National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, we return to the relative calm of the Second Reading debate on the National Citizen Service Bill. I add my thanks to my noble friend for introducing the Bill. I am very happy to support it. It is, as he said, a slim Bill. Nevertheless, it has the very important strategic objective of encouraging and strengthening the development of the National Citizen Service.

Many Members of your Lordships’ House will know of the reports that I have undertaken for the Government on the various impacts of the charity and voluntary sectors. That work has revealed to me just how much we remain a country of silos—silos of geography, race, religion, educational background and economic position. We need to do all we can to break down these silos to create a society that is, as far as possible, sympathetic, open-minded, non-judgmental and that has a greater understanding of our fellow citizens whose lives and circumstances may be very different from our own. This Bill can play an important part in that process.

A focus on social cohesion is, of course, always important in a modern, pluralistic liberal democracy—but it will be of particular importance over the next 25 years. I identify three trends in particular that I think will challenge our society. First, during this period, western Europe and north America will be in a slower-moving part of the economic stream. It is nothing to do with Brexit; it is to do with the ineluctable shift of wealth from the west to the east and the fact that India, China and south-east Asia are the rising economic powers. So our fellow countrymen will probably have to accept little or possibly no increase in their individual wealth while these other countries, which hitherto we have regarded as less well-off than ourselves, begin to forge ahead. This may be uncomfortable for some of us.

The second trend is the next stage in the industrial revolution: the changes that will be brought about by artificial intelligence and robotics. These developments will likely sweep away thousands of middle-income, clerical and administrative jobs—the jobs of people who hitherto have not felt any concern about their economic security. If the experts on this trend are right, unlike earlier phases, this trend will destroy jobs, not create them. That, too, may be uncomfortable.

Finally, there is the projected increase in the population of this country. If the Office for National Statistics—the ONS—is to be believed, between now and 2039 we will have to build 4.2 million more dwellings. That is three cities the size of Greater Manchester. To meet these strains—and there will be strains from these trends—will require a focus on our national social cohesion: the glue that binds us all together. NCS can help provide at least a bit of that glue, and that is why I support the Bill. Having expressed my support today at Second Reading, I will leave three points for my noble friend on the Front Bench and his officials to consider between now and Committee.

First, as I already made clear to him in discussions before we met today, we are missing a trick in the vision that underlies the Bill. There already exists, in addition to the National Citizen Service, an International Citizen Service. I have just returned from a two-week trip to Tanzania, working with Voluntary Service Overseas. One of the days I spent there was with 30 or 40 young Tanzanians who had participated in International Citizen Service with volunteers from the UK. This programme is run by DfID, using charities and voluntary groups to deliver it. It had clearly been a good experience for the young Tanzanians. To follow on from the point made by my noble friend Lord Maude about how surprised people in this country were to understand that they shared common concerns, what impressed the Tanzanians most of all was that they and young British people had the same concerns about finding a job and somewhere to live, about the future of our society, about whether their Government was positive and about the future of their world—the environment and other aspects of it. About two-thirds of those I talked to were still in touch with their UK counterparts via social media.

For better or for worse, this country’s relationships with the world are changing, and it is more important than ever that we reach out, make relationships and create friendships. I do not suggest that International Citizen Service will ever be a mass movement. It will always involve a small number of young people. For example, the three charities in Tanzania working on this programme send about 150 people a year from this country to Tanzania. However, if we were able to build this international aspect into NCS, it could have huge advantages. It could increase the attractiveness of NCS here; it would help the personal development of the individuals who participate; it would make the UK seem open, inclusive and interested in the wider world; and finally, as these young Tanzanians grow up and assume positions of power and influence, we can hope that the UK’s soft power will rise commensurately.

There is much more to be said about this topic but tonight is not the moment for that. I hope that we will be able to discuss it further in Committee. I hope that my noble friend will not fall back on the argument that this programme is from the DCMS and the International Citizen Service is from DfID, so therefore they cannot be combined. That would be turf warfare of the very worst kind.

Secondly, I will touch on the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, about the legal liability of volunteers and the complications for those who volunteer as regards entitlement to social security, benefits, jobseeker’s allowance and so on. Discussions of legal liability and social security entitlements are lands into which the unexperienced vanish without trace. I am no expert on these matters but I would like to register with my noble friend the fact that outside this Chamber in the volunteer world there are concerns about these two areas that I think we will need to examine and resolve at a later stage of the Bill.

Finally, I would like to register my concern about the corporate form that is proposed to give the National Citizen Service its statutory framework. As my noble friend knows, a wide range of forms could have been chosen, but the Government have chosen the royal charter format. I understand the wish to sprinkle a little stardust on the NCS project with the use of the word “royal”, and I understand the wish to raise the NCS above the hurly-burly of party politics, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made clear. Both are worthy aims—but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, I am afraid that there may be some operational consequences.

When I undertook my review of the Charities Act, I received a great deal of evidence about the clumsiness and inflexibility of the royal charter structure. Based on that evidence, I made a number of suggestions for reform which I think still lie in the long grass. If I am incorrect in that assumption, I am happy to be corrected. The essence of the problem is the interlocking authority of Her Majesty in Council, the Privy Council itself and the Charity Commission. The evidence I received suggested that each of these is disinclined to act without the agreement of the other two, which has resulted in a very protracted process of inquiry and investigation, often with voluminous correspondence, about even quite small changes to a charter and by-laws.

It is inconceivable that a new organisation such as the NCS, growing fast, as we all hope, and developing in ways that tonight we cannot possibly foresee, will not want to, or more likely have to, make changes to its constitution and/or its by-laws—and possibly more than once. Therefore, while I understand that the “royal” title is important, there may be some downsides to it. So far I am not convinced that we could not sprinkle the necessary stardust and achieve the necessary oversight with a continuation of the present community interest company, or CIC, formula that we have at present.

