Voluntary Sector

HC Deb 15 June 2000 vol 351 cc273-310WH

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Betts.]

2.30 pm

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng)

I very much welcome this debate on volunteering. Looking around me, I am left with the comforting thought that interest in volunteering outside the Chamber is considerably greater than it appears to be in it.

Volunteering and the voluntary sector play a crucial part in our society. They are the fabric and building blocks of our communities, both urban and rural. As such, the Government believe that it is vital to recognise the extent to which volunteers act almost as community glue. Volunteers are a sign of a healthy society.

We must give the voluntary sector the recognition and support that it so richly deserves. In 1997, nearly half of adults had taken part in volunteering in the previous year and 29 per cent. of adults volunteer in some form or other regularly each month. Their contribution to society has been valued at about £40 billion. As such, they are major players.

Central Government spend some £104 million a year supporting volunteering. Local and health authorities add an extra £150 million and the national lottery adds £145 million. That is £400 million in total, which is a significant investment in the sector. We must ensure that we get a clear picture of what that investment generates and what we are spending it on. The Government have a responsibility to promote and encourage voluntary and community activity and we are assisted in that task by the active community initiative, which has been established to ensure that we give the voluntary sector the attention and support that it deserves.

I should like to spend a few minutes outlining the key themes of the initiative, which aims to promote and encourage more voluntary and community involvement. We want to raise awareness and inspire more people to get involved. We want to increase opportunities for volunteering, make it easier for people to get involved and support the development of active community up and down the country. This should not be seen as the Government getting people to do something for nothing, which would not be an appropriate basis for Government involvement in the voluntary sector and in volunteering. It is about supporting and encouraging folk to contribute to their communities, to have a voice in the services that they receive—and often help to deliver—and to feel an integral part of the society in which they live. It is all about empowering and engaging people and combating social exclusion.

One of the Government's first tasks in advancing this agenda is to establish how best to motivate people to volunteer. Most Members of Parliament have volunteered at some time and many still do in one form or another. We began our involvement in the communities that we serve as volunteers and many of us know that volunteering, as well as reflecting the needs and problems of other people, can be enormously fulfilling in itself. It can enrich volunteers' lives.

For the past few years, I have attended the Whitbread volunteer action awards, which is always an inspiring occasion and a pleasure to attend. It is a source of inspiration because meeting the organisations and individuals who are being honoured gives one a sense of what they have gained, as well as what they have given, through their voluntary activity.

Members of Parliament are often invited to a whole heap of dos and occasions, some of which are a greater pleasure than others—I make that bold confession, with which I am sure colleagues will identify. The Whitbread awards are a genuinely unalloyed pleasure because of the sense of can-do, excitement and commitment generated by people who give so much to others. It is a genuinely uplifting experience. As a society, we need not only to build on such occasions, but to give them the profile and recognition that they deserve—and the Government are determined to help with that.

We are taking several initiatives, one of which I should like to share with the Chamber this afternoon. I refer to TimeBank, which we launched on 29 February in partnership with the BBC. It may not be into Premiership football, but it is certainly into volunteering, in a big way. The aim is to involve more people by encouraging them to donate time as part of a national campaign.

The new initiative recognises the changing pattern of volunteering. The pressures, complexity and demands of modern life—including family life, as well as work—affect individuals, who may be able to give two hours one week, none the next and eight the week after. The voluntary sector must be able to respond flexibly to demands and TimeBank enables—through the concept of banking up hours—the donor and recipient better to organise their contributions.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud)

I am sorry to have missed the opening of my right hon. Friend's speech. It is good to hear him speak about the voluntary sector again, as he did in my constituency some time ago.

Judith Taylor, a local representative of the Women's Royal Volunteer Service in Gloucestershire, has told me that people can find it difficult to attend pre-retirement courses. It is not just a question of the time available from week to week; it depends on how much time people have at different stages of their lives. Judith Taylor often used to be invited to pre-retirement courses to talk about the benefits of volunteering, but that no longer happens. Would my right hon. Friend like to comment on that?

Mr. Boateng

I certainly would. I know how healthy and active the voluntary sector is in Stroud, having visited the town and seen for myself the contribution that people are making to the creation of safe communities. That is an important aspect of the contribution that the voluntary sector can make to crime prevention and reduction strategies.

Changes have undoubtedly taken place in the generational pattern of volunteering and I want to deal with creating opportunities. We need to deliver high-quality volunteering opportunities and schemes in which people want to get involved. One of the four target groups that we have identified for action is older people. Alongside young people, employees and those from minority ethnic groups, they represent a particular challenge in ensuring that they can access volunteering opportunities. We must also address certain trends that have developed in volunteering, as they affect those target groups.

The Government have approached the issue of older volunteers in precisely the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). First and foremost, we have listened to the views of the target group and those working with it. A number of hon. Members will be aware that we have been holding listening events up and down the country over the past few months to hear what older people have to say and we have received several messages about older people and volunteering. The debt of gratitude that we owe older people was brought home to us forcefully at the final large event, which was held at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre. Many older people have devoted a lifetime to volunteering and a big thank you is owed to them.

The number of older people volunteering is now dropping off. We need to ask why and find out what opportunities exist for them to enter volunteering. Older people have a wealth of expertise, energy and experience to offer their communities. It is important that we value those skills and find ways of ensuring that they find a channel into our communities.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael)—through his time at the Home Office and subsequently in Wales—has always taken an interest in the older volunteers initiative, which his work inspired. We launched that initiative to improve the quality and quantity of volunteering opportunities for older people. We have committed some £1.5 million to that task over three years to ensure the success of the project. To date, some 26 projects have been funded up and down the country, precisely to address the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud outlined.

I should like to say a few words about younger people, because it is at both ends of the spectrum that needs are currently unmet. It was to recognise and to tap into the energy and commitment of younger people that we launched the millennium volunteers. That is a flagship initiative, aimed at engaging 16 to 24-year-olds in voluntary activities. Some 160 millennium volunteer projects have been set up across the country. Some 4,000 young people have joined and many more join daily; 600 have earned millennium volunteer certificates and 300 have earned millennium volunteer awards. Those awards recognise the personal development of young people and the benefits that they have brought to local communities and gained themselves from the experience of volunteering.

Mr. Phil Hope (Corby)

I want to emphasise the importance of engaging young people in their communities. Too often they are seen as the problem and not the solution. If we engage with them actively in their communities on issues of crime, vandalism or raising educational standards, we can achieve miraculous results, as I see in my constituency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we want to see much more education for citizenship and community involvement in schools, as well as through local community groups, to get young people at the heart of tackling the deprivation that some of our neighbourhoods experience?

Mr. Boateng

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. He has a wealth of experience on these issues, both personally and professionally in his work for the all-party group. We know that volunteering and the sense of civic responsibility that it brings gives a practical demonstration of the values and ideals that we want to inculcate in schools. That led my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to put a new emphasis in the core curriculum on civics, as it was known in my day. [Interruption.] It was not that long ago and should not be cause for ribald laughter. It is known today as education for citizenship and we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Lord Weatherill for his work on forming the citizenship commission, which has informed the development of thinking in this area.

Finally, I should like to say a few words about the role and responsibilities of employers in this area. The millennium volunteers project has developed on the basis that it is important for CVs, future development and careers. Employees not only have the potential, sometimes unlocked, to make a contribution as volunteers, but, in doing so, they develop skills and expertise that make them better employees and an added resource for their employers. A number of employers are beginning to recognise that and to blaze the trail for others.

It was right for the Prime Minister to make one of the key elements of his speech at the active community convention earlier this year a challenge to employers to give their employees the equivalent of one day's paid time off in the next 18 months to work in the community. Several companies have already announced their commitment to the scheme and we hope to encourage others to join them. It is a way for employers and businesses to show civil responsibility and of adding value to the skills base of the work force.

It is important for the Government to give a lead in the matter, which is why the head of the home civil service, Sir Richard Wilson, has written to all Government Departments asking them to give their staff a day each year for that purpose. We have been working with business to support Cares Incorporated as well as the City Cares project, which is under way in 10 cities in the United Kingdom. It will bring 100,000 people into voluntary work, with business setting the example and encouraging and supporting others.

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion)

I heard with interest the Minister's remarks on support for employees who volunteer. I welcome the Government's initiative and leadership in the scheme, but does the Minister agree that taking part will be difficult for those who are unemployed and receiving the jobseeker's allowance who want to widen their skills portfolio? Some of my constituents still complain that the voluntary work that they undertake is questioned by officialdom. Will the Minister investigate that aspect of the matter?

Mr. Boateng

We are working closely with the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security on that issue, to which I shall refer later.

We have identified older people, younger people and employees as target groups for the activities we propose. A fourth group is also important: our fellow citizens in the black and minority ethnic communities, who have a long tradition of community self-help which they have not always identified as volunteering. They have not necessarily been seen by the mainstream voluntary sector as a group that would attract interest and involvement. That is a missed opportunity, because there are many black and minority ethnic citizens who are anxious and able to get involved and who currently are an untapped resource.

We are working to alert the mainstream voluntary sector that there is an untapped resource out there and to work with black and minority ethnic voluntary sector organisations, which, for too long, have been the poor relations in the system. We want to build up their capacity and link them into the voluntary sector infrastructure to maximise their opportunities to contribute to the development of society and the whole community.

To help that process, there are initiatives within the active community units, one of which is geared specifically to twinning black and minority ethnic voluntary sector organisations with their larger mainstream counterparts. That has a double benefit. It benefits the larger, mainstream counterparts because it helps them to attract more black and ethnic minority volunteers and helps them to establish themselves better in those communities. Secondly, and significantly, it helps to build the infrastructure and the capacity of the black and minority ethnic voluntary sector. We have taken that forward with a specific funding stream and a series of regional seminars to ensure that black and ethnic minority organisations are better able to become involved in partnerships, consultation and decision-making.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) referred to people who may not be in work but who want to develop voluntary activities that might cause them to fall foul of the welfare and benefits arrangements and asked how better we can reach out to them. There is a common myth that people on benefits cannot volunteer. Unfortunately, that myth is sometimes believed by people in benefits offices, employment offices and so on.

