The Big Society

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

The noble Lord, Lord Wei, may be surprised that some of us in this Opposition have, over the years, tried to welcome ideas that bring a little hope—wherever they come from—and the big society has the potential to do this. Yet hope for better things needs reason while exaggerated expectations bring only disappointment. Encouraging the big society should reflect this balance.

Is it just a matter of competition in delivering good public services, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and other noble Lords have suggested? No: we are beginning to see competition between two or three large providers squeezing out the small charity or the local provider, which acts as a discouragement to the big society idea. In practice, measures will have to be devised on a sector-by-sector basis. The altruism that was mentioned by the right reverend Prelate has worked in health, where the NHS, the charities and the research organisations have all worked together because health does not differentiate between people. It has not worked in education because so much depends on the background of the individual student; all the longitudinal studies indicate that. On drug treatment, competition between the public and the private sector has shown that both do well, so each sector has to be considered separately.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, that to encourage people to participate a range of financial instruments is needed that meets the needs and ideals of the big society. Perhaps some of the ingenuity of the City could be directed towards harnessing this. The idea of the big society may end up like the third way or stakeholder engagement or it may just end up with volunteers running public libraries, but it is worth a try.