Community Cohesion

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Phil Wilson]

I will not do it again. Thank you for pointing that out, Mrs Main.

I am worried that the Government are raising expectations about what the third sector should deliver, but they are about to embark on cuts that will damage the capacity of civil society to deliver. That brings me to the nub of my argument. How can the Government fulfil their big society agenda when they are cutting funding and dismantling the infrastructure within which a big society can flourish? Because the cuts force people into volunteering, as they have no other choice, what we have left is not a big society but a coercive society. That is the kind of society that the miners of Durham found themselves in because the community at large had abrogated its responsibilities, which is what this Government are doing.

I am not the only one saying that about the funding cuts; the charities are too. From what I understand, a recent press release from the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations estimated that the voluntary sector

“will lose more than £1 billion in the 2011-12 financial year and more than £3 billion a year by 2014-15 as councils terminate grants or buy fewer services.”

As the Government try to push their big society programme, the ACEVO warns that:

“if the scale of the spending cuts to councils were passed on to charities the voluntary sector would be ‘decimated’. Charities are already facing pressure from VAT rises and the loss of Gift Aid relief.”

If the charities themselves are saying that, is it not time that the Government listened to what they have to say?

Before we on this side of the Chamber are lectured by the Government on the economy and their belief that they need to cut as deeply as they are cutting because of the deficit, I just want to say that I do not think that we can be lectured on those things any more, especially as the Chancellor gave a three-minute interview on the BBC yesterday in which he blamed the weather for the economy’s problems 24 times. If the Government want to build a big society, they need to re-examine how they are going to fund charities and the third sector.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I have been listening very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has been saying. Surely, however, he will acknowledge that his own party, when it was in power, had identified that it would make £44 billion—I think that was the figure—of savings or cuts. Is he saying to hon. Members today that none of those cuts would have affected the voluntary sector in any way?

[Phil Wilson]

We would have done two things. First, we would have made sure that, as far as possible, we did not damage front-line services. Secondly, we would not have raised expectations, as I believe this Government are doing by saying that they will create a big society while at the same time undermining that big society by slashing and burning all the grants and facilities that provide for the third sector. We would not have done that.

We also need the Government to consider what they can do other than providing for charities and the third sector, because the big society involves more than doing just that. For example, one of the issues in my constituency is that some private landlords are neglecting the properties that they own. Those properties were owned by the National Coal Board many years ago. They were then sold off, and people bought them to get on to the property ladder, before selling them on. Private landlords came in and bought them. Now we have a problem, and I believe that, if we are not careful, whole centres of communities will be sucked out and the community spirit will be sucked out too by the behaviour of some of those landlords.

Labour introduced selective licensing schemes, which I am pleased to say the Government have allowed to continue. However, we were also going to introduce a national register for private landlords, which would have meant that you had to register in communities such as mine before you could go on to rent out properties. The Government are not introducing that register. I know that private landlords are not necessarily the Minister’s responsibility, but he has responsibility for the big society. He needs to discuss this issue of private landlords with the Department for Communities and Local Government, because it is ripping the soul out of some of our local communities and needs to be sorted out.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this important debate. Like the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), when I saw “Community Cohesion” on the Order Paper, I was confused about what this debate would address. I started preparing for a debate about community cohesion and stopping the radicalisation of young people. Then, fortunately, I received the Library briefing, which made it clear that we would be discussing community cohesion and the big society. I am pleased to discuss that as well—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that the debate is about community cohesion. As the previous speaker felt free to explore the terminology, the hon. Gentleman is free to explore it however he sees fit.

[Tom Brake]

Thank you, Mrs Main. For the purposes of this debate, a discussion of projects to reduce radicalisation among young people might take us off the agenda that other Members intended to debate. Also, the Minister does not have responsibility for that particular aspect of Government policy. I intend to focus on the big society. My borough, the London borough of Sutton, is one of the four lead authorities on the big society, so the issue is close to my heart.