Unemployed people can undertake voluntary work and it can be a means of acquiring skills that help to lead to paid employment. We are well aware that there are further issues arising from the complexity of benefits rules. In particular, we know that the requirement that jobseekers must be available for work within 48 hours can discourage people from making a commitment to voluntary work—hence the importance of flexibility. We are considering what can be done to ease that problem and our considerations form part of a work programme that has been taken forward by a small group within the active community unit, which has been set up to look at barriers to volunteering. The group was established in response to one of the recommendations in Lord Warner's report, "Giving time, getting involved". My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Social Security are committed to ensuring that benefits offices and employment offices are aware of the significant role that volunteering can play in getting people back into work.

I am pleased to announce today that, following legal advice, the Department of Social Security will provide new local guidance, advising that no account be taken of time credits earned in time exchange schemes when calculating income-related benefits. That is a major step forward and comes in response to long-standing concern in the voluntary sector. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security made that clear in a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs Gilroy).

I believe that the measure will assist enormously in taking forward a range of initiatives, particularly TimeBank. It would not have been helpful if interest had been generated in TimeBank as a result of prime-time television coverage, only for those expectations to be dashed by the complexity surrounding its interrelationship with the benefits rules.

To ensure that we encourage groups that have not previously been able to access volunteering opportunities to do so, we have provided nearly £1 million to set up a national database of volunteering opportunities. That is important because we know that new technology gives us hitherto undreamt-of opportunities to reach out to people, some of whom, for a variety of reasons, may be housebound. They may have access to a computer, but not have any way of getting out and about easily. Opportunities to volunteer could be made more widely known through the internet, and there are opportunities to volunteer on the basis of access to a computer. We want to build on the opportunities held out by the new and exciting developments in technology.

These are exciting times for the voluntary sector. We can ensure that the sector plays a full role in community self-help and development. The Home Office is leading a cross-departmental group on the resourcing of community capacity-building to bring greater coherence to the system under which community groups are funded and to give greater support to the community groups and leaders who rely—often almost exclusively—on volunteers. That is all part of a wider picture of support for the development of active communities.

The independence of the voluntary sector is important. It operates at a distance from Government, has the capacity to innovate and challenge established ways of doing things and is close to the people. All of those things should be cherished and preserved, but we must not allow that distance from local or national government to be an excuse for the Government to renege on their responsibility to create a context in which there can be true partnerships between the voluntary and statutory sectors. The partnerships must be based on an understanding of the importance of that independence and the vital integrity that goes with it.

The work that has been done by the voluntary sector and the Government in the compact is important, for it lies at the heart of the understanding that must exist between the sector and the Government about what each party must bring to the table. That is the best hope for the future of the framework within which the partnership with the voluntary sector can develop. It is a great and exciting partnership, and we ought to be profoundly thankful for it.

3.3 pm

Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury)

I am glad to follow the Minister, as I share his admiration for the organisations and individuals who contribute to the voluntary sector in this country and his assessment of the importance of a thriving and independent voluntary sector to the health of the United Kingdom.

The Minister rightly said that most Members of Parliament have engaged in voluntary work of one sort or another. One of the pleasant surprises that I had after being elected to the House eight years ago was to discover the sheer scale and variety of volunteering in my constituency. That is probably reproduced in each of the 659 constituencies represented in the House of Commons.

Probably all of us in the Chamber today could give a long list of the different organisations and committed individuals that we have encountered during our time as Members. I can cite everything from hearing dogs for the deaf to the Buckinghamshire Association for Mental Health to the Aylesbury elderly Asian lunch club, all of which contribute in different ways to social well-being.

The Minister rightly gave priority in his speech to the work of volunteers in giving practical service to others. I would not wish to detract from what he said on that, but voluntary organisations contribute to this country's well-being in another but related way—they provide opportunities to celebrate what brings us together as communities. At this time of year, many of us find ourselves attending various fetes and other such events, which raise funds for good causes and are usually a celebration of neighbourhood identity. That is something of value that the voluntary organisations bring to this country, which no Government agency, however well intentioned, can reproduce in the same way.

Volunteering and the organisations are one of the greater strengths of the British tradition. They are what Edmund Burke meant by his term "the little platoon" or what sociologists probably call mediating organisations. The Chief Rabbi, in his recent Mais lectures, referred to organisations that were not part of a state but which were greater than the individual and within which we learn habits of trust, mutual respect and regard for the greater good, which help to sustain the sense of mutual dependence on which the security of a market economy and a liberal and free political system rests. The health of the voluntary sector, which commands cross-party support in this country, is important.

Although I shall ask some questions and make some criticisms in my speech, I shall intend them, even more than usual, in a constructive spirit. As the Minister said, large numbers of people volunteer in this country. One estimate that I have seen is that 3 million people regularly volunteer. However, as he said, the number is falling according to some surveys, although it remains high. That is borne out by anecdotal evidence. I can give instances of youth organisations that have folded because they have been unable to get week-in, week-out commitment from adult leaders to enable them to function.

That phenomenon is probably partly the result of changes in society and at the workplace. People are under greater pressure at work and there are more families where both partners work who want to keep their limited free time for themselves as a family. The surveys bear out the truth of the adage, "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it". One survey showed that people are more likely to volunteer if they do a lot of overtime at work, if they have children under 15 living at home or if they are carers of relatives at home. The lesson is that we should not be defeatist. The general trend, on which both the Minister and I have remarked, is that we, as legislators, need to do everything in our power to remove disincentives from the people whom we wish to become involved in the voluntary sector.

While I was preparing for this debate, I looked through the Government's recent publications on the idea of a compact between the Government and the voluntary sector. I say without reservation to the Minister that I wholeheartedly welcome the idea of codifying relations between Government and voluntary organisations in a readily comprehensible fashion. We should also inculcate throughout Government, in every Department and agency, an understanding of what needs to be done to make the Government's activities understandable to the voluntary sector and to take account of the needs and working culture of voluntary sector organisations.

I warmly welcomed the Minister's concluding remarks, in which he championed the independence of voluntary organisations. Risks are run when the voluntary sector becomes increasingly involved in carrying out what were previously Government functions. That is not a party-political point—much of the effort stems from the reforms to personal social services that were introduced by the previous Government.

As the Minister said, we, as politicians and members of society, value voluntary organisations' independence and their ability to innovate, experiment and engage with the particular circumstances of an individual or local case. That approach is not available to Government officials, who have to abide by the Whitehall rule book. There is a risk that growing dependence on the Government may lead to an erosion in the voluntary sector of those qualities that we value most strongly, which could be a disincentive.

Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach summed up the way in which such a state of affairs might come about. He wrote: Typically, a charitable organisation starts, not infrequently with a religious affiliation, with a small number of highly committed individuals who are prepared to devote their time, skills and money to a cause. The organisation is then "discovered" by government and politicians are eager that they are seen to support it through public funding. Full time staff are hired to make the programme more professional, then new members are added to the board who lend credibility because of their experience on other government bodies. Certain of the original objectives are downgraded because of their more controversial character and because of this decision significant amounts of public funding are obtained. Volunteers however begin to feel their support is now unnecessary and drop out. Whichever party is in office, it is right for the Government to seek to draw on the particular qualities and strengths of the voluntary sector. It is of the utmost importance that we avoid making voluntary organisations little more than another arm of the Government machine.

The Minister should bear in mind the concerns that faith-based organisations have expressed about bidding for funds. They feel that, whether they are dealing with the Government or local authorities, they are forced to choose between being true to their religious integrity and complying with the policy of the local authority or Department. Will the Government do everything within their power to simplify the funding arrangements, bureaucracy and form-filling with which voluntary organisations have to deal? I have been told by a number of organisations representing the voluntary and charitable sector that there are too many forms which are too lengthy and take too long to fill in. There are complex performance indicators, which often vary a great deal depending on which Department is responsible for a particular initiative—even where initiatives have been designed with similar objectives in mind.

Too many new initiatives emanate from the Government, not all of which are sustained for more than a short period. Several voluntary organisations are concerned about the balance between core funding and project funding. They are making representations about what they see as a tendency for money to be doled out in small parcels for which they have to spend a lot of time and energy bidding, but which do not guarantee the continuation of the organisation's activities over the medium or longer term, because the Government project may exist for only a short time.

Mr. Boateng

I am listening with great care, attention and some sympathy for the voluntary organisations concerned to the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. However, does not he think that his points would be that much stronger if he had prefaced them with a fleeting moment in the confessional? After all, it was the Government whom he supported for many years who began the Government tendency of unwillingness to commit to core funding. My sympathy for the voluntary sector would be stronger if he confessed his party's responsibility in that respect.

Mr. Lidington

As I said with regard to social services, I am perfectly willing to start from the premise that while the previous Conservative Administrations transformed this country for the better during their 18 years in office, we did not get absolutely everything right. One of the relatively few consolations of going into opposition is that it gives one the freedom to think through what one did right, or wrong, in the past.

Will the Minister explain how the Government see the way ahead? It is difficult to strike the balance correctly, because the Government's priorities are inevitably not the same as those of the voluntary organisations. The present Administration have a habit—which is not confined to their dealings with the voluntary sector—of top-slicing budgets and handing money out in little packages. That involves bidding bodies in a disproportionate amount of effort. Complaints on that score come not only from the voluntary sector, but from the educational and national health service sectors.

I should like to raise with the Minister two other matters on which I have received representations from voluntary organisations. The first is the impact of the national minimum wage legislation; the second, he will not be surprised to learn, is the Criminal Records Bureau. I shall be happy to spend a while in the confessional on the latter subject, because I understand the difficulties that he faces. We need to answer important questions on both those counts.

I shall deal first with the impact of the national minimum wage. I understand that section 44 of the relevant Act created an exemption from the regulations for what were termed voluntary workers. This has involved a great deal of uncertainty for voluntary organisations over definitions. The National Centre for Volunteering has suggested that the Act should be amended to insert into its preamble a sentence such as "This Act does not apply to volunteers", as a way of giving greater certainty.