If a CIC structure is not good enough, there is a range of what are called “exempt charities”, where a charity has another government department as regulator in place of the Charity Commission. For example, Defra looks after Kew Gardens; my noble friend’s department looks after museums; and, if noble Lords are concerned about the use of large sums of public money, the Department for Education operates all the funding of English universities through the Higher Education Funding Council. Again, these could provide a suitable statutory form for the future NCS.

To conclude, this is a good Bill and it has very worthwhile strategic aims. However, I think that we will make it a better Bill if, in Committee, we discuss and tighten up some aspects of what is being proposed.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

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

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, declared his interest as a member of the board of the NCS Trust. I declare an interest as the Minister who, with my brilliant colleague Nick Hurd, brought the National Citizen Service into existence, and I hope your Lordships will forgive a certain amount of proprietorial pride in what we created and my very deep concerns. As the Bill takes NCS into the next stage of its existence and what I think we all hope will be a permanent place in the life of this nation—with the important role that is now proven to be the case that NCS can play in creating this rite of passage for young people on the journey from childhood into adulthood—I am concerned that we get this right, so I make no apology for the amendments that I and my noble friends have put down or for supporting other amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

I completely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has just said. It is an interesting group of amendments, because they go in opposite directions. Amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, crave more control by the Government, or more scrutiny, oversight and powers to intervene in the management and conduct of the trust. Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, suggests that there should be a chief executive who is the accounting officer, which would make it look and feel much more like a quango or a government department. The noble Lord is nodding approvingly—he is now shaking his head, although I am not sure at which part. But whatever it is, I do not like it. I do not want the NCS Trust, the body that administers this admittedly very large and growing amount of public money, to be something that looks, feels and behaves like a quango.

We deliberately set the trust up at the outset—frankly, against some of the advice we were given at the time —as a body genuinely independent of the Government. It was not to be without scrutiny by the Government—how could that be the case? As I said to your Lordships at Second Reading, I was the Minister who presided over a programme saving very large amounts of public money, and I do not think I can be accused of being cavalier with the use of public money. But the essence of the NCS Trust was that it should be entrepreneurial and able to innovate, to do things quickly and to be agile rather than being subject to endless scrutiny and endless intervention. It was not to become the kind of arm’s-length body that has a very firm grip by the hand at the end of the arm, which is why I and my noble friends have put down Amendments 14 and 15, which would make it absolutely clear that the NCS Trust board shall be independent of government.

That is not to say that the trust could appoint whoever it likes as chairman or members of the board; that is not what we have in mind. It is clear that it has been the case with the NCS Trust so far that the appointment of the chair and the members of the board have been subject to approval by Ministers. It would not have been possible for Stephen Greene, the brilliant chair of the NCS Trust, to have been appointed without us and indeed the Prime Minister of the day approving his appointment. Things were done a little less formally than is proposed here but, none the less, that was the reality. Your Lordships would expect that to be the case and we expect that to be the case in the way that the arrangements will work in the future. Therefore, it is very important to have a clear, bald statement on the face of the Bill to say that:

“The Board shall be independent of Government, with all appointments subject to fair and open competition”.

On the independence of the trust, it is important to establish from the very beginning that this is not to be an NDPB, which is a clumsy formal word for what we all think of as quangos—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations. We have established quite clearly that it is perfectly possible within the nomenclature or the way in which different types of bodies are classified for this, as a very unusual and I would say unique body, not to be classified as an NDPB. That is for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, set out.

This programme has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people. We hope that over the years and decades ahead it will touch and change the lives of millions more. I cannot stress enough to your Lordships how important it is that this is seen to be not a programme run by the Government. Nothing could kill it more surely and definitively than that.

I agree that my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues want this to be set up in a way that enables there to be proper scrutiny and, as a last resort, the ability to intervene directly—because as a last resort the Government will always have the ability to withdraw the funding from the trust and to set up another administrative body if it goes completely out of kilter. Although I have that sympathy, I urge them to keep in mind and resist the tendency that all of us who have been Ministers have seen at every stage: that is, the desire of the government machine to reach out its hand—its no doubt very caring hand—to control what goes on outside the reach of government. That is of the utmost importance for the future success of this programme.

The programme has already demonstrated a very high degree of success with the young people whose lives it has touched and changed. It has attracted the support of political parties across the spectrum, after quite a high degree of initial scepticism, and huge swathes of voluntary bodies from the youth sector and beyond. It has been very successful but it is a fragile vessel that needs to be treated with great care. Therefore, I urge the Minister and his colleagues to take these amendments away and reflect on the fact that this is the way to give the best chance of success for the future and to guarantee independence, subject to scrutiny and the appointment of the chair being made, as we said, by the Prime Minister or on the recommendation of the Prime Minister to Her Majesty; and with the ability of the Prime Minister to approve appointments to the NCS Trust board for the rest of its membership. We strongly argue that there should not be a nominated government representative on the board, which smacks of having a nark in the camp and could undermine the crucial sense of independence that will make all the difference for the future.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 49 in this group. Before turning to it, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. It seems a shame if we should not be prepared to consider positive ways to deploy the very large sum of money in a programme that is already proving itself successful. She expressed concerns about bodies being squeezed out, and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made the point that the National Citizen Service Trust is a delivery operation. The opportunity is therefore for smaller charitable and voluntary groups. I entirely agree with her that there is a danger that they could be squeezed out; we shall be debating that in a series of amendments later on in Committee. The underlying thrust of what is being achieved with the Bill is entirely praiseworthy and we want to make sure that we maintain that. To take some of the details, my noble friend Lord Maude made a very important point about the need for it to be seen as independent of government to give it the best possible way forward.