As the hon. Member for Sedgefield said in his opening remarks, it will clearly be harder for the Government and people throughout the country to deliver a big society agenda against the nation’s current financial backdrop. We have the largest budget deficit in the G20. The Government are rightly taking measures to address that, and many organisations will be affected. I intervened on him to point out that his Government accepted that such action would be necessary. I was not aware of any suggestion in his remarks that the voluntary sector, for instance, should be ring-fenced from the budget cuts. I was hoping that he might set out an alternative approach that took into account the fact that we face difficult financial circumstances. However, he did not do so, providing us with a list of things that he did not think the Government should cut rather than an alternative approach to deliver the £44 billion in savings that his Government would have made, if they had been elected on 6 May.

On the big society, I make an unashamed plug for the work being done in the London borough of Sutton. The borough is concentrating on four things. It is developing the Sutton Life centre. It is concentrating on the public transport agenda, particularly smarter travel. It is progressing health provision, GP commissioning and ensuring that local people and the local authority have a bigger say in health provision. Finally—this is the area that I will focus on most—it is developing the Hackbridge vision, which is a grassroots effort. That is what the big society should be about. The community is driving a project to make Hackbridge the most sustainable suburb in the country.

The Hackbridge project has already got off to a good start. Members might be aware of a residential development called BedZED, which has been widely covered in many colour supplements in recent years. BedZED has received visitors from all over the world. When I catch the train that goes through Hackbridge, I often see visitors from every country in the world getting off at Hackbridge and going to visit the development. It will form the core around which the rest of the initiatives will be developed. The community, local authority and developers are all working successfully to develop the concept. I am sure that renewable energy plants will be delivered there. The local landfill site is already putting energy back into the grid using turbines. That is exactly what the big society is about—a grassroots movement to develop a community sustainably and with the support of local people.

I will mention a couple of exemplars. When the local authority identified the need for a children’s centre on the site of Amy Johnson primary school, the borough could offer only limited cash to the school. It said to the school, “We have £180,000 that we’re going to spend on developing this.” The school governors came back and said, “Give us the money and we’ll do it.” The local authority said, “Okay, but we will not give you £1 more than £180,000.” The school governors and parents went away and designed a project that ended up with 40% more floor space than what the local authority was going to offer. It was also designed to their specification and delivered within the £180,000 envelope. In addition to the voluntary contribution from the school governors, the school caretaker, who had worked in the building trade, took on a lot of the project management. That is a good example of what can be done in big society terms.

Another initiative is the Wandle Trust, which has taken over responsibility for maintaining the River Wandle from the Environment Agency. It is involving many more volunteers than the Environment Agency could ever hope to. Another example is Gaynesford Lodge, which provides day care for senior citizens. It is looking at setting up a social enterprise to take on responsibility for providing that service, and I hope that it will receive advice from the Government to help it to do that.

Earlier this week, I was at an event where the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers talked about the role that its businesses can play in the big society. That might involve providing training or business mentoring to young people. Its members are therefore keen to get engaged.

I carry out an electronic poll once a month, sending out e-mails to about 6,000 constituents. One of those straw polls was about the big society, and I am pleased to say that 53% of the people who responded said that they would want to get actively involved in big society projects. There is, therefore, a real desire to get involved.

Let me read a couple of comments from people who responded to the poll. Sarah said:

“I believe this is a good opportunity for the community to work together for the common good of all.”

John said:

“It is easy to be cynical about Government and see this as a middle class gimmick but we all need to feel more connected to each other...Let’s get on and test it.”

Explaining why she collected litter in her road and the surrounding area, Margaret said:

“If more people did this we would have pride back in where we live. It is not taking jobs from people it is simply helping us to help ourselves.”

In the London borough of Sutton, at least, there is a strong desire to engage—people are not cynical.