A problem that has already arisen is the extent to which perks, benefits in kind and discounts on services provided by the charity should be counted as wages. Does the payment of such items take the person concerned out of the category of a volunteer helper and into that of an employee to whom the national minimum wage legislation would apply? For example, people who work in charity shops, for organisations such as the National Trust or as volunteer guides in historic buildings sometimes are allowed a discount on the product or services sold by the organisation for whom they are volunteering. Does such a concession mean that that person counts as an employee? Such questions are being asked in the voluntary sector.

The same point applies in respect of voluntary workers who are working away from their home. This issue might affect young people spending time away from home—perhaps in a gap year—carrying out voluntary work on a particular project. In many cases, such people would be paid some sort of pocket money, rather than a wage; an allowance to permit them an occasional visit to the cinema or a pint in the pub during the weeks or months when they are engaged in their voluntary work.

If those payments were to be considered wages by the authorities, it would provide a disincentive to that type of volunteering because the organisation would have to either pay those people the national minimum wage or discontinue such pocket money payments, which could restrict the take-up of that type of voluntary work to those able to afford to subsidise their volunteering from other resources. That would not be desirable.

On the Criminal Records Bureau, I understand the Government's dilemma very well. Someone has to meet the cost of checks. If volunteers were to be granted an exemption, the Government would have either to find the money from elsewhere in their expenditure programmes or load the cost of that exemption on to the fees charged to non-volunteers for criminal record checks.

The voluntary organisations are expressing growing fears that this system of charging will prove a great disincentive and make life even more difficult for them. The organisations serving young people are especially concerned. The Scout Association says that it already vets and trains more than 65,000 volunteers a year at an annual cost to the association of about £100,000. It estimates that if it had to carry out an enhanced criminal records check on each volunteer at a cost of £10 a head, it would incur a further cost of £750,000 a year, in addition to its running costs.

The Minister will know that amateur sporting bodies are also expressing concern. It is often overlooked that sports organisations attract more volunteers than any other part of the voluntary sector. It is estimated that about 1.5 million people give of their time to amateur sport in the course of an average year. Those hon. Members who, like me, are parents will probably agree that young people gain a tremendous amount from the time that other adults are prepared to give to coaching soccer, rugby, cricket, swimming and other sports. Sports bodies, the Scout Association and the Guide Association are therefore concerned about the imposition of fees for criminal record checks.

The National Centre for Student Volunteers has said that it is concerned not merely about the possible disincentive of the fee, but about the sheer hassle of having to apply for a check to be carried out, especially where the voluntary work will be done in a university vacation. In such a case, would there be any guarantee that the necessary paperwork could be completed before the opportunity to do the work had passed? The Government and the Criminal Records Bureau must try to ensure that applications for criminal record checks will be processed quickly. Whether or not a fee is payable, volunteers for whom a check is necessary should get clearance quickly, so that they do not give up, walk away and find something else to do because they are fed up with waiting.

A number of questions arise for the Government. What is the Minister's most recent assessment of the cost to the voluntary sector of the planned system of fees? How many people does he think will be affected? As he knows, in the past, several voluntary organisations have challenged the Government's published estimates. The Government are supposed to produce an impact assessment before the Criminal Records Bureau starts operating and charging fees. Given that the bureau will commence operations in 2001, I hope that the Minister can assure us that a detailed assessment will be produced later this year. Will he issue guidance on how the system will operate, especially the way in which the concept of substantial unsupervised access to children and young people should be interpreted?

Conservative and Labour Ministers have always taken the view that voluntary organisations are not obliged to have their helpers vetted and such arguments were used when my party was in office. However, I wonder whether the Government have taken full account of the pressure that insurance companies are exerting on voluntary organisations. In my constituency—and, indeed, on a wider scale—voluntary organisations are saying that they will feel obliged to ask not that the straightforward criminal record check be carried out, but the enhanced check. Otherwise, they fear that insurers will not provide cover where an organisation is sued because it failed to carry out a check that would have shown that a helper had harmed a child. The Government should not stand back and say, "It's up to the voluntary sector to decide whether to carry out checks." Voluntary organisations are under much pressure from insurers to secure checks on all volunteers who work with children and young people.

What thought are the Government giving to the impact of the requirement for checks on after-school clubs and other initiatives that they are helping to fund and that are directed at young people? I presume that volunteers who work in such organisations will be asked to permit a criminal records check to be performed. Will the Government allow for the cost of police national computer checks in their funding?

Although I have some criticisms of and questions for the Government, I start from the position of sharing the support for the voluntary sector that the Minister and his colleagues have shown. The thriving and innovative voluntary sector is one of this country's greatest traditions. It has existed for many years and all of us must work hard to pass it on in good health to future generations. In doing that, we will contribute to the greater well-being of the country.

3.32 pm

Jackie Ballard (Taunton)

Like others, I have been a volunteer—not just a political volunteer. However, I have discovered that one carries on being a political volunteer even after one is being paid to be a politician. I was also a recruiter and organiser of volunteers when I worked in adult basic education, so I know about the difficulties in finding suitable volunteers. The volunteers whom I had to recruit needed to give blocks of their time to help adults with literacy or numeracy problems, so I understand what the Minister said about the inflexibilities in the benefits system. Those inflexibilities affect volunteers who have to commit to being in a certain place at fixed time for a set period if they are to do an individual any good.

In our background research, we have all read papers containing figures on the number of volunteers and the hours that they work. I read a different paper from the Minister and the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington). It said that volunteers give more than 18 million working days a year, the equivalent of contributing £1.4 billion to the economy. That figure is different from the £40 billion that the Minister quoted. I do not know how those figures were calculated. It is probably impossible to calculate the economic worth of volunteers, although it might be a worthwhile exercise. Does the Minister have another figure?

Mr. Boateng

No, but I wonder whether that was the same statistician who calculated what the Liberal Democrats could provide with an extra penny on income tax.

Jackie Ballard

I am so disappointed. I thought that the Minister was in one of his generous moods and that he would not go in for such petty political backbiting. He has disappointed me, as he so often does, but I will try to live up to the name that he gave me in Committee on the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill and behave responsibly.

My experience of statisticians is that no two ever agree on statistics. We should not put too much store by statistics or statisticians. However, whatever the exact contribution made by volunteers might be, it deserves to be recognised in the country and at the heart of Government more widely than it often is, which is why I welcome today's debate.

In our jobs as Members of Parliament, we encounter many people every day who give up hours of their time to do voluntary work. I am amazed at how much time some people devote not just to the well-known charities, but to helplines or statutory organisations such as the NHS, which—to make a brief party-political point—often uses volunteers to eke out its meagre resources. Some people even volunteer to work for Members of Parliament.

I recently met a constituent who works full time, but devotes much of his spare time to running a youth club in Milverton. He saw that a need was not being met, rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. We owe such people a great debt of gratitude. Indeed, volunteers are the unsung heroes of our society, without whom many organisations would collapse and many people would fail to receive vital services. Our communities are much the richer for these people.

I shall mention several organisations in my own constituency to make a wider point. The first is St. John Ambulance, which I visited recently. I was made keenly aware of its difficulties in recruiting volunteers. There is a greater need for services as voluntary organisations grow, but fewer people have time to give, so it becomes increasingly difficult to recruit volunteers. Hon. Members will be attending fetes and carnivals in the next few weeks, many of which could not take place without the presence of St. John Ambulance—for insurance as well as safety reasons. It is vital to the success of other organisations in the community, so there is a knock-on effect. St. John Ambulance also provides training, internally and externally, which helps to save lives every year. As a result of lottery funding, it is running first aid courses in some of my constituency's villages to train first-line responders in the event of emergencies—a vital job to help support the emergency services.

Last Friday morning I was shown around Beech Grove school in my constituency by the head teacher and the chair of governors. It reminded me that school governors are another volunteer group—perhaps not one that immediately springs to mind—that performs a responsible and vital role. It is an increasingly time-consuming role, particularly for the chairman of governors. Some hon. Members have been chairs of school governors and some—perhaps the Minister—still are.

I recently attended a youth council conference in Somerset that brought home the importance of volunteer networks, without which youth participation in the form of youth councils could not take place. If we expect young people to become active and valuable members of society, we must provide opportunities for them to be consulted and give them an input into our democratic systems. There is a tendency to view voluntary work as about helping people in need, but it is also about involving people in diverse ways in their communities. Becoming involved in projects to ensure that decision makers listen to young people's views is another part of volunteering, as it is not always carried out by the statutory sector.

Last Saturday, the mayor of Taunton Deane organised a millennium parade through the town. A huge variety of voluntary organizations—more than 100—took part. The hon. Member for Aylesbury spoke about a range of organisations, and I noticed a range from the Samaritans to the majorettes—very different in their aims and objectives.

Many voluntary organisations value the framework and support that they receive from joining together under the umbrella of the Council of Voluntary Service. I note that neither of the two previous speakers mentioned CVS. I am especially aware of its work because I used to be a member of the executive of my local CVS branch. I know first-hand of its ability to bring together social, economic and environmental groups to contribute towards community planning. Local organisations and their communities need the CVS to build skills capacities and competences through partnerships.

I have regular meetings with voluntary organisations in my constituency and they all tell me that they do not want to lose sight of their core objectives and become over-bureaucratic to take on and deliver either the local government or national Government agenda. The CVS is in an ideal position to facilitate compacts, if it has adequate core funding. This comes down to the issue of core funding versus chasing project funding, for which I would not blame a specific Government. I have been a member of local government and this is not a party-political issue.

All Governments who see themselves as guardians of public funds are likely to put over-bureaucratic demands on voluntary organisations and to have bright ideas and seek bids for project funding. However, we must find a way to ensure that that does not overtake the core objectives of voluntary organisations so that they end up employing people to do their accounts and they lose sight of their original purpose. The whole process takes time and resources and that is why the CVS is an ideal player in it. There is a constant issue for voluntary organisations in managing the conflicts between their internal values or aims and the external policy environment, such as the divergent and changing expectations of partners and the new financial opportunities, especially bidding opportunities and the inevitable financial constraints.

Volunteering and the nature of voluntary organisations have changed a great deal in the past two decades. Their services are needed more now than ever before and perhaps in some ways the terms "volunteer" or "voluntary" are no longer suitable because without some of the services provided by the voluntary sector, the statutory services would find life incredibly difficult. As the hon. Member for Aylesbury said, many more people are now in paid work, so there are fewer volunteers to cope with the increasing needs of communities and statutory organisations.