Where I can be more sympathetic to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, was in her remarks about the way that royal charter companies operate. They are tied into a very inflexible structure, to return to a point that I made at Second Reading. I understand the need for a royal charter, which would have the stardust in it. It is a great thing to be able to talk about as part of the sales pitch for this operation and will help the delivery groups as well. But all the evidence that I received when I worked in the charity world was that a royal charter makes an organisation very difficult to handle structurally.

Your Lordships can see this in the draft charter that has been tabled. If the Committee turns to the way that it deals with charter amendments at article 15, it can be seen to lay out quite an elaborate procedure for changes to the governing documents. The difficulty put to me before, not apropos of the Bill but of royal charter companies generally, is that most such changes have to be dealt with by the Privy Council, which is not of itself very familiar with this sort of activity. The Privy Council is therefore quite concerned about how it is to happen and what the implications are, so there is a good deal of back and forth—of talking and discussions—before a decision can be reached.

At the end of that, while I understand that the National Citizen Service Trust is not directly a charity, it will have a public benefit objective. The Privy Council will not want to find that it is allowing something to happen that could be done by a charity. It would then go off to talk to the Charity Commission. The whole system would start again, with a further series of questions going back and forth, and it would therefore be a very slow process. The Privy Council does not want to appear on the front page of the tabloids for having allowed something to happen which may of itself be undesirable and, even more importantly, would not have been allowed by the Charity Commission. In my view, if the NCS Trust is to be successful—and along with other noble Lords, I certainly hope that it is—and to go from 58,000 young men and women a year to 300,000, there will be changes to this document. We do not know what or when they will be, or how many there will be, but I suspect that there will be a lot of them.

My Amendment 49 is designed to keep the stardust implied by the royal charter but to simplify the procedures for changing the governing documents. It suggests that changes to the constitution, which is the key governing document, would require the permission of the Charity Commission and the giving of notice to the Privy Council, which could complain and therefore block it by talking to the Charity Commission. That would give the control, the proper parameters, that my noble friend Lord Maude referred to as being desirable. For changes to the by-laws, which are so far not extant but will come into being in due course and which are of a lower order of magnitude and importance in corporate governance, notice is to be given to the Charity Commission and the Privy Council. Again, complaints and objections could be made to stop it if required.

Finally, where the board or trust wished to move administrative matters from a constitution of by-laws, this could be done but again notice would have to be given to the Charity Commission. These changes are designed to provide the balance referred to by other noble Lords and the stardust that a royal charter implies but at the same time to enable the National Citizen Service Trust board to move reasonably quickly and to be flexible—my noble friend Lord Maude talked about the need for it to be flexible. It needs to be able to return to and react to changes. This measure would enable it to do so much quicker than in the structure presently envisaged. I hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. As a general point, I agree with him entirely that we want to find a way through all the issues being raised in debate. The point of today is, in a way, to raise these issues, and I certainly commit to us trying, over the next two weeks until Report, to find our way through everything so that we can have a very easy Report stage. We will wait and see; we are only on the first group at the moment, so I will move on.

I turn to the subject of non-departmental public bodies and Amendments 14 and 15 from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The body will be incorporated by royal charter and there is nothing in the Bill to say that it will be incorporated as an NDPB, which is not a legal status but a means of classification used by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office has chosen those particular words to describe a body with certain characteristics, but it may use different words in future. None of this is established in legislation, and there seems little need to define a unique category in the Bill only to say that the trust is not in it. However, I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Maude have had rather more experience in government than I, so of course commit to thinking about this before we come back on Report.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned the accounting officer. I can confirm to him that, in practice, the Government will require the trust to have an accounting officer, as set out in the government guidelines, Managing Public Money. The chief executive will be the accounting officer, as the noble Lord suggested, and will be the person to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. I am not sure about the Permanent Secretary in this arrangement, but I will check and come back to him.

The noble Lord is right that the Bill does not explicitly mention an accounting officer, but we are prepared to think about how that could be clarified. In doing so, we will have to take on my noble friend Lord Maude’s point about how not having an accounting officer is crucial to making the organisation acceptable. I commit to thinking about that and coming back. In practice, there will be an accounting officer: the chief executive.

On the noble Lord’s second amendment in the group, in the case of serious operational or financial issues with the trust’s provider network or staff, the accounting officer would normally be the individual responsible for informing the Government. However, we have left this open in the Bill in case the accounting officer was absent at a precise moment and needed to delegate this function to another officer. If this flexibility were not available, the trust might risk delaying its notification of the Government. As provided for in the Bill, the trust—that is, the members of the board—has that responsibility.

Finally in this group, your Lordships will be relieved to hear, I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for tabling his amendment, as we talk again about the functions of the trust and its governance. We entirely agree with the point that the NCS Trust must not be encumbered by excessive regulation. The royal charter and the Bill have been drafted to ensure operational autonomy for the trust, and we must be sure that its governance arrangements complement this intention.

The amendment aims to prevent a cumbersome process for amending the royal charter and clarifies the role of—or inserts a role for—the Charity Commission. However, the NCS Trust, as a royal charter body, will be a public body. This is an essential point. As it is not a charity, it will not be subject to regulation by the Charity Commission at all, and I suggest that the Charity Commission will have no desire to get involved. The charter contains provision for how it may be amended, without any role for the Charity Commission. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured that the existing amendment process is simpler than he fears.