In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will tell us which rules and regulations that apply to the Government, local government, the police and the NHS will be changed to facilitate the big society process. For me and my constituents, that process is about helping people get involved. Currently, they are being prevented from doing so, because a few obstacles have been thrown in their way. Those obstacles are not really necessary and can easily be removed. I accept that the Localism Bill, which the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) has mentioned, is part of that process, but I hope that the Minister and his officials are identifying some of the obstacles. I also hope that he will be able to tell us—if not now, perhaps as things develop—exactly what bonfire of regulations and rules will take place to enable people to engage in the big society in the way in which they are keen to.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate. I shall begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this important debate. His description of the community he serves is familiar to me. We are both very fortunate and privileged to serve as MPs for ex-mining communities. He is right to point out that, over many years, these communities have often been denied the tools to improve their areas, notwithstanding their ability and desire to do so. He was also right to remind us of the centrality of mutualism and co-operatives to the development of communities and, indeed, to the Labour party itself. Moreover, he was right to question whether the Government’s agenda is more than self-help.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made a number of interesting points about the role of the state. I say to him that, if Labour went too far in using the state as a way of improving communities, I hope that he would accept that this Government could be going too far in dismantling the state, particularly the welfare state. He might also want to consider the impact of that on disadvantaged areas in particular. He was right, however, to applaud the Localism Bill, which includes some useful elements and has created high aspirations for what it could deliver in my constituency. I hope that the Government will deliver on their rhetoric for my constituents.

As we might have expected, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) started off by blaming Labour for the world’s ills, but I hope that he would accept that Labour set out a clear plan to reduce the deficit. We said that we would do it more slowly and carefully than this Government.

[Tom Brake]

If the plan was set out in such detail, will the hon. Lady clarify what its impact would have been on the voluntary sector and its capacity to deliver the sort of things under discussion?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

As I said, we set out clearly how we would reduce the deficit more slowly. The amount of money that we would have reduced would, therefore, have been less, so there would not have been these huge, up-front cuts affecting local government. Interestingly, the hon. Gentleman outlined vividly one of the points that I wish to make—the voluntary sector and the big society were not invented by this Government. Much wonderful community and voluntary activity is already taking place, as he demonstrated so eloquently by talking about what is happening in his own constituency.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) outlined the obstacles that may prevent voluntary activity, but he gave little recognition to the fact that some individuals are more able than others to undertake such activity. Perhaps the atlas and geography of volunteering need to be taken into consideration. Nevertheless, I pay tribute to the many volunteers in his constituency and to the wonderful work that is taking place, as I do to the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), who has pointed out that much is already happening in her constituency and that the Government could do more to enable further activity to take place.

On the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield, he was absolutely correct to focus on what is undermining the big society, rather than to question the principles that underpin the idea of encouraging more volunteering, supporting community organisation and development, and giving a new impetus to social enterprise, co-operatives and mutuals. It would be churlish for us to do that. In government, Labour more than doubled the amount of money provided to the charitable sector, and we encouraged more volunteering. Organisations such as V did wonders to improve the number and range of volunteering activities available to young people, and that is just one example. The outcome of Labour’s support for the sector was greatly to increase the number of those involved in volunteering, and to expand the role of the sector in delivering services.

Surely, therefore, it is a matter of great disappointment that recent data from the citizenship survey for April to September 2010 show that 24% of people volunteered formally at least once a month, which is a lower level than that which existed previously and, perhaps, a surprise given the emphasis placed on volunteering by this Government. We should not, however, be at all surprised that, this week, we began to see questions in the media about whether the cuts might be choking the sector and impeding the development of the big society. All MPs are now becoming aware of how cuts to funding are impacting on not just the voluntary sector in their constituencies, but on smaller charities and agencies that undertake highly valuable work in all of our communities.