Some people feel that they have no skills to offer, but all that many people who are in need of help want is a little of someone else's time and attention—something that most people can offer. Many people volunteer their time to home visit schemes that are organised by local. authorities and charities such as Age Concern. They provide a lifeline for people who may not necessarily suffer from any disability, but who benefit from having someone to talk to once in a while. Lewisham health centre, which is nowhere near my constituency, runs just such a scheme to help older people cope with loneliness by providing someone to speak to them on the phone or visit them in their homes.

The Minister spoke about the BBC's TimeBank scheme. I should like to mention another. I do not know whether the Minister has come across the Lewisham time bank but it is attached to the health centre. It enables volunteers to earn time credits for helping their neighbours or others in their communities. They can spend those time credits on services for themselves. A general practitioner, for example, can prescribe a few hours of visiting for someone who is lonely or depressed—I do not mean clinically depressed, but what most lay people would describe as depressed. Such schemes can give a value not just to the act of volunteering, but to the volunteer.

In his speech in March, which has already been mentioned, the Prime Minister said let us give generously in the twin currencies of time and money. He was right to identify time as a unit of currency and it is one currency of which some people, such as the retired and the unemployed, have plenty. But many of them do not have much of the other currency—money. Why not allow them to exchange their time for goods and services?

The expansion of the scheme could be worrying for Governments. If local authorities were involved in time bank schemes, they could allow time credits to be exchanged for car park tickets or for access to leisure facilities. It may be a revolutionary idea, but when one starts to think about it, there is no end to where it could lead. One could set up an alternative society, swapping time and services with each other without using money. However, Treasury and Department of Social Security officials would get very worried about that. I am pleased that the Government are looking at the existing, or perceived, barriers to volunteering for people who are on benefits and I am delighted with the Minister's announcement about time credits, which is very positive.

There are many time-bank, time-credit or funny-money schemes in this country, but there are many more, and older-established ones, in the United States, where there is a long-established culture of volunteering. Like many hon. Members, I have an American intern working with me, and she tells me that university students in the United States compete for the chance to spend their holiday time volunteering, building houses, caring for children and so on.

There are service-learning programmes in which people give their services free of charge to help organisations in need. For example, accounting students give up their time to help in schools. Others volunteer to work in parenting schemes for at-risk children; in meals-on-wheels and family-assistance schemes in hospitals; in neighbourhood cleaning schemes; and in shelters for abused women. Volunteering is a worthwhile way to help others while learning new skills and being valued as an individual. As the Minister said, it is an impressive addition to any CV.

I will not repeat the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Aylesbury about voluntary organisations' anxiety that Government proposals will make them pay for checks on criminal records. However, I, too, have been lobbied by several organisations, including the guides and the scouts who rely largely on volunteers. I do not have to declare an interest as the honorary vice-president of Somerset Scouting Association as it is certainly not a pecuniary interest.

The checks are vital and it is important that voluntary organisations take as much care as statutory organisations and business about those who work with children and young people. I hope that the Government's review in July will show that they have much more money than they expected in their coffers and that they will thus grant voluntary organisations an exemption from the fee for criminal record checks.

We have much to learn from other countries that make use of people's volunteering skills. Many people are prepared to play a part in their community through voluntary schemes, although getting involved m local politics or the local council may be the last thing that they want to do. However, many of us became involved in local politics through the volunteering route. I was first involved in campaigning for a toy library, helping to set it up and running it when I had a very young child. Volunteering is often the route into politics, but many people do not want to get politically involved. They are happy to give up their time to volunteer for other things.

Volunteers should come from all sections of society—young and old, working and non-working. If working people are to give their time and skills to the community, they will need their employers' support. As the Minister said, the Prime Minister laid down a challenge to employers, many of whom do not recognise the value to their organisation and to society of having employees who are active as magistrates, local councillors. school governors or in voluntary organisations.

I am one of several Members of Parliament on a secondment scheme through the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. I chose to work with Crime Concern, which last night held a dinner for corporate sponsors, which I attended. I learned there of a large London brewery that released 50 members of staff during working hours to act as mentors to children at a local school who are at risk of offending. That is an excellent example to other employers, who I hope will take up the Prime Minister's challenge. However, one day in 18 months seems rather a small challenge to rise to and I hope that they will give more time.

I have long been interested in community measures such as time dollars and community banking. Mutuality has been missing from volunteering so far; community banking takes place with volunteer support to set up a mutual organisation, the idea being that communities band together to offer cheap finance. The bank is administered by a team of volunteers, so costs are kept to a minimum.

The other attractive aspect of mutuality is harnessing the time, skills and caring of people who themselves need help. Rather than so-called do-gooders or mentors moving in to help the underprivileged or marginalised members of society, it is better to involve such people not as passive recipients of help but as active participants with something to contribute. In debates elsewhere the Minister and I have discussed how people who get into a spiral of offending often have low self-esteem and need someone to tell them that they could be better people. The same argument applies to people living in a disadvantaged community who feel that they are just the recipients of help with nothing to offer in return. Mutual volunteering could help to overcome that problem.

We are fortunate to have so many people who are willing to give up their time to help out in charity shops, hospices, meals-on-wheels services, day care centres, support groups and many other activities of our society. Volunteers do not volunteer for nothing; they gain from the experience. Whenever I recruited volunteers I was always careful to say that voluntary actions were not always done just out the goodness of people's hearts; volunteers gained a feeling of self-esteem and they were contributing something worthwhile to the community.

As the Minister said, volunteering can—through fostering regular attendance at meetings and putting some routine back into people's lives—help to get people back into paid work. We must be careful not to make volunteering too professional arid not to impose so many types of accreditation around it that it puts it out of the reach of ordinary people.

Mr. Boateng

indicated assent.

Jackie Ballard

I am pleased to see the Minister nodding. Not every country in the world has the volunteers and volunteer networks that we have. We are fortunate to have a long tradition of volunteering. We must be careful not to destroy that tradition by good intentions.

3.54 pm

Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth)

Volunteering is the essential act of citizenship. Active engagement in the communities in which we live—not rights or the passports that we carry—is what makes us citizens, and I make no apology for reinforcing that point. My right hon. Friend the Minister made the same point when he referred to volunteering being of the essence and the fabric of society. Due to his wide experience of the voluntary sector and community interests, I am delighted that that aspect of Government policy is in his hands and I welcome his announcements here today.

The United Kingdom has a vibrant and successful voluntary sector. There has been enormous progress in promoting a spirit of partnership, but volunteering still has an old-fashioned ring to it. It is seen as dowdy here, in comparison with the United States of America, where voluntary work is increasingly seen as a core activity and is viewed by business managers as well as individuals as an essential element in a CV. We are talking only about image and language in that respect, because our level of activity and the range of our voluntary and community sectors are enormous—probably greater than in any other country. Even on that large base, much progress is being made by the voluntary sector—but much remains to be done. In my contribution, I want to recognise the value and work of the sector, stress the importance of partnership and look to priorities, particularly in innovation.

The previous Opposition day debate of 23 July 1996 was almost unique because there had been no debate on the voluntary sector or volunteering for many years. It was an opportunity for all those who took part to celebrate the work of the sector. I am pleased that this debate is taking place on the Government's initiative and I hope that it will become a regular feature of the House's calendar. Clearly, there is a mass of issues with which we ought to engage. They are not, perhaps, the controversial and partisan issues, but issues that should be teased out in intelligent debate between people who have experience of the voluntary sector and a concern for it.

It is the responsibility of Government to nurture the sector, although we must be sensitive to its need for independence. All parties have accepted those points. I am pleased that so much of what the Labour party called for when in opposition, in terms of the development of that partnership, in publications such as "Building the Future Together", has been delivered. I congratulate the Minister and his colleagues on their recent work. The development of the compact at every level throughout the United Kingdom is an enormous step forward. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for his participation and to people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where separate processes have led to developments that are similar, but are very much owned by those countries.

Mr. Hope

I regret that my commitment to an engagement at the Trustee Conference 2000 means that I cannot stay to contribute to the debate. My right hon. Friend is hiding his light under a bushel. He is the author of the compact that is now establishing a brand new relationship between the Government and the voluntary sector at a national level and in regional and local government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the work that he has done has set the standard—I am sure that he does—but that, although we have made progress, there is more to be done, particularly on rolling out the compact at local level?

Mr. Michael

Many people recognised the need for the developments and many people, including my hon. Friend, came to the House with experience of the voluntary sector. They brought their experience with them, so that the House is now seized of the need for the relationship.

The Labour party developed its approach in opposition, but did so in partnership with the voluntary sector—listening and debating. Parallel activity took place in the voluntary sector. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations took a major initiative that led to the Deakin report. That made a significant contribution in England and there were parallel working groups in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the voluntary sector itself sought to develop a different type of relationship. It has been a collective effort, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Hope) for his contribution, both in his professional background and since he was elected to the House, particularly in his work with the Back-Bench group on the voluntary sector.

There is a great range of important innovation. The Prince's Trust has undertaken a variety of activities designed to motivate young people, taking risks that it would be more difficult for the statutory sector to take. On the Government side, there has been the development of the millennium volunteers. I am glad that my right hon. Friend referred to the role of older volunteers. Often, one hears people in their 80s talking about helping "old people" who are about 10 years younger than they are. I had that experience with my father, when he was alive. Following the year of older people, there has been increasing recognition of the important part that they play. There is potential for greater future involvement, as the number of older people and younger retired people increases. We need strategically to expand that innovation.

I welcome the cash commitment to expand the work of older volunteers to which my right hon. Friend the Minister referred. That approach needs to be developed in a strategic manner that does not simply involve one-off projects or funding for a short period. Much good work has been supported by lottery funds, but most of those efforts tend to be short term. A service that is provided for two or three years may disappear unless there is sustained funding, which can sometimes be provided by Departments, local government or voluntary contributions. However, the situation can be difficult—the example of the old urban aid funds shows that services can disappear, although they were good and the community came to depend on them. It is crucial to provide sustained support for the best projects.

I want to discuss two important innovations that suggest a way forward: those are, the community action network and the Cares programme, which was initiated by Business in the Community. Perhaps I should add that I joined the advisory board of the community action network, although that is not a pecuniary or declarable interest.

