Miss Beverley Woods (Voluntary Work) (Hansard, 17 June 1981)

§ Mr. Gerry Neale (Cornwall, North)

I am most grateful to the House for the opportunity to raise this matter. I should also like to thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who will be replying at this late hour. I realise that my hon. Friend has been busy today in various parts of the country. I am well aware of the interest that he takes in the problems with which this matter is connected.

The debate concerns the way in which voluntary service could possibly affect the status of employment or unemployment among people of all ages. It arises from the case of Beverley Woods, in my constituency. For the purposes of clarity I should like to outline the circumstances.

Beverley Woods, having graduated at the University of Bradford, found that she was unable to obtain employment in the subject of botany in which she had qualified. She returned to Cornwall and decided that rather than sitting at home doing nothing she would show the commendable attribute of looking for some means of making use of her skills and energies. She applied herself to helping spastics at a Spastics Society establishment not far from her home at Bodmin.

The basis of that help was that she would receive full board and lodging, despite the fact that it was only a short distance from where she lives. She was paid £7.50 pocket money a week, but no national insurance contribution or income tax was to be paid by the Spastics Society. Nor did she have a contract of employment. It was made clear that she was not employed by the society and was free to go at any time in order to find permanent work.

On that basis, she endeavoured to register with the local jobcentre as St Austell, but she was told that she was not eligible to register. At the beginning of this year she again tried to register as unemployed and to find help in getting a job. This time she went to the Bodmin jobcentre, which registered her as unemployed. When she went back the following week, as is required by the regulations, she was told that she was no longer eligible. A superior officer said that her registration should be withdrawn. She disputed that. She made it plain that she was not employed, but she was unsuccessful in obtaining registration.

In April this year she left the Spastics Society and went to Bradford. There she sought to obtain unemployment benefit while she looked for work. She was told, much to her surprise, that she could not obtain unemployment benefit for six weeks because she had voluntarily left her job. When she talked about appealing against that decision she was given even more surprising information that it was not worth it, because she had not been in work for 12 months and therefore did not qualify for benefit.

The final bureaucratic insult was to occur to Beverley Woods when she saw a job advertised, under a Manpower Services Commission scheme, for a botanist attached to the University of Wales. She applied for the job, was interviewed and selected, only to be told shortly after her selection that in view of the fact that she had been 1155 employed the Manpower Services Commission considered that she was ineligible for the job. Therefore she could not take it.

That is not an isolated example of the problems that people—particularly young people—suffer when they try to use their energies in voluntary services while waiting for permanent jobs to be offered to them. I have been approached by the National Council of Voluntary Organisatiions and by the Cornwall Youth Association. I have even had a letter from the Community Service Volunteers, who themselves help to find part-time and full-time voluntary service work for young people while they are waiting for permanent jobs. The irony is that that organisation is partly sponsored by the Manpower Services Commission.

I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that this case has attracted much publicity, and concern has been expressed about it by various voluntary organisations. It gives rise to a number of questions, which highlight the dramatic under-utilisation of human skills and energies for the benefit of voluntary organisations and the community as a whole.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment said last year that he was very much in favour of people doing voluntary work if they were unemployed. He felt that every unnecessary obstacle should be removed. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary holds the same view.

The first area of doubt that this instance has given rise to is whether the very act of taking up unpaid voluntary work, full-time or part-time, counts the volunteer out for the purposes of obtaining unemployment benefit, being eligible for Manpower Services Commission schemes, or even for any other job opportunity created by Government schemes. We must have more clarity about whether merely doing voluntary work for any organisation means that in terms of statutory eligibility under the schemes a school leaver, or whoever it may be, rules himself out as being unavailable for work.

Let us view the position through the eyes of a young person, or a person who has lost his job and cannot find another but who wants to use his energies for the benefit of the community, or perhaps someone who has retired early. If such a person is to have an experience such as Beverley Woods has had, he will be far less likely to help the local community. I ask my hon. Friend to clarify the position of unpaid voluntary work. Does it affect the matters that I have touched on?