As if things on the funding front were not bad enough, it is interesting to note that Phillip Blond—one of the architects of the big society—is quoted in the press this week as having to argue that the big society is not in crisis. Of course, as soon as he tries to defend the big society, we immediately think that it must be in crisis and that his comments suggest that there is trouble.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield has so eloquently pointed out, Labour knows the value of supporting community development. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) did much at the Department for Communities and Local Government to put community empowerment on the agenda, but I sometimes wonder if the current Government understand the support that some communities and sections of communities need for that.

We know that levels of volunteering vary hugely across the country, yet it is the areas that have the lowest levels of volunteering—the poorest areas—that are suffering most from the public spending cuts. Those are the areas where most needs to be done. The deprived inner-city areas of London and the northern cities are experiencing the most drastic cuts, which undoubtedly will be passed on to the voluntary sector. If we are faced with huge cuts to services and funding, the Government will have to redouble their efforts if they are to succeed in developing more enterprise and mutuals in those circumstances. The big society bank has been put forward as a means of achieving that, but there are big questions about the delay in its implementation and whether it will have enough resources to do its job.

As well as flagging up what is happening with the levels of volunteering, the citizenship survey is important in other regards. It shows that 86% of adults in England were satisfied with their local area as a place to live, that 85% thought their community was cohesive and that 64% were not worried about being a victim of crime. That is hardly evidence of the broken Britain that the Government feel has to be fixed by an army of volunteers. That is not to say that volunteering is not important; quite the opposite, it suggests that much of what the Government say they want to create already exists in communities up and down the country. We saw many examples of that this afternoon. If they are to do more, they need support in terms of finances, resources and infrastructure, at least in a number of areas that face multiple and complex problems and have social needs. Social action can be a key feature in turning communities around, but it is not the only ingredient that is necessary.

I hope that the Minister will say what support he intends to give to groups and agencies suffering cuts beyond the inadequate transition fund and, crucially, how his community organiser programme will work with existing organisations. Perhaps he could answer the question posed in yesterday’s leader in The Times on why the Government still have to develop any signature policies or to bring examples of what the big society means. The Times was also useful for letting us know that the Minister has written to ask what ideas Conservative MPs have to make the big society a success. We will await the answers with interest. In the meantime, it is important to do what we can to support community and voluntary organisations and to develop social enterprises and mutuals, not least as a means of employment in our poorest communities. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister how he intends to achieve that.

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[Mr Hurd]

I will not take an intervention at this point because I want to move on from that issue.

I shall address the hon. Gentleman’s main concerns about what the big society is, what the Government are trying to achieve and what we mean by it. If he wants to look at the record tomorrow, he will see that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) articulated the matter as well as anyone, when he talked about trying to promote a greater culture of social responsibility. The idea is not fresh air because, as the hon. Member for City of Durham and various hon. Members pointed out, a lot of wonderful activity is going on in constituencies across the country, where people are working together and giving up time to try to find better ways of doing things, supporting initiatives and getting things going.

The Government want to throw a bigger spotlight on that activity to try to make it easier for people to do more such things and be more ambitious. The matter should not be divisive. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) put the argument beautifully. We should all be encouraging such things. I shall put the matter simply: it is about trying to encourage more people to get involved. There is no point pretending that all is rosy in the garden, as I think both Labour Members were saying when they cited the citizenship survey. We know that the country faces enormous challenges and that there are very stubborn, expensive social problems. It seems absolutely ridiculous to continue pretending that the state, people here or in Whitehall or even local authority chief executives somehow have all the solutions.

From my constituency, I know that we have barely begun to scratch the surface of the value that residents—constituents—can bring to the idea in terms of tapping into the talent, expertise, experience, ideas, networks and skills that are out there in communities. The big society is about trying to get more people involved and engaged in traditional volunteering or in that hugely important valuable work that we all know about from our constituencies. It is about providing the opportunity to give time to help improve someone else’s life. The value of that is two-way. Of course, we want to encourage more of that, but it is by no means the whole story. The big society is also about trying to get more people involved in shaping the future of communities, in the decisions that really matter and in trying to save things if things need to be saved, such as post offices, pubs, shops or whatever. It is about trying to combat the voice that I hear from constituents who say, “It’s not worth getting involved because it’s not as if we can change anything.” That is what we want to change.