The purpose of the community action network, which has grown quickly, is to encourage the outstanding community projects around the country to exchange information and knowledge. Some of those projects are well funded, some are local and others, such as Track 2000, which is in my constituency, are grass-roots organisations.

During my time at the Home Office, with CAN we invited various voluntary sector organisations to take part in a discussion. They discussed, via the web, what they should say at that first meeting. As a result, it was one of the most coherent and well-prepared meetings in which I have had the pleasure of taking part. That shows how new technology can be used by the voluntary sector.

Some 350 members of the community action network are now helping to spread innovation and to compare practices and experience—they discuss what works and what can be transplanted, so that success does not simply remain local, although many of the projects, of their nature, are local. Local successes can be transplanted and replicated in other places. We should strongly encourage such efforts and I know that the Home Office is supporting this work.

The community action network brings together the public, private and voluntary sectors. Several innovations have shown that the three sectors have the capacity to work together. Experience to date suggests that there is a capacity for dynamic innovation, although it can be difficult to manage a dynamic relationship between different sectors, which may include several Departments. The ways in which health authorities work make it hard to secure a proper and sustained engagement with the voluntary sector in community development.

I also want to discuss the Cares programme. I had the privilege of being invited by Sandy Leitch, who was leading a task force for Business in the Community, to join him and the National Centre for Volunteering on a visit to New York to examine the work of New York Cares. That shows how the lead in such initiatives can come from various directions—it can come from a community or voluntary organisation, the Government or the business sector. We should welcome and encourage such diversity. That initiative led not to the transplanting of the American experience to the United Kingdom, but to the development of our own model. I am pleased to see how that has developed through the action days that have been organised. Some 275 companies and 7,100 employees have taken part since September 1999. That remarkable upsurge in activity is in addition to the existing activities of voluntary organisations.

Ten Cares partnerships are now operational in cities around Britain, including the Cares programme in Cardiff. Coincidentally, my constituency was one of the pilot projects. I am very pleased that the National Assembly for Wales has given £400,000 for Wales-wide development in every town and city. The programme's innovative activity is being matched with that of the existing voluntary sector. That is a positive approach; people are saying not, "We're new: we can come in and do everything", but, "We can add to what is already there and work with existing organisations."

I referred earlier to the role of voluntary activity in the CV of someone who is seeking employment. The National Centre for Volunteering has highlighted the fact that the 1997 national survey of volunteering revealed that 18 per cent. of those surveyed said that their employer encouraged voluntary work, and 40 per cent. said that they would be either very interested or quite interested in participating in voluntary schemes organised by their employer. That underlines the importance of voluntary work being seen as something that is encouraged. It also demonstrates the potential of the Cares programme, given employers' involvement in it. The National Centre for Volunteering suggests that government should help to encourage flexible working hours to facilitate the community involvement of employees. It also advocates schemes that could assist business in encouraging volunteers—for example, tax breaks or a scheme akin to payroll giving, with voluntary activity rather than money being the benefit that is provided.

My right hon. Friend the Minister, when he spoke about encouraging employees, referred to the role of the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Richard Wilson. I pay tribute to him for the superb example that he has set in encouraging Government employees to become involved in volunteering activities. His initiative at the Home Office in 1997 had a significant impact. There is nothing like leading by example from the top and I pay tribute to the lead that he has taken.

The National Centre for Volunteering has raised the issue of unemployed people and people who are active social entrepreneurs in their local community. That is to do not only with unemployed people voluntarily giving their time, although I am pleased that more is being done to remove the obstacles. However, people who take a lead in their local community and become social entrepreneurs, doing valuable and fulfilling, but unpaid, jobs in the community, sometimes have to leave those jobs in favour of paid work. That can leave a vacuum, in that much voluntary activity collapses and, indeed, help for unemployed people disappears. The national centre suggests the inclusion of a social entrepreneur option in the new deal. There are potential difficulties in implementing that, but the idea merits further exploration.

Social entrepreneurship, as a concept, is as hard to put a finger on as entrepreneurship in the business sector, involving as it does the old question of whether entrepreneurs are born, developed or trained. I have looked with interest at the work of the school for social entrepreneurs, which was started by Michael Young—Lord Young of Dartington—who seems to have lost none of his capacity for innovation. If that school proves a success and the people who go through the training course are able to take a major leap forward, it would say a lot for education and training in that field. That is something on which we could then build for the long-term future.

Training needs a greater emphasis in relation to volunteering, voluntary organisations and voluntary activity. There is always a tendency to make savings on training when money is tight, as it is most of the time. However, if volunteers are to fulfil their potential, they need the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge, just as employees do. We should place a great deal of emphasis on that.

I join my right hon. Friend the Minister in welcoming the report of Lord Warner's committee, and I hope that a long-term strategic approach will be taken to the implementation of its recommendations. Will the Minister tell us the Government's intentions in that regard when he sums up? The contribution of the voluntary sector to the new deal should not be underestimated. From the beginning, the most difficult young people have needed to be motivated and given the first step on the path into work. That is of interest to all of us, not only because we believe that all young people should have opportunities, but because it is those young people who need particular help who are likely to do damage to themselves and to the wider community.

I refer to the rest of the Minister's portfolio—the way in which the devil makes work for idle hands. If young people are to respect society, they have to be part of society. Young people from the most deprived communities—and often those from ethnic minorities—frequently have not had as many opportunities as others. I welcome the work of the voluntary sector in the new deal in that regard and I hope that it will be strongly promoted in the future.

Tradition and consistency are on the other side of the coin to innovation, and I share the view expressed earlier that faith-based voluntary organisations need to be encouraged and nurtured. The church is often the only professionally led organisation still in existence in some of our most deprived communities and run-down areas. Increasingly, in modern times, the mosque as well as the church may be the key to engaging the community in its own future. Tradition and consistency in the voluntary sector, therefore, must be nurtured.

I have some involvement in the Youth Hostels Association, of which I am a vice-president, and the citizens advice bureaux service. A variety of organisations should not be allowed to slip down the list of priorities for support and encouragement simply because they have been around for a long time.

I shall return to the most important development of recent times: the development of partnerships. That is where I started in voluntary and community work and, during the past couple of years, I have been pleased to see major innovations in Wales. The Wales Council for Voluntary Action has now based itself in Baltic house, a stone's throw from the National Assembly for Wales. The engagement between the new Assembly and the voluntary sector is vibrant as a result of that initiative. The Assembly has also established a partnership council as one of the three strands of partnership—the others being with business and with local government—that are the key elements in its being. Others could learn from that.

The development of local compacts has grown out of the agreement of the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and the Welsh Local Government Association to set targets together. The delivery has been patchy, but some of it is extremely exciting. During my period as Secretary of State, I asked all public bodies in Wales to establish a compact with the relevant voluntary sector. One of the most exciting developments was in Neath-Port Talbot, where the local authority and the local council for voluntary action joined with the NHS trust and health authority to adopt a tripartite approach to the development of volunteering and voluntary activity. Again, that approach strives to break down the barriers.

The development of a compact involves not simply codifying good practice, but creating a new vibrancy in society and a planned release of new energy into the voluntary sector. Certainly, there is a danger that the voluntary sector will be flooded if national or local government expect too much of it, and the relationship must be managed with great care. However, that relationship must also be strategic. If the voluntary sector is to continue to be successful, consistency is crucial.

I mentioned crime reduction and I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) mention that she is a former board member of Crime Concern. I regard the work of that organisation and others such as the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, and Victim Support as crucial to crime reduction in this country. It is not simply that they do additional good work: they do things that the public sector cannot. Partnership between the public and the voluntary sectors—which, again, requires the involvement of business—is crucial, and such organisations are essential to delivering stability in society.

Finally, I too underline the importance of involving young people. As has been said, it is difficult to get young people to regard volunteering as exciting. In my experience as a youth worker, the only way to get them to volunteer was to tell them that they were volunteering only after the event, by which time it came as something of a surprise. One must get them involved and engaged, and words such as "action", "care" and "community" have a greater appeal than "volunteering". That presents a problem. One cannot talk about volunteering without using the word, but to attract people one almost has to avoid it.

In Wales, the National Assembly launched the "Young Voice—Llais Ifanc" initiative, the purpose of which was to use the internet and e-mail to encourage youngsters to talk to each other—rather than just the Government about policy. If we allow concerns and suggested remedies to develop independently, young people will engage in voluntary activity and, indeed, the political activity that is essential to the survival and development of our democracy. Political activity is, after all, a voluntary activity—none of us has been forced into it—and it is rather sad that we live in a society in which such activity is, in the main, denigrated. Just as volunteering needs a fresh and positive image, so does political activity, and perhaps the two are not entirely unrelated.

On the responsibility of Government, it is interesting to note that other countries are looking at, getting excited about and learning from developments in this country. Last weekend, Lord Dubs and I spent some time with people from eastern Europe who were interested in learning how to involve non-governmental organisations in the development of a civil society. They brought a refreshing air of excitement. I hope that debates such as this will engender greater interest and excitement among hon. Members.

Let us explore the words to be used in relation to volunteering, but let us speak positively and regard it as the essential act of citizenship. Let us press the Government in everything that they do to emphasise the importance of these activities. Many Government Departments—the Home Office, the Department for Education and Employment and the Cabinet Office—are now taking initiatives. The social exclusion unit has made a major contribution in promoting ideas of social inclusion. We know of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's interest, which has been put into financial terms in recent decisions; we know of the Prime Minister's close interest in the voluntary sector. We must move towards coherence from Government: perhaps sometimes there are too many voices, which makes it difficult for the voluntary sector to be sure what messages are coming from the Government. That can lead to energy being diverted in a variety of directions.

There is a difficulty about us wanting, as we all do, children and those with whom volunteers work, such as adults with learning difficulties and the elderly, to be properly protected by the use of the criminal records system. It gives a mixed message from the Government when that will ca use a burden for those organisations that use volunteers most. I recognise the difficulties and the dilemma that Ministers face in dealing with that. Ultimately, it becomes a central dilemma for the Government and one that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could perhaps look at again to ensure that they give a clear and simple message about the importance and value of volunteering.