The amendment would also introduce a process for amending by-laws, again with the good intention of streamlining the process. In fact, we have no intention of introducing an extra set of regulations for the body in the form of by-laws. The royal charter gives the trust a broad-ranging power to do anything calculated to facilitate, or incidental or conducive to, the carrying out of any of its functions. It is also expressly given full autonomy over its own procedures. This leaves it with more freedom than if it had further regulation in the form of by-laws.

I know that my noble friend has come across examples of charities that have experienced the cumbersome side of royal charter regulation, but in this case, the body in question is not subject to charity regulation and will be regulated only by the charter and the contents of the Bill. I hope that I have provided sufficient clarification on this point so that all noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I thank my noble friend for giving way at the end of a rather long and turgid debate. It is not that the Charity Commission wishes to get involved, it is that it will be forced to. The Privy Council is worried that something will be done with a semi-charitable body that will provide a loophole that is available to a royal charter company that is not available to charities generally. I am not asking him to answer the question now, but will his officials look at that between now and Report to be satisfied that the Charity Commission will not, willy-nilly, be pulled in to give its opinion every time the National Citizen Service Trust wants to change the trust?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Of course we will look at that.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 11, after “society” insert “in Great Britain or overseas”

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, the word “aspiration” has been used—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, used it, as did the Minister—and this is another aspirational amendment. It would make a simple change to provide for the activities of the National Citizen Service to benefit society,

“in Great Britain or overseas”,

and it is the “or overseas” that I want to focus on. I make it clear at this stage that my amendment is permissive and not prescriptive. It does not require the Government or the NCS to do anything now; it just enables something to happen in the future. Therefore, it is not “requiring”; it is purely enabling.

In my view, the possibility of developing an international perspective increases one of the attractions of the NCS and, indeed, I think it will be particularly attractive to the more adventurous sort of people who participate in the NCS. It will be a shame if, by limiting it to just a UK view—and the Bill will not be changed again—we do not have the option of giving it a slightly wider canvas in the future.

As I explained at Second Reading, the International Citizen Service—the ICS—already exists. I explained to the House at Second Reading that I have had the privilege of going to Tanzania and seeing it in operation. Slightly alarmingly, they kept referring to the ICS as ISIS. I thought, “What’s happening? Am I in the right room or should I leave quickly?”. However, ICS has operated in Tanzania for a number of years, with 140 to 160 young UK men and women going out there. I met a group of about 40 young Tanzanians and very impressive they were too. They greatly valued their involvement and links with the UK volunteers. Through social media they were sharing experiences and building links between this country and Tanzania. One or two of them were particularly impressive. A young woman in a hijab from Zanzibar, which is 98% Muslim, sought me out particularly to say that it was really good to have somebody from the UK of my age and background facing the troubles that she was facing. She said she was able to realise that people around the rest of the world were thinking about what they were trying to do and prepared to encourage and help them, making them think that they were part of a wider community when things in that country were not always going as well as they might.

In my view, the UK is going to need all the friends it can get in the years ahead. This is not a Brexit speech but a tectonic plate speech. It is about the relative power of the US, China and India, which will shift dramatically over the next 25 or 50 years. ICS, if it is built into NCS, would give us a chance to develop friends overseas and find them growing into positions of influence and power in different countries around the world. Some of the 40 or so young men and women who I saw in Tanzania will clearly rise to the top of that society, and what happens in Tanzania will clearly happen in the other countries where ICS takes place.

When my noble friend comes to reply—I can of course look over his shoulder at the notes that have been written for him by his officials—he will say, “I don’t oppose International Citizen Service; it just shouldn’t be part of National Citizen Service because, inter alia, it is designed for people still at school”. That is all very well but the Bill, as we see in Clause 1(2)(a), refers to people,

“under the age of 25”,

which obviously takes it straight into the chronological bracket of the International Citizen Service. Leaving that aside, other noble Lords have referred to the briefings we have had from the NCVO and other groups about how NCS should be a first step in a journey—a piece in a jigsaw which encourages and leads on to a lifetime of civic involvement. I would argue strongly that building an international piece into our National Citizen Service would provide another potential step, or another potential piece in that jigsaw.

With this amendment, I seek only to include the possibility of an international bit in the NCS Bill because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When the Bill has gone through, our chance of being able to introduce an international element will be gone for ever. This bus will not come round again. I therefore seek this because it fits with the aspirational nature of NCS, because the age range allowed for in the Bill would certainly encompass an ICS component and because it would represent a further step in trying to create a way whereby people became involved in voluntary groups throughout their lives. Last but not least, it would be very good for the reputation of this country. It would build our soft power and reputation around the world over a period when the world is changing fast and we will need all the help and influence we can get. I beg to move.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I do not oppose an International Citizen Service—my noble friend really was looking over my shoulder. But seriously, I thank my noble friend for his points on the potential of international volunteering. We agree that it opens minds and enhances the UK’s reputation abroad. I shall be brief because we need to make progress.

We support International Citizen Service. I am pleased to say that the UK Government are committed to tripling the size of the ICS programme during this Parliament and are working with VSO to deliver that, which means that more than 32,000 volunteers will complete placements during this Parliament. I am in complete agreement with my noble friend on that but I am afraid that I do not agree that the NCS is the place to do it. It does not malign the NCS to say that it does not have the expertise or reach. We are talking about and have been debating where NCS is going to go, how it should be accountable, how it should be controlled and how it should remain flexible. I am afraid we do not agree that to add this extra burden to it is a good thing at this time. On a positive note, however, there are already strong links between the NCS and the ICS. The ICS is already offered as a next step for NCS graduates, who are guaranteed an interview to take part in ICS if they apply when they become eligible.

