Big Society

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I congratulate hon. Members on securing this debate. I am delighted that we are discussing the big society, because its principles got me where I am today. I relied upon them during my 16-year career in the charity sector.

Much of what is great about this country stems from the social action that the individuals, groups and movements of the past provided. For too many years, however, we have come to rely too much on the state. Too often these days we hear, “The council should do x”, or, “Why doesn’t the Government do y?” Society has become too small. Instead, we should encourage people and communities to do x and y, where they can, and that is why I fully support the Prime Minister in his desire to make the big society a big part of our political agenda. If nothing else, he has got the whole debate going—one that has been too quiet for too long. As Kennedy famously put it:

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Those who are cynical and critical of the big society all too often talk about money. Yes, it is important and as a fundraiser I knew that, but the trouble is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, some charities have become too dependent on a single income stream. That was a dangerous precedent which we in my charity avoided, but I welcome the fact that the Government are providing £100 million to help those charities that might be struggling.

In my job, I realised that the most important and greatest commodity that any charity or organisation can enjoy is people: people caring for the community, being neighbourly and having civic pride. That is all incredibly expensive; indeed, we could not buy it with all the money in the world. Such people inspired me as a young boy on a poor council estate to do my bit, and two individuals spring to mind: Iorwerth Rowlands and Jackie Waddicar. Our estate had little money but bags of spirit, and those two people led it to build the facilities of which others became proud and envious. They did a fantastic job despite the low incomes in the area, and that belies the patronising idea that some communities cannot do so because they are poor.

The hospice movement is an exemplar of the big society, and it was my privilege to work in it for more than 12 years. The movement all started thanks to the inspiration of Dame Cicely Saunders, a person who saw the glaring need to care for people at the end of their lives—and did something about it. Today, we see hospices throughout the country, and remarkably the vast majority are funded thanks to the generosity not of the Government but of the public. Most draw on the considerable help of thousands of volunteers to care for patients in both hospices and our communities. Such community ownership, and the community’s relationship with its hospices, mean that people are responsive to patients’ needs.

The hospice movement has had many inspirational leaders who have helped it to evolve and develop over the years. Indeed, Sister Frances Dominica recognised the glaring need to help children through the movement. I spent the previous seven years working for Martin House children’s hospice in Yorkshire, which cares for more than 300 terminally ill children and more than 100 bereaved families every year, at a cost of more than £4 million. Almost 90% of that money comes from the public, and it is a credit to the good people and businesses of Yorkshire that it keeps coming, even in these most difficult financial times. The care that the hospice provides is second to none, and, as one family said to me, the trouble is that it is the service against which all others are measured, and they can barely catch up. The hospice would of course like more public finance, because nobody would say no to extra money, but too much state involvement would dilute the wonderful facility that is Martin House, and heaven spare it top-down targets from Westminster.

Throughout my career in the charity sector, I saw how the big society is working, but I want to see it become bigger. Many politicos who are sceptical about the big society ask, “What does it mean? What does it stand for?”. They want that all-important buzzword to describe it, but they should take it from someone who has spent their working life in it: the big society is so big that no word could possibly do it justice.