In that context, all organisations in the public sector, including local authorities, must be encouraged to provide funding in a way that makes it easier for the sector to apply for and receive financial support within the new time scale. Now that the Government have moved to a three-year time scale for funding, there is no reason why that should not be passed on by public bodies and local government to the voluntary organisations.

Finally, new ideas are necessary if we are to get right the balance between core funding and project funding. I know that some thought has been given to strategic funding for the voluntary sector. That would allow continuity of thought and development without a return to the old system, where so much money went to administration that comparatively little was available for activity on the ground and the development of innovation and good projects.

Let us unite in persuading Ministers that encouragement of the essential act of citizenship has support from all sides of the House and from the community at large.

4.23 pm

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion)

I begin by declaring a possible interest. I worked for five years for the national representative body for the voluntary sector in Wales, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action. I still have pension rights, so I clearly have a stake in the future of the voluntary sector.

I welcome the Minister's announcement that time exchange schemes will be taken into account in the benefit regulations. I ask him to go a little further along the lines urged by the hon. Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard), particularly with regard to local exchange trading schemes, which are local exchange mechanisms. A local exchange trading scheme in my constituency is having problems with unemployed people who pledge one another not only time but services, as a sort of currency. Local officialdom is not receptive to what is happening there.

I also welcome the pronouncement by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington)—I am not sure whether it was an announcement—who spoke glowingly for the Conservative Front Bench about liberal society. I thought that liberal society had gone downhill in the Conservative party. However, at least in this consensual Chamber I welcome his remarks on a liberal society without elitism. I agree with his remarks in that context.

I want to focus on the contribution of the voluntary sector to Welsh civic society, as seen from my own perspective and experience as someone who has worked for a voluntary sector organisation for several years and who, like other hon. Members, became involved in the first place by being a volunteer.

I shall start by giving throwing some statistics into the pot. They differ from other statistics that we have heard, so perhaps we can take an average and work out where we are.

The annual income of the voluntary sector in Wales has been estimated at about £570 million, which is a significant amount and is equivalent to 2.2 per cent. of the gross domestic product of Wales. There are about 25,000 active voluntary organisations in Wales, of which 90 per cent. are small local organisations. It is important to remember that many voluntary organisations have their headquarters in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, which skews the perception of voluntary activities because they are often thought to be outside Wales. Wales has many small voluntary bodies.

The Minister said that 29 per cent. of the adult population in Wales are active volunteers, but my figures show that 80 per cent.—1.9 million people—are active volunteers and that each contributes nearly four hours of voluntary time every week. There is a big difference between 29 per cent. and 80 per cent., but statisticians use different methods to obtain figures. The value of that voluntary work to the Welsh economy is estimated to be £3.4 billion. The figures sometimes seem to go beyond reality and perhaps the new economics have gone too far. The contribution of voluntary organisations and volunteers is equivalent to about 15 per cent. of gross domestic product in Wales. Accusations are sometimes made of facts and figures being added together and totalling more than 100 per cent. of GDP when every sector has made a play for its part of the economy. However, the contribution of the voluntary sector in Wales is significant and it ranks alongside sectors such as agriculture, farming and tourism. It is in that league and it is important that its value is accepted.

For every £1 of statutory funding, the voluntary sector contributes £2.30p in matched funding, time and effort. We face the problem of finding resources for objective 1 structural funding in several areas in Wales and elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the contribution of the voluntary sector to meeting structural funding obligations can be significant. It has a full part to play, but that does not let the Government off the hook in finding sufficient matched funding in the comprehensive spending review. The voluntary sector should contribute added value to the process; it should not supply funds to substitute for Government expenditure.

Having put on the record some of the facts and figures from one part of the United Kingdom I want to say how important the voluntary sector is to civic society. The compact between the Government and the voluntary sector in Wales, to which the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) referred, states: Voluntary action plays a central role in our modern pluralistic society and enhances the democratic process. Within the past week or so we have seen how the voluntary sector can enhance the democratic process when it delivers its views to politicians.

I see from the voluntary sector it my constituency how flexible it can be and how it is able to respond to demand as it arises. Statutory organisations sometimes take years to conduct research and to put together funding bids, but the voluntary sector can be up and running in months, weeks or days and sometimes hours. Organisations in Aberystwyth that help the young homeless, Hype in my constituency, and the Ceredigion advocacy network, which helps those with mental health problems, have filled a gap and, at short notice, have provided a service that was not available in the statutory or private sector. The voluntary sector often brings such organisations closer to the people and encourages greater participation. In turn, that builds confidence and skills among participants. We have already heard a little about the contribution that volunteering makes to employers and those seeking jobs. I like to think that the voluntary sector is not only the civic society, but the learning society at work. Volunteering is the process by which most people gain new skills.

I support what the hon. Member for Taunton said about accreditation in the voluntary sector. We must monitor progress and the value of the public penny that goes into some voluntary organisations, but we must not overburden individuals with a requirement to gain national vocational qualifications or meet other criteria. We must maintain the maximum flexibility and allow people to gain skills and measure their own progress. When self-esteem is low, people measure their progress against that of their peers, not against external criteria that they must meet. It is important that Government policies give the voluntary sector sufficient freedom to continue in that way.

I want to illustrate the way in which the voluntary sector has worked in Wales by giving a short history of its contribution to the preservation and promotion of the Welsh language. I became involved in the voluntary sector and perhaps ended up in this House by that route. The first voluntary efforts to revive the Welsh language were made in the 18th century, when Madam Bevan set up circulating schools. They taught Welsh, which was forbidden by the state at that time. The Act of Union ruled out the use of Welsh in public life.

It took the voluntary sector, driven by the nonconformist faith communities, to realise what was happening. It set up a whole raft of initiatives, which are now familiar even to those outside Wales. The eisteddfod was restored to its current form in the 19th century. The Gorsedd, which started in London on Primrose Hill, was fuelled by a real voluntary visionary—Iolo Morgannwg. I think that he never had much of a job, but was a lifelong volunteer. He was also addicted to hard drugs, but I do not advocate volunteering in that way.

The eisteddfod and the Welsh language societies continued to flourish in the early part of the 20th century. The Urdd Gobaith Cymru—the Welsh league of youth—was set up and has proved an extremely effective way of teaching the Welsh language to children. It led to the first Welsh language school, which was voluntary. It was not allowed, or at least not encouraged, in the Government-funded system. That first Welsh language school was in Aberystwyth in my constituency. The 1960s saw an increase in the number of organisations such as the Welsh nursery schools movement—Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin—which led to a revival of the language.

Curiously, the Welsh language movement also saw itself as being outside the mainstream voluntary sector. As a result, many voluntary organisations in Wales now have difficulty attracting Welsh-speaking volunteers. That is both an anecdotal and a recorded problem. For example, the citizens advice bureaux in some parts of Wales want and need to provide a bilingual service, but have difficulty attracting Welsh-speaking volunteers. The Welsh language community has taken part in volunteering around chapels and churches, which has not been fully brought into the mainstream. However, that is developing, with the Assembly's encouragement, and I am sure that that will continue.

My crude interpretation of voluntary organisations is that they are often highly innovative and even radical at first. They challenge the system and attract opprobrium and ridicule. That leads the Government not to work with them, but against them. In time, the voluntary organisations start to deliver services; they become part of the fabric of provision and the services that they deliver are absorbed into what is done by the Government or private business. The hon. Member for Aylesbury set out the progress of a voluntary organisation in terms that were more elegant than my crude analysis, although he was quoting someone else.

Some voluntary organisations get fossilised; they pay too much attention to their representational role on committees and so on and progress is blocked. However, they often work in close partnership with local government organisations and businesses, which is encouraged by the Government. I welcome many of the Government's measures in that regard.

When voluntary organisations start to become old-fashioned or inward looking a new bud sometimes comes out of the old rootstock and flourishes vigorously. The statutory sector does not have the same ability, when the old growth has come to an end, to go underground and re-emerge elsewhere in a new form.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth for his hard work and enormous energy in forming the compact in Wales and the Partnership Council. Although the Wales Council for Voluntary Action represented a lot of demands from the voluntary sector, if there had not been a listening voice at the other end we would not have got as far as we have done. The partnership arrangement with the voluntary sector will be a monument in Wales to the right hon. Gentleman and a testament to his hard work.

The Partnership Council is part of the Welsh Assembly; it was enshrined in the Government of Wales Act 1998 that there should be a scheme between the voluntary sector in Wales and the National Assembly. That is unique in the United Kingdom. The Partnership Council puts the voluntary sector on an equal footing with local government and business, which businesses do not find so amenable, but we are working on that.

In Ceredigion, we are also working hard to prepare for objective 1—I mention in passing that we are waiting for matched funding for objective 1. The objective 1 forum has one third representation from the voluntary sector, one third from local government and one third from business. That has given the voluntary sector the profile that it deserves within the plans for objective 1; whether or not we accept all the figures quoted, it deserves it for its contribution to GDP. Some members of the farming community in Ceredigion told me that they are not sure whether the voluntary sector contributes anything to GDP, although the arguments advanced today repudiate that view. The voluntary sector has a great deal to do in helping the area move towards objective 1 status and encouraging the projects, especially training, that will result.

The voluntary sector has also made a huge contribution to the proposal for a children's commissioner in the Care Standards Bill, which recently had its Second Reading. The wide and in-depth participation of children and young people in discussing what should be the work of a children's commissioner strongly influenced Welsh Members when they considered the commissioner's role.

The Partnership Council, whose job is to implement the scheme, put out the voluntary sector scheme for consultation, which is still going on. That scheme contains several important elements, one of which is an agreement on the way in which the Government should consult the voluntary sector. Such agreements are not always followed, but people do their best; the compact on volunteering acknowledges its value and the manual on voluntary grants helps the voluntary sector to claim the relevant grants. It sets out the way in which that sector and the Government will work in partnership. It also has a brief view on community development, which I mention because it is the only part over which I have had any influence. The hon. Member for Aylesbury will see that these compacts include not only codification but a lot of other detail.

The council has a preponderance of voluntary sector members, including 21 sectional networks. I am pleased to say that for the first time that includes a structured sectoral representation from the black and ethnic minority in Wales. That is to be welcomed. The Partnership Council is a strong voice for the sector. It complements the activities of the other bodies such the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and the National Assembly.

