Charities and Civil Society: Ministerial Responsibility

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Government recognise the vital importance of volunteering and its wide-ranging benefits, not just to the organisations for whom people volunteer but for individuals themselves. We know that, during the pandemic, volunteers have had to make adjustments or pause their volunteering and we are very grateful to them for adapting as they have. My honourable friend is seeking to learn from the new approaches developed in the pandemic. We have launched a new volunteering futures fund, through which £7 million will be made available to improve the accessibility of volunteering in the arts, culture, sport, civil society and many other sectors. On the point about the census, it was included in the 2018 White Paper published by the Minister for the Constitution. It was rejected by the Office for National Statistics, but DCMS’s community life survey captures people’s volunteering.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, as has been mentioned, voluntary and community associations have had an enormous impact on health and well-being during the Covid pandemic. There are several important organisations. I think of those such as C2, Connecting Communities, the Health Creation Alliance and others which support and develop those organisations. Will the department engage with the Department of Health and Social Care to support and develop those enabling organisations, as well as the sector more generally?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is of course a former Health Minister, and the new Health Secretary is a former Culture Minister, so the insights that each have gained in their respective departments will, I know, be brought to their work. My honourable friend the Minister works with a range of groups—charities themselves but also sector representatives— including through round table meetings.

Florence Nightingale: Bicentenary

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Crisp]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Florence Nightingale in 2020.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, the Department of Health and Social Care is working with the Chief Nursing Officer for England on plans for the occasion, and will focus on rightly celebrating those in the nursing professions. Plans include supporting the Nursing Now campaign across the NHS in England. In addition, the Florence Nightingale Museum—located across the river within St Thomas’ Hospital—is in early discussion with partners, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, regarding a number of events to mark the bicentenary.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his encouraging response, and I had better declare my interest as chairman of Nursing Now, which he just referred to. Florence Nightingale is a truly global figure —the foundational and inspirational figure for nursing and health systems worldwide. This is an enormous opportunity for the UK. We should be using this bicentenary not just to celebrate nursing and other great nurses such as Mary Seacole, but as an opportunity to promote the contribution the UK makes to health globally. This is a great post-Brexit—I assume it will be post-Brexit—opportunity to promote UK expertise in everything in health, from academia to commerce. The World Health Organization is debating her bicentenary today, and will be making a major announcement about what it intends to do. The UK needs to do the same.

Does the Minister agree that this is a tremendous opportunity for the UK that we must grasp? Will the Government join the WHO, Nursing Now and others to promote nursing and support plans to develop young nurses worldwide?