Social Policy

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester on his excellent and thoughtful opening speech. Like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wei, on his excellent maiden speech. He made some very kind remarks about your Lordships’ House. I do not want to disabuse him but he comes to the House probably as its youngest Member and I have been speculating in the light of the coalition’s agreement on reform of the House how long he is likely to remain a Member. Past history suggests that it will probably be quite a long time.

I also congratulate the Minister on her appointment. She has made a considerable impression on your Lordships’ House and I am very glad that she has been given such a senior responsibility in the Government. I know that we are all looking forward to her response to tonight’s debate.

Underpinning the debate has been the recognition of what civil society contributes to our nation. It is immense. It is one of our greatest strengths. For me, it is part of what being British is all about. Without civil society, government would be well nigh impossible. But I believe that, in our debate, there is a warning here for government. Civil society, however much it has to offer, cannot be a substitute for essential government action and intervention. As we prepare for draconian cuts in public expenditure, let me warn the Minister that simply to dump extra responsibilities on the third sector, without the resources to accept it, risks harming the most vulnerable in our society. Will the Minister assure me that she has no such intention?

There is so much to celebrate in civic society. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her leadership in this area in the past few years. Let us think of the extraordinary level of volunteering in this country. From individual carers to the hospital leagues of friends to sports clubs to youth groups—they are all dependent on dedicated volunteers.

In his extremely interesting speech, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, listed some of the most worrying signs about our society. Of course, the UK is not alone and we certainly cannot be complacent. I believe that the endeavours of volunteers up and down the country are a rather more positive sign of a healthy and vibrant country. In the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury, we are not just a “me-me” society. I agree with my noble friend Lady Kennedy about our rich asset of social capital, as she described it—the potential idealism and the energy of young people—and with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who referred to the contribution of older people who often are the bedrock of our civil society.

I do not ignore the contribution of the church itself and those of other religions and faiths. We were reminded by the most reverend Primate that in our most vulnerable communities it is the vicars and ministers who still live among their flocks and who, as a result, speak with great authority. He also gave us a marvellous illustration of John Morgans’s work in Penrhys. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester spoke about 500 faith-based organisations in his own diocese, or in Chester, the role of the church in restorative justice. But it is not just faith-based organisations. Indeed, noble Lords will have received a pithy circular from the British Humanist Association to remind us that we must recognise the value of communities as a whole and the contribution that humanists as well as religious people make.

We had an interesting discussion about citizenship. My noble friend Lord Judd reminded us that citizenship is not to be confused with consumerism. The most reverend Primate talked about citizenship and on the need for people to be taken seriously, and argued for an active citizenship where the happiness of individuals is reflected in the happiness of their neighbours. I also warmed to the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, about individuals and communities; how they can sometimes achieve great things against all the odds and solve entrenched problems.

Nor, I would suggest, should we ignore the role of politics. Political parties may not be the most popular of institutions, but as we know here, they are comprised of thousands of volunteers who make a tremendous contribution to their local communities and our democratic health. They are the most visible sign of active citizenship.

What is the big society? A number of noble Lords have had a go at defining it. I, too, have read a number of Conservative Party papers that have been produced over the past year, but to be fair I am not sure that, having studied them carefully, I am all that much the wiser. Taking them at their face value, they seem to argue that the previous Government, the Government I was proud to be a member of, put too much faith in laws and regulation, and in so doing crowded out social responsibility and undermined communities. I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with that assessment. I would just say this to the noble Baroness: the minimum wage, equality legislation, and reform of the NHS. Yes, sometimes we did set a few targets and sometimes they were onerous, but I doubt very much indeed whether we would have virtually got rid of hospital waiting lists without action like that.

I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, in response to what I thought was a very interesting contribution, that, like the noble Lord, Lord Martin, I believe in the active state, but a state underpinned by democratic legitimacy and humanitarian values. It is about inclusiveness, as my noble friend Lord Judd said, and a sense of the empowerment of individuals and communities. What else is the Sure Start scheme there to do? Why did we develop the Pathways to Work projects for people who had been on incapacity benefit for a long time? To see the way in which people who have been away from work for years have been helped to go back to work has been one of the most uplifting experiences I have gone through. Surely that is an example of how the state can be active in helping and empowering people.

On the question of trust raised by the noble Baroness, I too have read and reread the Reith lectures of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and they are very profound, but I do not accept that my Government set out to undermine trust in professionals. What we attempted to do was to work with professionals in order to ensure that they were properly accountable for their actions. Would she argue that we should not have been concerned about the widespread differences in the clinical outcomes of clinicians, the widespread inequalities identified by my noble friend Lady Kennedy, or indeed the professional regulation of social workers? Did not the outcomes of the Victoria Climbié or Baby P cases show that you cannot leave it to professionals to police themselves; there has to be some external scrutiny as well?

There are proposals in the big society agenda for public sector reform which, I gather, aim to cut costs, improve standards and encourage social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to take on service provision. However, the previous Government did much to enhance the role of the third sector, as my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley outlined. As to the policy of empowering consumers and enabling parents to start new schools, communities to take on local amenities, such as parks and libraries, under threat, and putting neighbourhoods in charge of the planning system, of course some interesting projects and ideas will come through which are worthy of support. However, my noble friend Lord Patel put to the Minister some very pertinent questions. Will these groups be able to provide the necessary year-in year-out services? How will you prevent gross unevenness in provision or planning decisions?

On the issue of planning, I have put my former energy hat on and I am thinking of wind farms. How will the Government deal with the conflict that at a national level you have—and I am sure will continue to have—targets for renewable energy while empowering local groups to make decisions that will prevent the wind farms being built? That is one of the essential tensions that the Government will need to answer.

In regard to the poorest communities, how do you prevent this kind of action creaming off services and people? How do you prevent vested interests taking over, as the noble Lord, Lord Wei, reminded us? The noble Lord, Lord Low, identified perhaps some of the most important questions in any renegotiation of the boundaries between the state and civil society. My noble friend Lord Judd worried about voluntary organisations being seduced from being a catalyst in society for change to one of being hidebound by the cares of providing services. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, spelled out some of the risks arising from a loss of voluntarism and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley worried about a loss of innovation and advocacy capacity.

Again, as my noble friend Lord Patel asked, where will the resources come from? We are promised a big society bank to provide funding for independent intermediary bodies—it will be there to help generate extra millions of pounds—but what if the resources are not generated sufficiently to enable these organisations to pick up any gap left by the Government? We need to know the answer to that.

In considering the role of government and the role of civil society, a number of noble Lords mentioned Beveridge. We should remember what the provision of healthcare was like in society before the foundation of the NHS. It was a rag bag of local authority, voluntary and private sector provision; it had patchy services and the cost of being ill was dreaded by many people. The NHS was created to change that. It is the most visible sign of government intervention and we are the richer for it.

Yes, civil society has much to offer; and yes, the boundaries between government and civil society will change. I am happy for civil society’s role to grow, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said, in a partnership of equals. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, that more needs to be done to persuade statutory organisations of what civil society can bring to the table. He put forward some excellent ideas and I hope the noble Baroness will agree to look at them. However, whatever the potential of civil society, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, in the end state support will be essential too in order to protect those who need protection.

Of all the questions put to the noble Baroness in this debate, the one she must answer is this: what do the Government believe is the role of the state? I hope she will agree that, whatever the potential of the big society or of civil society, ultimately there is a role for government.