As for my noble friend’s point about the age group, of course the age group in the Bill includes up to 24 year-olds, but that is simply to allow people who are outside the core group of 16 and 17 year-olds to have access to the programme if they have disabilities or particular circumstances at home. I am afraid that he is hanging too much on that allowance.

To be very brief, we want to make NCS a rite of passage for the young people of this country. This Bill, and the delivery arrangements that it creates, has that intention in mind. It would not be feasible for ICS to operate on this scale, and so the Bill focuses on NCS. I hope my noble friend will take some encouragement from the increased commitment we have made to international volunteering programmes, because we agree with him that they are important. I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment tonight.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his answer and glad that I was able to read his notes so clearly over his shoulder. He will understand that I am very disappointed by his somewhat peremptory dismissal of this concept. International Citizen Service is run through DfID and has no statutory protection at all. If this Government or another Government, or a Secretary of State, were to change their mind and say that we will not have International Citizen Service any more and put the aid budget into something else, it would be gone. One great argument for NCS, which I entirely support, is that it makes sure that it is there for the long term. ICS may be there for the long term, but you cannot be certain of it in the way that we are clear about NCS—that is what we have this Bill for.

I will not delay the Committee any longer—because the Whip will turn around to look at me in a second or two—except to say something about the argument that NCS does not have the reach. As we have been discussing, NCS is going to use voluntary groups to reach out and find the people. The way that ICS recruits are found is by VSO reaching out—beating the bushes—to find young men and women to come forward who would like to do ICS. The process that we are using for NCS, and which will be increasing, is paralleled already by what is going on in ICS. So I do not accept the argument that NCS does not have the reach. I think it is a shame that, as a country, we are not going to use this opportunity to build our reputation. However, it is too long an argument to have out today. I am disappointed by what the Minister has said. I will read carefully what he said, but I may wish to bring this matter back at a later stage.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I say to my noble friend that my response was not meant to be peremptory or discourteous; I was just trying to be quick.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I can tell my noble friend that I was not offended by him in the least. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in my name. I understand the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that the organisation wants to put all its energies into ensuring that it maximises the number of young people going through the programme—that is absolutely right and proper. But I do not regard reporting on the various measures that we wish to be reported on as onerous in any shape or form. When the report comes before Parliament every year, which is a very welcome measure, Parliament needs to be able to judge what is happening and judge the impact of this very important initiative. Unless we have a breakdown of the impact in various ways, we shall not be in a position to judge or to celebrate all the success—nor will we be in a position to say that the NCS is doing a great job but it needs to flex this and that and do things slightly differently. So I am not trying to impede the work of the NCS in any way; I am trying to build trust in the NCS and, unless we have measured impact, we are not going to build the trust that we want to build. It is important that we know the number of participants who have fully completed the programme, which is the subject of one of my amendments, and the extent to which participation targets have been met. They are just measures, and they are sensible and basic ones.

Amendment 30 says that the annual report must compare the extent to which the NCS Trust obtains value for money and talks about,

“comparison with other youth related provision”,

by organisations with similar aims. There are other organisations, such as the scouts, which provide fantastic value for money. I know that the NCS will also provide fantastic value for money, but I want to enable organisations such as the scouts to be able to deliver for the NCS. In due course, the NCS will have to flex how it works to some extent to ensure that the scouts can be a provider, as it were, for the NCS.

Amendment 37 says that the annual report must address,

“the extent to which young people have been involved in setting the strategic priorities of the NCS Trust”.

I do not know the extent to which young people are involved in setting the priorities at the moment, but yesterday I went to a terrific event organised by Step Up To Serve, because it is “I Will” week. It has so many young people on its board, which is fabulous, and they really are setting the agenda for quality volunteering for those between the ages of 10 and 20. I would like to know that young people are really going to be involved in setting the priorities for the NCS, because it is their programme and they know what is best needed for them.

My Amendment 38 says that the annual report must address,

“how many young people have gone onto participate in other social action opportunities, and … the extent to which the NCS programmes impact the wider youth … sector”.

I shall not bang on again about City Year and all those things, but it is part of the journey, so I want to ensure that the report can demonstrate each year that the NCS really is part of the social action journey for young people from 10 to 25.

I am very grateful to the Minister, who in his letter after Second Reading said that the Government agreed that a “longitudinal study” of the life outcomes of NCS graduates was an excellent suggestion and that he was looking to see how such a study could be developed within the work already done to get evidence about the NCS’s long-term performance. That is really important because in a few years’ time, we want to be able to demonstrate that the NCS is making a qualitative difference to young people’s lives.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have one amendment in the group, Amendment 47. It is the last in a group of 18. The prior 17 would impose various duties on the NCS Trust. Some of these seem to be entirely sensible. Measuring the impact of what is being achieved is good, so I very much support the thought behind Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on how many individuals complete the programme, although an annual report that did not contain that would be a sad one. I am less enthused by Amendment 39 about the open-ended requirement to consult the voluntary sector. That seems to be a recipe for a talking shop and would not necessarily achieve very much.

I do not doubt the good intentions behind the amendments in the group, but as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Amendment 47 attempts to go beyond hope, expectation or intention to the reality of what has happened. It would do so by requiring an independent review of the whole of the NCS Trust’s commissioning process. We would thus be able to examine its performance in areas a number of which are the subject of the other 17 amendments in the group.

Amendment 47 focuses widely but particularly on those issues that have been the subject of a good many discussions and comments at Second Reading: how easy is it for small providers to obtain contracts? What barriers have been identified that stop them? What additional benefits have been found for our society arising from the whole process? That last issue has been commented on in the last few minutes, so I will not repeat it, but the Committee needs to be aware of the level of risk aversion among commissioners. It is something we need to guard against for the NCS Trust.

