ House. However, let me give just one example. There are 16,000 parish churches in England. They constitute a countrywide network that endures in the inner cities and rural areas where places of public assembly and service are in short and diminishing supply. There are now more parish churches than post offices; indeed, there are already 12 post offices that operate from church buildings. There is a growing trend to return church buildings to their original function as places of worship and as places of assembly and celebration for the whole of the local community.

As part of our contribution to the debate on the big society I should like to make a big offer—to work with government and local authorities to develop a strategy for helping places of worship to be more serviceable community hubs, in addition to their primary purpose. At a time of financial stringency and when the green agenda is clearly understood, it obviously makes sense to maintain and develop such a significant national asset. It would cost billions of pounds to replicate the countrywide social infrastructure that such buildings already represent. Any assistance would of course depend on a proven determination and agreement to equip places of worship for wider community access beyond the ranks of regular worshippers, but modest investments could yield large dividends and make a significant contribution to moving the big society from romance to reality.