I should like to say a few words about the role of the voluntary sector and volunteering in rural areas. It is important to plead the case for diversity and pluralisation in rural areas. There are an estimated 1,487 voluntary organisations in my constituency. That is rather precise for an estimate, but it takes the apportionment of other national bodies into account. What is more certain is that 700 local organisations are active in my constituency. With a population of about 70,000, that is roughly one organisation for every 100 people, which is a much higher ratio than one finds in urban areas.

In Cardiff, for example, there is one local organisation for every 250 people. In Rhondda Cynon Taff, another densely populated area, there is one organisation for every 240 people. That discrepancy underlines the different rural and urban needs. There is wide diversification and there are transport problems in getting and delivering services to local people. I have different organisations doing the same jobs in different towns and villages. In Aberystwyth, Lampeter and Cardigan, one organisation does the same job as another organisation, but they are separate. That might be seen by some as duplication.

The voluntary sector is often accused of being too highly duplicated, although that accusation is never levelled at supermarkets. It delivers different projects for different people. We must bear that in mind, particularly in rural areas. We must deliver voluntary support close to the people. That sometimes means that one ends up with the same or similar organisations doing similar jobs. It certainly places enormous strain on local government funding and fund raising. I hope that the rural issue will be taken into account in Government policy when they consider the voluntary sector. Community transport, volunteer bureaux and the local CVS are essential for rural areas.

The national lottery has made a significant contribution in Wales. On the whole, the picture is mixed. The National Lottery Charities Board has been very successful in Wales. It has responded to the needs of Wales. Tribute should be paid to the previous chair of that board, Tom Jones, who made a huge effort to be responsive to the voluntary sector and in particular innovated the small grants scheme in Wales, which was then rolled out across the UK. Many voluntary organisations throughout the UK now have access through the small grants scheme to support and train their volunteers. They will be grateful for what was done in Wales. It was a successful innovation.

We are now finding problems, however. They are not just the problems of short-term funding that have already been described, but the problems of the declining funding from the National Lottery Charities Board, caused in part by the new opportunities fund that the Government introduced. It is a highly valued fund but it has shaded the line between lottery money and statutory funding. It needs to be monitored carefully to ensure that we do not use lottery money to replace what should properly be statutory funding. That promise was made by the previous Government and I have not heard this Government say that they want to break that promise. We must monitor that.

The introduction of that fund means that there is less money for other funds. I know that that means that there is more money for the schemes that it supports and that some of them are good, but it has caused some problems with the National Lottery Charities Board, which has been extremely successful in delivering locally in Wales. It was annoying—I will not put it more strongly than that—for many people in Wales and for volunteers in Wales when the National Lottery Charities Board announced that it gad less money to allocate in the next few years for projects in Wales at the same time as the millennium dome received more money.

Let us look towards the future. There is no doubt that times are changing in the voluntary sector. I used to be a community development manager, and I saw such a job advertised in the paper yesterday—not that I am looking for another job. I scanned the description to find out what the job entailed, only to fir d that it was a job on the web, managing on-line communities. It had nothing to do with what I suppose we would call real communities—it involved virtual communities. Globalisation and aspects of the internet will significantly change the way in which the voluntary sector works. The voluntary sector is also innovating in that respect, but I have no time to elaborate on that now.

We must avoid introducing any compulsion in the voluntary sector. I support hon. Members' comments about the need to preserve the sector's independence, to protect independent management committees and to ensure that the majority of members of those committees are volunteers. We should not allow professionals to run voluntary bodies while volunteers are simply told what to do. We must ensure that volunteers participate in running the bodies for which they work.

I will finish with a thought from the recent visit to Canada of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit. My attention was drawn to a headline that called for the introduction of "compulsory volunteerism". I am sure that we would not recognise that in this country. I accept that many good ideas come from north America, but I think that the voluntary sector will reject any ideas of communitarianism or forcing people to volunteer, which are floating around on the outskirts.

Preserving the independence of the voluntary sector so that it can respond flexibly to society's needs is a key task that the Government must bear in mind in formulating all their policies. If the Government can preserve the sector's ability to be independent and to criticise Governments, as well as work with them, without being penalised, they will support the voluntary sector well.

4.47 pm

Mr. David Amess (Southend, West)

I welcome the debate and I apologise for my sporadic attendance. It is not easy to operate in Committee and in Westminster Hall at the same time and I hope that hon. Members will be understanding. However, I may have to spoil the party. Presumably, the debate was initiated to celebrate national volunteering week, but I wonder whether it was sheer coincidence that the Labour leader was invited to address the Women's Institute with a speech that also concerned volunteering.

I do not see the rosy volunteering situation that the Minister described. Parliament is now organised in such a way that hon. Members are invited to receptions morning, noon and night. The attendance of a photographer is arranged, our photographs are sent to our local papers and we are given badges of the particular organisation to wear. Such arrangements are attractive to Members of Parliament. I am wearing the green "Full Stop" badge of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and I have about three more in my pocket.

I applaud all such initiatives. It is good for Members to be associated with voluntary organisations, but what are we doing to help them? One or two hon. Members mentioned the largesse that they enjoy, but they are certainly not enjoying it in my constituency. I volunteer with the Women's Royal Voluntary Service and Barnardos and I wish to use the debate as an opportunity to celebrate voluntary organisations in my constituency. They are finding it tough to survive.

Some hon. Members made an important point about the difficulty of attracting young people into voluntary work. I received an excellent briefing—I had not asked for it in advance—from the Central Council of Physical Recreation, which talks about "taxes" on volunteering in sport. It cites criminal record checks under the Polices Act 1997 as a great burden. The briefing singles out other burdens such as the Transport Bill, the uniform business rate, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the national minimum wage, the climate change levy and so forth. That unsolicited briefing, which focuses on young people, highlights the difficulties created by the Government's taxation policies. When Southend was under the control of the dreadful Liberal-Labour coalition, many of our voluntary organisations had their grants cut. Thank goodness, after the first Thursday in May, all the cuts were restored and voluntary organisations are being encouraged again.

We can all make speeches about how marvellous volunteers are and how much we are associated with them, but it is what we do that counts. Society under the present Government is facing such difficulties that, if it were not for voluntary organisations, it would be in a state of collapse. Many people out there simply do not understand what voluntary organisations are about. I shall never forget meeting someone at a football match who spoke about the St. John Ambulance service as if it were a paid organisation. Thank goodness, St. John Ambulance people were there and they helped with several incidents at the match, saving the taxpayer a great deal of money.

I am wearing the badge of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Locally, it raised more than £50,000. It provided services for risk management of dangerous adults, helped abused children, worked with children and young people who demonstrated sexually abusive behaviour, helped families to understand why abuse happens and how it affects children, offered counselling and therapy for children recovering from abuse, and provided much needed help to prepare and support children and young people giving evidence in criminal proceedings. The NSPCC is doing all of that—it must save us huge amounts of money—but we take it for granted.

What encouragement are we giving the NSPCC? I am wearing its green badge, but I doubt whether that will go far. I am happy to work with the Government if they have any ideas about how to help that organisation. In my area, it manages a helpline for 88 abused children a week. Last year, it answered 2,134 calls. My local NSPCC branch, under Mrs. Betty Finch, should certainly be congratulated.

I am attached to the WRVS and spent Monday at Southend hospital. We all know about the meals-on-wheels service, but I wonder if we all appreciate that volunteers man retail outlets in the hospital entrance. I talked to the ladies about why they had become involved and I was deeply moved.

Many voluntary services are run by people who are involved with the particular problem that the organisation aims to help. We all understand that the Arthritic Association, for example, tends to use people who suffer from arthritis. However, the WRVS is a wonderful organisation of highly intelligent women. It made me so angry when, after a recent speech, people made disparaging remarks about the women in the WI, saying that they were good only for knitting and making jam—it is a pity that others cannot knit or make jam. To dismiss these ladies with such remarks just because they do not want to listen to politics is extremely distasteful.

The WRVS has more than 115,000 members and needs more volunteers. On Monday, it told me that most members are in their 60s, 70s and 80s and asked where the youngsters were coming from. If the Minister has any ideas on how we might boost numbers in the WRVS, I should be delighted to work with him on that. It offers a wide range of care packages—more than 1,100 social clubs for the elderly, 323 trolley services in residential homes, 94 contact centres where children can meet absent parents in a safe environment, toy libraries, prison visit centres and books-on-wheels services. In Southend, the WRVS distributed more than 4 million meals on wheels last year, raised £50,000 for Southend General hospital and helped out when the aircraft was hijacked at Stansted.

As for the Women's Institute, we should be in no doubt about the fact that it did not invite the leader of the Labour party to address its members. He arranged it and it went down like a lead balloon.

Mr. Michael

The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that he has attended intermittently this afternoon. Does he realise how much like a lead balloon is his contribution? Up to now, the debate has consisted of people speaking from experience—not just placements, but long-term involvement with the voluntary sector and its crucial role in our lives. I suggest that he wind up his lead balloon.

Mr. Amess

I am sorry, but this Parliament is democratically elected and I am not going to be patronised by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Michael

Yes, you are.

Mr. Amess

No, I am not going to accept the right hon. Gentleman's admonishment. I was sent here to represent my constituents and to share my views with others. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman does not like my message says more about him and the Labour party than it does about me and my contribution to the debate. We know how today's Labour party is run: it cannot stand an alternative point of view.

I feel so strongly because I find that many voluntary organisations are struggling and I want to know what the Government will do to help them. The Salvation Army in Southend is magnificent; it has two wonderful centres and an eventide home providing care for 34 elderly people. It raises a huge amount of money locally, for which I pay tribute.

Barnardos is a substantial organisation. It works with more than 47,000 children and young people each year and has 250,000 volunteers. We all know about its work with less fortunate children. In my constituency, about 350 fund-raising volunteers give up their time—it ranges from four hours a year to several days a week. They help with house-to-house charity collections, distribute and sell lottery tickets, and collect and bank envelopes. There are two Barnardos shops, which rely heavily on their 32 volunteers, who lend their assistance with everything from window-dressing to administrative work.