The big society goes beyond that into the reform of public services and trying to open those up and get the people who pay for them and use them more involved in them. Again, in my constituency, I get a sense that people are becoming increasingly resentful of just taking what they are given and feeling that matters are being dealt with in a very detached way. Yes, this is about encouraging more volunteering, but it is also about getting people more involved at a local level in shaping the public services that they use. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) used the powerful expression “giving the power back,” which I liked. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was entirely right: that is what people want; they would like to get more involved. The citizenship survey showed that, and we are trying to make it easier.

There is a specific, proactive, big role for Government. There is no point in pretending that suddenly Government will disappear. The Government will play a hugely important part in all our lives, whatever the scale of the spending cuts. However, when it comes to making it easier for people to get involved and making the case for that more compelling, the Government are absolutely committed and on track, and will be delivering through three strands of action.

The first strand is about transferring real power to communities. That is now moving from words to realities. The specific measure has been mentioned—the Localism Bill. I am very pleased about and encouraged by the welcome that it has received, not least from the hon. Member for City of Durham. It is raising expectations. I think that that is right. People are excited about it, which suggests that its time has come. It is a huge piece of legislation, with lots of new rights and opportunities. However, there is more to the issue than just legislation.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington challenged me to be more specific about what we are doing to get out of the way. He was entirely right. If he listens to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, he will get the sense that that is a Secretary of State who wants to do exactly that. He wants to change the whole nature of his Department so that it works for citizens.

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that our approach is to send this message to communities: “Tell us what is getting in the way and we will work to see what we can do to remove it.” There is a specific barrier-busting service, of which he may be aware. That flows from a very powerful piece of legislation called the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, which I took through Parliament as a private Member’s Bill. Already, communities are responding to this invitation: “Tell us what’s getting in the way and we will see whether we can remove it, but give us the specifics.” The new website was launched a few weeks ago, and I think that more than 50 proposals have come in already. That is on top of the 300 different proposals that we had for the first wave under the Sustainable Communities Act. These things are community driven, so there is a real determination on our part to get out of the way.

The second strand is about public service reform: opening up the public services to new providers, including, specifically, the voluntary and community sector; bringing those services closer to the people who use them; and liberating people who are in the front line delivering the services. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury talked passionately about schools. He will know from his experience with local heads about their desire to be liberated. Specifically in relation to public service reform, a White Paper, which I think will be published next month, will set out our stall on that and explain exactly how we intend to go about it.

The third strand is about social action—trying to inspire people and make it easier for them to give time and money to get things done locally to help people. Again, the words are now being backed up by actions. The Cabinet Office has published a Green Paper on giving, which will lead to a White Paper. We seek fresh ideas on what Government can do with partners—the charitable sector and business—to make it easier for people to give time and money.

We have announced the pilots of the next phase of the national citizen service. Again, that is a powerful, positive programme, which is designed to connect young people with their ability to make a contribution to their communities. I think that one of the biggest pilots, involving 1,000 young people, is taking place on the edge of the constituency of the hon. Member for Sedgefield. I urge him to engage with it, because I have seen that that programme can be very powerful in lifting the aspirations and confidence of young people.

The hon. Member for City of Durham rightly challenged me on this important point: the big society must be open to all. We all know that some communities are in a stronger position than others to take advantage of it. I represent a relatively affluent, suburban constituency on the edge of London, a long way from Sedgefield. My communities are well networked, strong and ambitious and, I think, will respond quickly to that agenda, but other communities will need some help.