A number of voluntary groups are invited to bid. The fact is that if you ask 12 to bid, there are 11 losers. Therefore, the amount of time wasted on that can be very great. My noble friend Lord Maude has had a valiant blast against the use of pre-qualification questionnaires, or PQQs. That is another hurdle for smaller groups to get over. His weed killer has worked pretty well in central government, but PQQs seem to be alive and well and living reasonably persistently at local government level. Perhaps we need to think about that. There are then lengthy tender documents that take a lot of compiling. Then there are the monitoring processes, which can be very lengthy and extensive, and can be changed in the middle. All those issues and features combine to deter, to put off, to disadvantage smaller voluntary groups.

The day before our meeting last Wednesday a small charity came to speak to me, because I have been involved with this process. It said that it had an example where the commissioner clearly believed it was unsuitable and that it should not be given the job. The charity was persistent, in a rather brave way. It went on to complete the process, against considerable odds and adversity. Then it was disqualified because, in the final contract, where it had to sign the document at the end, the words said, “Sign inside the box”. The signature had touched the side of the box. That was sufficient reason for the commission to say, “Sorry, you haven’t declared, you’re off”. One thinks that this is an extreme example, but these sorts of things come up again and again. We need to ensure this does not take root in the NCS commissioning process and that these non-tariff barriers, if you like to call them that, are identified and dealt with.

The purpose of the amendment is to make sure that we can find out what has actually been happening. It is supported by the NCVO. It provides this important independent overall review, with some special focuses to it. On reflection, I probably would not have chosen a review after 12 months—that is probably a bit too soon. So it might be a review after 24 months, to give more time to see how things settle down, but that is a detail. I hope my noble friend will accept that there is a principle here of something worth pursuing, which deals with some of the other concerns raised by noble Lords on both sides of the Committee, and we can explore how to build it into the Bill at the next stage.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, I was pleased to put my name to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Finn. I support everything she said about making sure that the bureaucratic workload is kept to a minimum so that the NCS Trust can focus on its primary role.

I have great sympathy with the idea of the annual reports and the business plan focusing on particular areas of interest, such as diversification of intake, performance, and so on. But there are a couple of reasons why I think it would be a mistake to put it in the Bill and why this more elegant solution from my noble friend is a better approach. First, we cannot possibly anticipate all the things that the NCS, as it succeeds and flourishes between now and whenever—into infinity—could need to focus on from year to year. Inevitably, those challenges will change and we cannot possibly anticipate every single reporting requirement that might be needed to focus on the issue or the challenge of the day. Today, it might be disability; in three years’ time, it could be ethnic minorities, or anything. To put in a small number of things that we can think of now might focus the attention of the board on reporting things that actually in future years might be less important than others. That would be a mistake.

Secondly, all the issues that have been brought up by noble Lords as important focuses for the business plan and the accounts are covered in the royal charter. In the interests of brevity, I will not read out all the relevant bits of the royal charter but pages 7 and 8 talk about the primary functions,

“enabling participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities”.

The charter says:

“In exercising its primary functions, the objectives of the NCS Trust are … to promote social cohesion”,

and,

“to expand the number of participants”.

The trust is also to,

“have regard to the desirability of … promoting social mobility … personal and social development … ensuring value for money”,

and so on. I think that all the good points that have been made about the sorts of things that the NCS should be reporting on in its annual report and planning for in its annual business plan are covered—perhaps not completely and that is worth a look—in the royal charter.

Having the Bill say that the NCS should report and plan for the primary functions in relation to what is in the royal charter is the correct balance between making sure that the things that we care about are reported on and leaving flexibility with the board to focus on those things that are perhaps more important from one year to the next, rather than putting in the Bill things which might just narrow attention on to a small number of issues, which may not be the most important things in any given year. That is why I think inserting them as primary functions is helpful in clarifying what is important and what we should hold the NCS accountable for, but allowing some flexibility for the board to report on the things that are most pressing in any given year.

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[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I will certainly consider what the noble Baroness has said and will write to her if there is anything more. I think this goes back to what the noble Baroness said at the beginning of the previous day in Committee about the uniqueness of the NCS Trust. The NCS Trust is unique and therefore a direct comparison, especially with the charitable sector, which has been referred to a lot, is not necessarily appropriate. This is not a charity. I take the point that it uses a lot of taxpayers’ money and it must be held accountable but I do not think there is a direct comparison with it as a commissioner of work from the voluntary sector. It is not part of the voluntary sector itself. That is off the top of my head, but of course I will go back and check with my officials that I have not said something awful.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

The Minister gave a very thorough and lengthy reply to all these amendments. I am seeking clarification. Is he saying that the Government believe that an internal letter written by the Government to the NCS Trust and a no doubt very worthy investigative body at DCMS answers all the points that have been made in this group of amendments, that the Government do not intend to make any movement towards any of the points that have been made this afternoon, that in the Government’s view the situation as presently described provides a perfectly adequate balance and a perfectly adequate way of ensuring that small groups of charities are not squeezed out, and that we are going to depend on an entirely internal process with once a year an overview at the very high level from the National Audit Office? Is that where we have arrived?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I do not think that is exactly what I said in the course of my very lengthy remarks, but we are in the middle of two different views here, possibly represented by my noble friends Lady Finn, Lord Maude and Lord O’Shaughnessy on one side and practically all other noble Lords on the other. I may be miscategorising that. We think there should be value for money and accountability. That is part of the point of the Bill and why the National Audit Office will come in, why parliamentary committees can hold the NCS to account and why we have asked it to report in these seven categories. They are not just numeric; they include more qualitative things such as the quality of the programmes provided or arranged by the NCS Trust.