During my time as a Member of Parliament, I have been associated with three hospices: St. Luke's, Little Haven and Fair Haven. St. Luke's hospice is one of the most moving voluntary organisations that I have had the privilege to see. An extraordinary lady called Trudy Cox shared her dream with us. I walked away from our initial meeting thinking that I had heard it all before, but she sacrificed everything and her dream is still there today in the form of St. Luke's hospice. The Little Haven hospice in Southend, West serves children from a wide area of Essex, and the Fair Haven hospice is round the corner from where I live. It also looks after a huge number of people.

Sadly, because the hospice movement has funding difficulties, we are having to redouble our efforts. Indeed, my wife suggested that we set about raising extra funds for those two hospices and that is what we shall do during the summer.

The South East Essex Advocacy for Older People in my constituency is an independent citizen and crisis advocacy service for all those aged over 60 who live in south-east Essex. It has some 23 trained volunteers, who work on a one-to-one basis with individual elderly people with problems. Again, it had enormous problems of lack of funding and support from the previous council and I hope that we will be able to tackle those problems soon.

We also have Southend Mencap. Last week or the week before, there was a mental health lobby of the House, when our constituents shared their problems with us. Besides its paid staff, Southend Mencap has more than 125 local volunteers, who help at sports clubs for the learning disabled, drive minibuses, man shops, befriend disabled people, act as advocates, fund raise and carry out other services.

I have the honour to be the president of the Southend branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is another excellent organisation. It helps people who love and care for animals and who witness all sorts of cruelty. There are more than 200 branches in this country, which are run by 16,000 active volunteers and 330,000 regular supporters. Without them, I dread to think of the suffering that animals would face.

Then there is the diabetes organisation, Diabetes UK. Yesterday, we were invited to a reception in the House and I make no criticism of that. The fact that Harry Secombe made the effort to be at that reception with hon. Members despite his health problems, shows how strongly he feels about that organisation. In my constituency, more than 40 members of the diabetes club help to serve and educate people who are diabetic or potentially diabetic.

The list is endless. We also have the Friends of Southend Hospital and Neighbourhood Watch—all sorts of voluntary organisations. I am the joint chairman of the all-party group on the Scout Association. Scouts and guides make a huge contribution to our national life and very concerned about the Criminal Records Bureau charges. They have told me that the Minister who is responding to the debate has suggested that, providing free checks would be an unsustainable burden on the public purse. The Scout Association's view is that. If the costs are seen as unsustainable by Government, then it is hard to see how they could be sustainable by a charitable voluntary organisation. I stress that those are not my words but those of the Scout Association. If the Minister finds them offensive, he must argue with his hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), the joint chairman of the all-party group, who shares my views, the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Hope), who was here earlier and the previous Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Weatherill, who also feels strongly about the charges on voluntary organisations such as the scouts.

I am pleased that we have had this debate, because too often we—by that, I mean, "we"—pay lip service to the work of our voluntary organisations, which are under increasing strain to sustain their activities. I simply ask the Government to reflect on their approach to such organisations, because in my constituency I have seen no tangible benefit from Government funds. If the Minister can correct me, I shall be delighted to be corrected, but I hope that he and his colleagues will do all that they can to encourage as many people as possible to join voluntary organisations in my constituency and others.

5.04 pm

Mr. Boateng

We have had an excellent debate, with one exception. It must be said that the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) warned us that he intended to spoil the party, and he did. However, he did most damage to his own party. His comments were in no way representative of the tone employed by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who led for the Conservative party. Perhaps they were performing a Mr. Nice and Mr. Nasty routine—if so, they were true to character.

I was deeply disappointed by the speech of the hon. Member for Southend, West, which could have contained so much more. It consisted of a list of excellent organisations in his constituency, interspersed with bile and balefulness. His points could have been made without adopting that tone and he would have done better not to have bothered with the difficulties, as he described them, of traversing between the Committee Corridor and Westminster Hall. When he recognised that the game was up in his previous constituency, he had no difficulty traversing the short space between Basildon and Southend, West, for reasons that he has made balefully obvious. However, let us put the hon. Gentleman's speech to one side and concentrate on the subject and the other, excellent speeches made this afternoon.

The debate reflected not only the diversity of the sector, but the complexity of some of the challenges that it must meet. One of the most complex is core funding—as opposed to project funding—which was raised by the hon. Members for Aylesbury and for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) and with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) has had to wrestle. We must not lose sight of the importance of project funding, which enables partnerships to develop between central Government, local government and the voluntary sector. Those partnerships build on the capacity for innovation and risk taking that is central to the voluntary sector's contribution to the development of many policy areas, to which all right hon. and hon. Members referred this afternoon. We must not lose sight of the importance of that, and the importance to it of project funding.

Section 64 funding of the Department of Health, with which I am familiar, is central to the effectiveness of that funding stream. It encourages new organisations and new ideas to enter the arena of public policy and practice development by funding research into, and evaluation of, innovative projects. We cannot afford to lose that, but at the same time it is undoubtedly true that the process that began and accelerated under the previous Administration—of central and local government backing away from core funding—has imposed considerable strains on the sector. That is because, while one can approach a variety of sources such as trusts and businesses as well as the Government for project funding, one cannot whip up the same degree of enthusiasm from business and other charitable sources in relation to core funding. That is the experience of the voluntary sector and it has created a problem that necessitates the Government revisiting the issue of core funding.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has been described as the "author" of the compact. I prefer to describe him as its grandfather. In his initial work in this area, he wisely required central Government and the voluntary sector to meet once a year to review the operation of the compact. He was absolutely right to do so. That gives everyone the opportunity to take stock as to where they are going, find out what the problems are, ascertain which ones have been overcome, and find out what messages the developing relationship in the compact has delivered.

That annual meeting took place a few weeks ago and I am happy to share with the Chamber that we agreed there that the time had come to revisit the issue of core funding, precisely for the reasons that right hon. and hon. Members touched on today. We shall have to get the balance right; we have not got it right at the moment. It is not easy, because resources are always limited, but we cannot allow the infrastructure of the voluntary sector to be degraded by an absence of core funding. If we do, we shall be defeating the very purposes that we are seeking to encourage and develop by project funding.

I welcome the developing consensus across the Chamber on this issue. We must build on that and develop it in the coming year. I share my right hon. Friend's hope that we shall have regular debates on the voluntary sector. This Chamber provides a good venue for that. I hope to be able to report some progress in this troubled but significant area a year hence, after the next revisiting of the compact.

We touched on several other issues that have been of concern to the sector. I intend to take up some of them with hon. Members in correspondence. However, it is right that I deal with the issue raised in connection with the Criminal Records Bureau now. It has given me, as well as others in government and the voluntary sector, considerable cause for reflection as to how best to get it right. We believe that we have done so, but I am able to reaffirm that before making any regulations prescribing such matters as fees to be charged by the bureau, we shall carry out the regulatory impact assessment mentioned earlier. It will be carried out in consultation with the relevant bodies, including representatives from voluntary organisations and the scouts and guides, and it will provide a thorough and up-to-date assessment of the risks, costs and benefits of our proposals. Many figures are flying around, but some of those that have been contributed to the debate by the voluntary sector are questionable. That assessment will give us a better idea of the costs of the various certificates.

The cost of the enhanced criminal record certificate is likely to be around £10 and the other certificates are likely to cost around £5 or £6. However, attaining the certificates will not be mandatory—organisations will decide on the need to check volunteers and grant-funding bodies will decide whether to reimburse that cost—and not every volunteer who works in a particular sector will need a certificate, or one of the level of the enhanced criminal record certificate. For example, someone who takes a troop of scouts or guides away for a residential camp is in a different position to a volunteer who works at a Wednesday night meeting in a church hall. Parents rightly have different expectations in that regard. I shall not try to second guess the decisions that the scout movement will come to about the levels of certificate that it will require of its volunteers, but we should not proceed on the basis that the enhanced criminal record certificate will always be required.

Mr. Lidington

I welcome the Minister's statement reaffirming that a full impact assessment will be carried out before regulations are laid. As part of that assessment, will he undertake to examine the definition of substantial unsupervised access? The way in which that notion is interpreted by voluntary organisations and their insurance companies will have a significant bearing on his point about the distinction between a person who accompanies a scout or guide group on a camp and someone who turns up at a meeting on a Wednesday night at which other adults are present. The same principle bites on the operation of Sunday schools.

Mr. Boateng

That is one of the issues that we shall need to thrash out with the voluntary sector and child protection organisations. We should not forget that the voluntary sector will benefit from the existence of the CRB, which has long called for precisely the measures that we are taking. It recognises the risks that are posed by those who have preyed on children and young people—my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and I had to deal with many such tragic cases in the Home Office. Such people use voluntary sector organisations as a cover for their activity. Their guile, evil and capacity for deceit beggars belief. Organisations that they have used as a cover and children and young people, who will be better protected, will benefit from the fact that we are making life more difficult for those people and making it easier to expose their activities.

No one should underestimate the extent to which we are responding to a widely perceived need. I am the first to recognise that, in doing so, we must work in a way that takes the voluntary sector with us and does not actively deter volunteers. The biggest deterrent to volunteers is not the fact that they might have to pay up to £10 for a certificate, but the fact that we now live in a society where this evil has taken such a root that people are afraid to volunteer for some forms of work with children and young people because they are afraid of what people may say about them. That is the depth to which our society has degenerated and we have to draw it back from that abyss. If that means adopting the CRB proposal, I think that that is a price well worth paying, as will the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, people who work in, and love, the voluntary movement and everyone in this Chamber.

This has been a good debate. I shall write to right hon. and hon. Members who have made specific points. Anyone who attended the debate, or reads our proceedings, will glean from it the richness and diversity of the sector and of the experience that can be gained from working within it as a volunteer, the extent to which it contributes—not only in terms of monetary value—towards our society and, above all, the way in which it binds together, in a way that promotes cohesion and sustainability, groups of individuals into the communities that make up society as a whole.

Volunteers make society stronger and healthier, which is why we celebrate their work here today. We also rededicate ourselves, and our institutions of Parliament and Government, to continuing to work alongside them towards the common objective of a strong, safe, sustainable and sustaining society.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Five o'clock.