Big Society

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing today’s debate on what is clearly an important issue. There has been a degree of cross-party consensus, but there are also a number of points on which we have diverged, and I shall deal with them shortly.

Although the Government coined the term the big society, they did not invent the concept. Many hon. Members have pointed to the fact that this is not a new idea. The truth is that for volunteers and for charitable and voluntary organisations across the country, the big society already exists and has done for a long time. They know that, because every day throughout the country they are delivering the big society in our communities. Indeed, much of the language of the big society simply builds on a rich tradition in this country of community, localism, co-operation and building a better society for all.

Many hon. Friends have highlighted that in their contributions. My hon. Friends the Members for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) highlighted the need for the state and civil society to work together to tackle social problems, improve services and empower our communities. They demonstrated an outstanding grasp of the need for voluntary sector organisations and communities to have a framework of support, and not to be just left on their own. We also heard a number of erudite speeches demonstrating our strong philosophical basis for encouraging active citizenship.

Many Government Members, including the hon. Members for Dover, for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), for Stourbridge (Margot James), for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), for Erewash (Jessica Lee), for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and for Battersea (Jane Ellison), rightly paid tribute to the excellent work undertaken by volunteers in their constituencies. However, they failed to grasp the notion that the state can facilitate voluntary activity and community enterprise. We heard only about the repressive nature of the state, not that it could support communities in being more vibrant.

The previous Labour Government understood the voluntary sector, particularly its expertise and ability to be flexible and innovative, and we worked hard to support it. How much we valued the sector is highlighted by the fact that in our 13 years in office we more than doubled funding to it and created the Office of the Third Sector—now the Office for Civil Society—in the Cabinet Office. Labour was not content to rest on its laurels, however. Before we left office, we set out radical plans for boosting funding, volunteers and asset transfers to the third sector. We also designed the social investment bank and launched the first social impact bonds. We used the asset register to begin identifying assets to transfer to the third sector, and we announced that we would mutualise British Waterways. We pioneered community service for young people, which was established as “v”, and began a census on volunteering so that areas would know about the nature and extent of volunteering locally.

The current Government are to some extent continuing what we started in office through their broad direction of travel, such as by encouraging volunteering, supporting and seeking to expand the number of social enterprises and third sector organisations, and looking at ways to enhance the role of mutuals and employee-owned companies. That is why we support the motion—encouraging a greater sense of community and more partnership with the voluntary sector is something we should all support.

Even before this Government took office, they trumpeted the big society, and in office they point to it as a central tenet of their policy agenda. Yet earlier this month, the Prime Minister had again to defend the notion against persistent criticism, even though he has declared the big society his central “mission”. Given the six years that he has apparently been thinking about this idea, one can only wonder why, in office, he is not clearer about how to execute it. There is a gaping chasm between the well-meaning intentions of the hon. Member for Dover and his motion, and the reality of his party’s economic policy.

When the Minister, whom we will hear from shortly, was asked two weeks ago on the radio if the big society was in trouble, he flatly denied it, saying:

“I don’t think there’s a problem”.

However, the truth is that the Government are in danger of undermining the big society if they do not pay more attention to three things, the first of which is developing an infrastructure of support for the voluntary and community sector. The Government have not given enough time for the voluntary sector and communities to develop new models of operation or to plan effectively for their futures in the new world. They should be working together in partnership with the voluntary sector and constructing frameworks of support, rather than adopting the “sink or swim” mindset we have seen so far.

The Opposition see a key role for social enterprises and mutuals in improving service delivery. This means supporting social enterprises and mutuals and helping them to improve service delivery, and seeing a key role for community organisers in helping communities to articulate their needs and shape services. The Opposition also recognise that new jobs can be grown, including in disadvantaged areas, in order to promote employment, and that this can be done through the social enterprise model. We see this as a partnership approach, with the state acting as a key player in helping voluntary activity to flourish. That contrasts with an approach, much seen of late from the Conservative party and demonstrated in a number of speeches today, that advocates a withdrawal of the state and a characterisation of it as overburdening and a barrier to voluntary activity. The state can sometimes act in a way that is not helpful, but that is not always the case, and it can be encouraged to behave differently.

[Damian Collins]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Very briefly, because we are running out of time.

[Damian Collins]

On that point, are there any areas of deregulation that the hon. Lady can identify where she thinks we should move back from the agenda established by the previous Government?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and we can always look at ways in which the state or central Government can better facilitate voluntary activity.

Our approach is based on the view that involving the voluntary and community sector more in public service delivery helps to create more responsive public services that are better geared to meet the needs of the communities they serve. This is not simply an ideological rejection of the state, as we often hear from the Conservatives and as exemplified in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and others, which was not selected for discussion today. Our partnership model, therefore, does not require an abandonment of the belief that the state should be the ultimate safety net in delivering vital public services.

We, too, recognise the need to make commissioning more community-oriented, and we therefore welcome the debate that has already begun in government about how to commission services with greater involvement from local communities. This is an important step forward, although much of what has been written and said so far does not seem to reflect the complexities existing in our neighbourhoods and the diversity of voices they contain. It is essential that commissioning involves more than listening to those with the loudest voices.

We also recognise the need to expand philanthropy and individual generosity, but that should not be the whole story. We need a sensible alliance between Government and the voluntary sector to encourage entrepreneurial activity in a way that promotes social values and empowers our communities. Labour recognises that the Government are starting to do this with the big society bank—taking over our idea of a social investment bank—but we also know that it is not going to be operational until much later this year and that the money it will dispense will not make up for the huge amount being lost to the sector through cuts to central and local government funding. So the Government need to address how the big society is being undermined through the cuts

The Government also need to look at how the big society agenda is not really engaging with the equalities agenda. That is important, because communities do not start from a level playing field, and the Government need to do more to recognise that some of the cuts have fallen disproportionately on the poorest communities, which therefore need additional support.

In conclusion, we should all recognise that where we have unresponsive or poor public services, they should be changed and other providers brought in, but we also all need to recognise that the state has a role to play in mediating the vagaries of the market and tackling social injustice and inequality. We need the state and civil society to work together. Simply withdrawing state services and funding before leaving voluntary and community organisations to pick up the pieces will not make our society bigger or better.