The Government are determined to be proactive in encouraging, supporting and helping those communities to help themselves. That is one of the driving forces behind our community organiser and community first programmes, which we will be announcing more details of soon. The aim will be to establish, in those communities, people who can bring people together, organise communities and start building networks—people who have the confidence to start getting people together to get things done. With that will be a neighbourhood grant programme. Again, that will be targeted on the most disadvantaged areas, where the social capital is lowest. It will put money into the hands of neighbourhood groups to help them to develop and deliver on their own plans. The hon. Member for City of Durham mentioned the big society bank. That is wholly designed to make it easier for social entrepreneurs—people who want to take a bit of a risk to get things happening and who want to do things differently in those areas—to access capital.

The Government are doing things, but things are also beginning to happen in communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury was very modest about his pioneering work on developing job clubs in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham is getting a big society initiative going in his constituency. In my constituency, I am convening people in exactly the same way—in one ward, people are concerned about the future and feel that they need to come together and think about a neighbourhood plan for the area. I am facilitating that.

Last week I was in Halifax, where groups of people from the public sector—different stakeholders—were gathered round a table, talking about partnership in a way that they never had before, because they felt that that was possible and they were being encouraged to do it. One could sense that they were not going to go back to the bad old ways of sitting in their silos and just pursuing their individual targets and budgets. Something is happening and changing out there, and it needs to, because we have to find better ways of doing things.

I shall spend the time left to me on dealing with the very important issue of cuts to the voluntary and community sector, which is an emotive issue for many hon. Members. I have written to every Member of Parliament, inviting them to bring in representatives of their voluntary and community sector to talk to me about that, and many have taken up the invitation.

Of course, the voluntary and community sector is hugely important to this project, because of its ability to support and mobilise people, but it is not—we should be frank about this—the whole story. Business has a hugely important part to play, as do citizens and residents groups and as do Government. Charities are not a proxy for community, but they are a hugely important partner in the process.

There is a very difficult issue, which we should not underestimate, in relation to managing the transition. However, we need to be honest about this. Unfortunately, the sector cannot be immune from the cuts. The nation is spending £120 million a day in interest and borrowing £1 for every £4 that we spend. That is not sustainable. We have to reduce public spending on a scale that means that, unfortunately, the sector cannot be immune. That would have been a reality confronted by the Labour Government, exactly as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington emphasised, so there are cuts and there will continue to be cuts.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hurd]

I would rather not, because I would like to finish this important point. The numbers being bandied around are entirely speculative. The Government are monitoring the situation closely, at central and local government level, because we are concerned that the process should be managed properly. We established a transition fund, which has now closed. That process was well run. From the Prime Minister down, we have sent a strong steer to local authority leaders that we do not expect them to take the easy option of making cuts to the voluntary and community sector before they have taken the opportunity to pursue their own efficiencies. Many councils, such as Reading and Wiltshire, which I heard about today, are increasing the amount of funding that they are giving to the voluntary and community sector. We are continuing to invest in the training of commissioners. We have reviewed and updated the compact, which is the framework that steers the relationship. The Office for Civil Society is continuing to invest to support and strengthen the sector.

We have three priorities. We ask ourselves, “What are we doing to make it easier to run a charity or voluntary sector organisation?” We are continuing to invest in infrastructure to support the sector. We are examining the red tape and regulation that get in the way. There are reviews across Government in respect of the Criminal Records Bureau and health and safety. Again, we are trying to get out of the way where we can. We are actively examining ways of getting more resources into the sector. The giving Green Paper is about trying to stimulate more charitable giving. The social investment bank—the big society bank—is about trying to grow a new market of social investment. We are reviewing everything that we can to try to make it easier for charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises to deliver more public services.

The transition that we have to manage is very difficult, but we are trying to help the sector to work towards a future in which it can be a very active player in the big society, delivering more public services, helping to give people a voice at local level, and benefiting from the extra time and money that we hope people will give. The Government are absolutely determined to make it easier for people to get involved, to live in even better connected communities and to feel part of something bigger.