I come to the second situation, which is very similar, but where some pay results, rather as in Beverley Woods's case. For most of the time she was receiving £7.50 weekly, although there was a short time when she received about £15 for certain project work. It is important that the jobcentres and benefit offices are clear exactly what provision must be borne in mind when there is some allowance for out-of-pocket expenses.

I have been astonished to discover one fact in my researches into the matter. I am ashamed to say that as a Member I should have known it before. It appears that if someone who receives social security benefit wants to do voluntary work every £1 received over £4 a week must be taken off the benefit. But a person receiving unemployment pay is entitled to earn up to 75p a day —shortly to rise 1156 to £2 a day. If he earns more than that in any one day, that day's benefit is lost, and he claims the remaining days in the week for which he is unemployed.

However, it seems that on a Sunday any sum earned from any form of employment does not rank in any circumstances for these computations. Sunday market stallholders, for example, or even professional sportsmen, and people in any form of casual employment on a Sunday, when they will be earning double time or even more for long hours, can earn that money and yet legitimately register as unemployed for the rest of the week.

I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind the feelings of someone such as Beverley Woods, helping people who are considerably disabled and doing it in a highly commendable way, on discovering the extraordinary exemption by which people can do other work on a Sunday and not have it affect their benefits or, presumably, their right to obtain permanent employment under any Government scheme.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for the co-operation and assistance that he has given me. Will he confirm that it is the Government's commitment not to do anything other than remove, as quickly as possible, obstacles that are put in the way of people, young or in early retirement, who want to help the community, voluntary organisations, and those who are least able to help themselves?

Will my hon. Friend comment on the Beverley Woods case? I hope that he agrees that it has given rise to the most unfortunate circumstances. In commiserating with her, as I hope he will, perhaps it will be possible for him to inquire into the circumstances to see whether Beverley could be given some priority on the various schemes operated by the Manpower Services Commission, so that she finds the work for which she is so clearly qualified.

The case has given rise to a great deal of concern among voluntary organisations and those trying to use the talents and energies of so many of the unemployed. Will my hon. Friend carry out an urgent review, jointly with his hon. Friends at the Department of Health and Social Security, to ensure that the extraordinary and strange anomalies are removed from the benefits system as soon as possible? Will he also ensure that the benefits offices and the jobcentres are briefed in the clearest terms, that the Government encourage voluntary work by the unemployed and those in receipt of various forms of benefit, and that that benefit can be given within the defined bands that will be decided after the review? I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise the matter.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Peter Morrison)

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) has raised this important case this evening. As he knows, we have discussed it, he has written to me about it, and I take the matter seriously. Without sounding pompous, I wish to say that he has put his case in a fair-minded way. He has not concentrated exclusively on the case of Miss Beverley Woods, but has related her unfortunate experience to the more general issues that it raises. I am sure that that is right, because it is never safe to look at individual cases in isolation, and because the issues that the case raises are important.

1157 I want to comment on the case of Miss Woods in a moment, although I say straight away that, having looked, relooked and looked again at the case, I believe that, regrettably, errors of judgment were made, for which I offer Miss Woods and my hon. Friend my most sincere apologies. First, I shall spend a short time on the general issues. I say a short time because, from what my hon. Friend said, it is clear that there is a substantial area of agreement between us. I would go so far as to say that there is no disagreement.

I start from the assumption that voluntary work is to be encouraged—that is, voluntary work by anyone, whether he be a school leaver, a student, an ex-student, a middle-aged person or someone who has retired. I believe that many people who have the misfortune to be unemployed would wish to put their skills, a term that I use in its widest sense, to the benefit of the communtiy through voluntary work. Although there can be no question of compulsion, I believe that the Government should not only remove as many obstacles as possible so that the unemployed can participate in voluntary work, but should help wherever they can do so.

My hon. Friend will appreciate that the whole question of the relationship between entitlement to unemployment and supplementary benefit and voluntary work is a complex area, which is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. My hon. Friend raised some important, specific and intricate issues, and I shall ensure that they are considered by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I hope that he will agree that we could not depart from the principle that those receiving unemployment or supplementary benefit should be genuinely available for work. Thus, the existing rules should not discourage the unemployed from participating in voluntary work. The reverse should apply. Indeed, the Government are proposing a number of changes that will help to ensure so far as possible that those who undertake voluntary work do not lose their unemployment benefit as a result.

