National Citizen Service Bill [Lords]

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I will, of course, join my hon. Friend in so doing. Former Prime Minister David Cameron is now chair of the patrons board of NCS. The work that he achieved in government will have a lasting legacy. My hon. Friend is also right to suggest that the noble Lord Blunkett has been instrumental in this, as has Michael Lynas, the NCS chief executive. They have done great work to get this far. Let us remember that that has been achieved from a standing start, and that 300,000 young people have now gone through the programme. Congratulations are definitely in order.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

When I went along to the end-of-project session at Somerset College in Taunton Deane, I was impressed by the confidence of the children who had undertaken the course and the skills that they had gained. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in these days when we are trying to upskill our young people and to make them fit for business—even if it is just by teaching them to be polite and to communicate—we ought to promote this scheme much more widely because it has such a great future?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is why we want to grow the NCS as quickly as possible, in a way that is sustainable and that continues to be successful.

We have all seen the sense of self-worth and confidence that working in a team can give to young people, and I have seen them achieving some really stretching targets. That is a fantastic testament to the scheme, and we want to see more people taking part in it. The NCS can break down barriers just at the time when they could become entrenched, and 95% of participants said that the NCS had allowed them to get to know people whom they would not normally expect to meet. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) made that point a moment ago.

Although the programme is for young people, it is not only the young who benefit from it. For example, NCS participants have prepared and distributed care packages to the parents of premature babies in east Durham, raised funds for the Huntington’s Disease Association on Merseyside, and built a sensory garden for the residents of a Weymouth care home. Moreover, volunteering can become a lasting habit. The NCS Trust estimates that in the 16 months following the summer programmes, the 2013 and 2014 graduates did an additional 8 million hours of volunteering in their communities. The Government are determined that the NCS should become even more popular and successful, but adventure and inspiration need to be underpinned by nuts and bolts, which is what the Bill puts in place.

National Citizen Service Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Committee debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and for mentioning the NAO report. He is right that we did not have time to discuss it in any detail on Second Reading. It is a welcome report that did not raise any issues of which I was not already aware. Over the past couple of years we have looked in detail at how the NCS Trust is carrying out its functions. It is right that the NAO raised and confirmed those issues with us. We were already some way down the road to making the necessary changes to ensure that some of those concerns are dealt with. Indeed, one of the reasons for the Bill is to address some of those NAO concerns, because the Bill and the charter will create a new legal framework for the NCS Trust, ensuring that there is proper Government oversight of the trust’s governance and accountability to Parliament for how it performs. The Bill feeds a much stronger accountability process into the system. We obviously want to make NCS the best it can possibly be, and the Bill plays an important part in that.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I believe that the scheme has already shown great promise, but this is a critical time. Will the Minister give assurances that setting up the royal charter will enable us not only to reach the target of 360,000 students, but to lower the cost, which will be essential if the sums are to work?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wilson]

The long-term impact was also raised by the NAO in its report. No current impact studies are under way but there are annual studies of NCS’s impact. The NCS Trust is looking at how to set up the right form of longitudinal study to try to capture this work but has yet to come to any firm conclusions.

The issue about a long-term study is that this is still a relatively young scheme. It has been going since 2011 but is ramping up quickly and the numbers are becoming very significant. The matter is being looked at and is clearly something that we need to get right. It is something that the NAO highlighted and we recognise as important and for that reason we will take it forward.

[Rebecca Pow]

The Minister sparked my attention.

[Mr Wilson]

For the first time.

[Rebecca Pow]

No, no, no. I think this is a terrific scheme and I am deeply interested. Does the Minister agree that it is important to know how much volunteering students do later because, unless one has had experience of volunteering, one might not be inclined to volunteer later in one’s life?

I have talked to young children about this, including one of my daughters, and she gave the example of joining a choir. She joined a choir at school and then a community choir in London, which brings many benefits all round. That is not exactly what we do with NCS but she would not have done it if she had not had that previous experience. That is my point.