Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of volunteering in the voluntary and community sector since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.

Volunteers around the country are making vital contributions to the COVID-19 response, supporting people in need and complementing the delivery of essential public services. The Government is grateful to all volunteers for their energy, compassion and willingness to support the country through these challenging times.

Through the NHS Volunteer Responders programme alone, volunteers have undertaken over 1.4 million tasks in support of over 144,000 unique clients, as of 25 January 2021.

As part of ongoing work to assess trends in volunteering during the pandemic, DCMS published the results of the Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey in December 2020. The survey estimated that, across England, 21% of people volunteered through an organisation or group (formal volunteering) between March and July 2020. 9% of respondents were new volunteers and 6% had volunteered previously, but now gave more time. People who identified as ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) were more likely to start volunteering for the first time during COVID-19. 47% of people informally volunteered, giving unpaid help to other people who are not relatives and 52% of informal volunteers were helping people affected by COVID-19. 72% of COVID-19 informal volunteers started their activities during the pandemic

The full results of the survey can be found at GOV.UK and copies have been placed in the Libraries of the House.