On my noble friend’s point about where we leave it, as I said in my remarks, we think this is a good balance. I said that we would write to the NCS Trust because we expect it to report on relevant provisions, but we do not want to mandate it in the Bill with a host of extra reporting requirements.

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[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his amendment. He reminds us all of the value of heritage railways to this country and how important their upkeep is. I agree that many heritage railways are reliant on volunteers for their maintenance and operation. I also agree that volunteering for a heritage railway can provide young people with many of the skills that the NCS wishes to instil.

On the noble Lord’s concerns about the existing law, I agree that there should be no barriers to young people volunteering their time to support heritage railways. NCS participants work with the local provider delivering the programme to choose a local cause, or charity, to work with during the social action phase of the NCS. Sometimes the provider will invite local charities to present to the young people; sometimes the young people themselves have a clear idea about what they want to dedicate their efforts towards. We agree that it would be wonderful if a group of young people were to choose a local heritage railway as the focus of their efforts—either to fundraise for it or to spend time on site.

I understand the noble Lord’s reasons for tabling this amendment—to seek to amend the law in this area. While it may not be appropriate to do this in this Bill, which does not identify particular areas in which the trust should or should not intervene, I commit to take away the points raised today and to engage with the noble Lord to explore the issue further. There are other things that we need to look at, such as what we mean by “young people” and making sure that it is consistent across the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord accepts my points on this and my commitment to look at the matter further, and feels able to withdraw it for the time being.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I had not cottoned on to this issue before, but I have been listening to this debate. There is, of course, the Canal & River Trust. I am not sure whether a canal would fall within the requirements of the 1920 Act as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

Yes, my understanding is that canals are also regarded as industry, so they would be covered by the 1920 Act.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

That is an important area, where there is a lot of work going on. It is an important charity and it gathers together a lot of volunteers. It is working very hard with regional groups—so if this conversation goes on, could its requirements also be built into the discussion that the Minister is having with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord makes a good point which also illustrates why it takes time to go through all the ramifications; for example, this would not be just canals. I am sure there are many other organisations which might fall foul of the Act that the noble Lord talks about. That is something to consider, and it may therefore be why it is not possible in the time to add it to this Bill, but I will take that on board and I accept the point that it could apply to more than just railways.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

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

[Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, before I address the amendments in this group, I thank the Minister for his comments on the previous group. I did not say anything because I did not think anything more needed to be said, but the amendment is very welcome and a sensible compromise on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

There are two definitions at play in this group of amendments. The first is around the intention of the trust, as it were, in its impact on the wider social action sector, as addressed in Amendments 2 and 4. The other is more about reporting the consequences of those actions, as addressed in Amendment 8. I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I think we all want the NCS to be a spur rather than to crowd out wider social action. Like her, I am extremely committed to promoting the idea of a journey of service.

Whether these amendments are needed is in question. The evidence on the NCS so far is that it is acting as a spur through its commissioning work. It is not a direct delivery agent itself. I forget how many new and established agencies it commissions through its work, but it is clearly already providing income and capacity for the sector and it is difficult to imagine that it will not do more of that as it grows. If my noble friend the Minister were to give a commitment on a review, I hope that would satisfy the intent of Amendment 4.

Amendment 8, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is a bit more difficult because it is about what happens afterwards as a consequence of the action rather than the intention. It would certainly add to the reporting burden. I am also not sure whether it is the sort of thing on which the NCS Trust would have the capacity to report. It strikes me that the noble Baroness is asking for something that is more properly the work of the sponsoring department, rather than the delivery agent itself. Therefore, although I understand why she has tabled the measure and I understand the concern in all the amendments in this group to make sure that the impact is positive rather than one which crowds out other provision, I am not sure that the suggestion in Amendment 8 is proportionate in terms of the functions and purpose of the NCS Trust, nor would it be productive.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall detain the House for just one minute to say a few words in support of Amendment 4, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke. Those Members of your Lordships’ House who were present in Committee will recall that I was concerned to try to involve international citizen service in the National Citizen Service as part of a seamless whole. My noble friend the Minister was having none of this, and has continued to do so, although he has continued to assure me and others that it is not intended that the two should be anything other than locked closely together, but that it would nevertheless be inappropriate for that to be stated in the Bill. That is partially, I think, for reasons of precedent—always the weakest argument in my view—but, more significantly in my view, because international citizen service has a slightly larger target audience. I have accepted this argument and have therefore not retabled the relevant amendment, but the concept of NCS being part of a journey of involvement in civil society and the voluntary movement is important. If I heard the noble Baroness aright, that is the philosophy behind Amendment 4. Since I think ICS would be part of that further journey, along with participation in a lot of other organisations before and after it, I consider the points she made on Amendment 4 worthy of consideration.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I had not intended to comment but something the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said prompts me to add that one of the issues that we have struggled with a little throughout our discussions is an assumption that because NCS as currently constituted is doing something, it will always continue to do so. I think that assumption lies behind many of the amendments that were moved in Committee and those that will be moved today. The noble Lord was right to distinguish between Amendments 2 and 4, which are about intent, and Amendment 8, which is about consequences. It would be very helpful if the Minister could give an undertaking that his department will continue to take into account impacts on not just young people themselves but on the wider sector as time goes on.

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[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I shall speak to Amendment 12 in this group. As the noble Baroness said, I raised the issue in Committee, although I was looking for a review after one year and she is looking for it after five. I am now thinking about three years. It is like Goldilocks’s porridge—a bit too cold and a bit too hot. Three years might be just about right.