I come to an area that is closer to my own responsibilities—the community enterprise programme. As my hon. Friend appreciates, it is run by the Manpower Services Commission. The programme does not discourage voluntary work. Its aim is to provide temporary employment for the long-term unemployed on projects of community benefit. Those aged 25 years and over who have been unemployed for at least 12 months, or those aged 18-24, which is the category in which Beverley Woods falls, who have been unemployed for at least six months, are eligible for places on the programme. Voluntary work would not be considered as employment for the purpose of establishing an individual's eligibility for the programme. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, there are sometimes difficulties in defining the exact nature of voluntary work, as the case of Miss Woods demonstrates. I assure my hon. Friend that the principle of voluntary work is quite clear.

My hon. Friend referred specifically to the case of Miss Woods, a graduate, who is one of his constituents. Miss Woods, who is a botanist, graduated in June 1980, since when she has been unable to find a job, although from August 1980 she worked with the Spastics Society at the Churchtown farm field studies centre in Bodmin, where she was given full board and accommodation and £7.50 a week, which was subsequently raised to £15 a week.

1158 As I said, I have spent a considerable amount of my own time reviewing this case. I accept that mistakes were made. The mistakes flowed from one crucial misjudgment, which was the decision that Miss Woods's work with the Spastics Society was normal employment. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that there were grounds for that view. After all, Miss Woods was living at the centre. She was receiving full board and lodging and a wage, albeit, I accept, a small wage. However, my hon. Friend raised the matter with me in his recent letter. That gave rise to an investigation, the results of which I examined. I am satisfied that Miss Woods was a volunteer with and not an employee of the Spastics Society.

In April this year Powys county council and the University of Wales institute of science and technology decided to undertake a series of botanical and ornithological surveys on the banks of Mid-Wales rivers. They applied for Manpower Services Commission sponsorship under the community enterprise programme. The MSC area board considered that the project was of community benefit, and approval was given for six botanists and six ornithologists.

Meanwhile, the project sponsors had already advertised in the New Scientist for one botanist. No mention was made of CEP funding. Eighty applications were received and the project sponsors decided to select people for their funded posts from among the applicants. This was clearly contrary to the rules of the programme, since it is intended to be of help to local long-term unemployed people. However, the MSC did not wish to appear to be unduly bureaucratic and agreed to ignore this breach of the rules.

Miss Woods was one of the successful applicants and confirmed with the project sponsor that she had been unemployed for at least six months. However, the MSC had already taken the view that Miss Woods had been in employment while working at the spastics centre and, under those circumstances, it refused to accept her as eligible for the CEP. She was not able to take up a place on the project.

To complete this chapter of accidents, Miss Woods was refused unemployment benefit on the ground that she had left her previous employment voluntarily. This was a reasonable conclusion to draw, given the assumption that Miss Woods's work with the Spastics Society was employment. We have now altered that assumption, although whether or not Mess Woods is entitled to unemployment benefit will depend upon her contribution record.

I shall sum up. It was the nature of Miss Woods's work with the spastic centre that was at the root of the problem. That was originally regarded as normal employment by MSC officials, and I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that in this case it was not simply a black and white decision. With hindsight, I can accept that Miss Woods was a volunteer. Any judgments in such complicated cases are bound to be borderline. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees with that.

My hon. Friend is understandably and rightly anxious to avoid such an error happening again. I assure him that I am just as anxious as he is. I will look at ways and means of doing that. However, I am bound to say that. I am not attracted by the idea of an absolute definition of voluntary work. That is because I believe that if we were to give an absolute definition of voluntary work, those who were volunteers as he and I would understand them to be might fall without that definition and, therefore, we would not 1159 be doing them justice. Such a definition might and probably would cause more problems than it would solve, for voluntary work is a little like the proverbial elephant—it is easy to recognise but hard to define.

I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Government are at one with him on the principle that voluntary work should 1160 not jeopardise eligibility for the community enterprise programme. The Government are wholly committed to those who wish to give of their hours and service to the community as a whole. We are wholy committed to voluntary enterprise.