It is a few minutes past 10 so I shall not weary the House with a long diatribe about issues that we have already covered. It is really about how we will protect the position of small providers—the ones who are rarely able to get to the hard-to-reach groups—and avoid their getting squeezed out. The noble Baroness has touched on some of the issues that I am sure the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, has been looking into. As I have said, it is a combination of risk-aversion on the part of commissioners and the ease they have in dealing with a single supplier. That can result in a small supplier becoming what is known in the trade as bid candy. That is to say, an attractive, small organisation is put up as the front of a major contractor’s proposal. Not only is the bid candy an unattractive aspect of the situation, the bid candy often finds itself squeezed into the most unattractive part of the contract. The bid contractor takes the vanilla stuff and the small supplier is left with the most difficult aspects of the contract to fulfil.

My noble friend has heard me on this again and again. He will be weary of my saying that I still remain keen to believe that there is a real case for an independent review of the commissioning process after it has begun to settle down and we can see how things are starting to work.

My noble friend said in Committee:

“The Government will be working with the trust during this period to ensure that it abides by the latest best practice for commissioning and procurement. There is a dedicated team in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which works with the trust to oversee and support its contracting rounds and I assure my noble friend that we will continue to review the trust’s commissioning behaviours as a matter of course”.—[Official Report, 22/11/16; col. GC 183.]

I shall not say a word against the good men and women of the DCMS. I am sure they are doing a splendid job but they are not reviewers or commissioners. They have a day job to do; they work in the DCMS. I just do not think they will be able to get into the detail required to make sure that the squeezing out that the noble Baroness and I fear is not taking place. It is too likely to happen.

My noble friend went on to say that as a backstop there is the National Audit Office. Again it is a terrific organisation and does tremendous forensic investigations, but it does so at a very high level. We are talking about being right down in the muck and bullets in how these things work. The NAO is not, therefore, equipped properly to do the sort of thing that my amendment and that of the noble Baroness have in mind.

I hope my noble friend will give this some further thought. It is a small thing to do but an important way of showing the voluntary sector as a whole that the Government, the NCS Trust and this House have the interests of the small provider and the small battalion at heart, and that we will put a provision in place to ensure that—once we test how the commissioning is going and see that it has set itself out in the way that I am sure everybody in the House believes is appropriate—local providers have a real role to play in establishing and building the National Citizen Service.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, can I make a suggestion? If the Minister is not minded to accept either of these amendments this evening, perhaps he might wish to look at the evidence sessions to which the noble Baroness referred, because these things are happening in parallel, and come back to this at Third Reading.

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Given such a strong and supportive statement, I am bound to ask the Minister how he intends to ensure that what he wants to see happen comes about if he is not willing to accept this amendment. I hope we will be able to count on him for his support and on that of other Ministers across the Government in finding a solution to a very significant problem. I beg to move.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I was very pleased to add my name to the revised amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. Along with most other Members of the Committee, I was astonished to find that the law of 1920, which was no doubt introduced with every good intention of preventing the exploitation of young people, failed to distinguish between working as an employee of Railtrack and volunteering to work unpaid on, say, the Bluebell Line. That seems to me a completely different activity. As we explored this issue a bit further, we found that a similar challenge exists with the canals and waterways because the Government—I cannot remember whether it was this Government or the last Labour Government—very creatively came up with the idea of moving the canals into a new charity: the Canal and River Trust. Free from the shackles of Treasury spending restrictions and with a one-off dowry, the charity now has to stand on its own two feet, both operationally and financially. Given the past shortage of funding, there is a huge backlog of maintenance. To tackle this, and to encourage local communities to take an interest in their local canal for all sorts of purposes such as recreation and running and cycling along the towpath, often in highly industrialised areas, the board of the charity has created local partnerships, which means that the bulk of the work is done by volunteers, many of whom are young people working in their holidays and at weekends.

As the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said, the Canal and River Trust, like the railway heritage groups, needs to obtain legal certainty and clarity on its responsibilities regarding the position of young volunteers who work on such activities. If their legal position is uncertain, or worse, I do not know what that means for health and safety and their insurance policies. It seems to me that is a serious problem. I cannot believe that somewhere in the fine print of the relevant insurance policy, it does not say that the policy is void if the policyholder is breaking the law. I cannot believe that an insurance policy will be valid in such a situation. If my noble friend is not able to accept the noble Lord’s amendment—glancing over his shoulder at his speaking notes, I think I can see that he is not going to accept it—I hope he will tell us how we can resolve this problem and give us a clear assurance that someone somewhere in government will be tasked with coming up with an answer to the problem, because it cannot be in the interests of NCS, the country or our local communities to have this situation continue. We must have the will to make sure that we sort it out.

[Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as a former Secretary of State for Transport, I have to say that until this debate took place this evening I was not even aware that this legal restriction was in place. I am sure that if there was a free vote in the House or indeed in the other place, there would be an overwhelming desire to see this situation change and be subject to proper regulation and health and safety requirements so that young people have the opportunity to volunteer and play their full part in these activities. I cannot think of anything more likely to engage the enthusiasm and wholehearted activity of young people, which is not often so easy to engage, particularly with boys, than not only railways but steam railways, which still hold a particular fascination. I am much more in favour of modern railways and high-speed ones but my noble friend is doing valiant work in keeping our heritage going strong. Of course, these heritage railways are present in all parts of the country. They are among the most exciting and well-visited tourist attractions and play a big part in local communities. This seems a thoroughly absurd and outdated constraint, which, with the wit of parliamentary draftsmen, I am sure it must be possible to find a way through.