National Citizen Service Bill [Lords]

Jo Churchill Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), whose remarks I received warmly. Having believed that this was a Bill to which it was not possible to make any objection, I thought that the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) had to cast around fairly widely in order to disguise his enthusiasm for it. Four years ago, I had my first encounter with the NCS, and I decided then that it was a good thing. This Bill seems to be designed to make it more of a good thing, and that is why I welcome it so warmly.

I think back over years to when one of the siren calls that one heard from young people was, “There’s nothing to do here”, whether “here” was a town or a village, and so on. In reality, of course, there were things to do, but there was no obvious way of making a positive contribution to the community beyond, perhaps, the Scouts and the Girl Guides. Then from an older generation one would hear the call, “Youngsters these days need discipline: bring back national service”—something that our professional armed forces rather disdained as an idea. People would say, “Well, it did me good, and I’m sure it’s what everybody needs today.” That view began to fade, quite rightly, but talk there was of a civilian equivalent. Yet somehow it never got going. It is to the credit of the former Prime Minister, the then Member for Witney, that he took this up and made a real achievement of it. Many of us always felt that there was scope for it, perhaps because we were enthused by what the late President Kennedy did with the Peace Corps in involving and harnessing the views and enthusiasm of young people. At last, with the National Citizen Service, we have a scheme that has taken root and is flourishing.

My connection with the NCS has simply been that I have tried dutifully to visit a group in my constituency in each of the past four years. I have seen a whole host of things that young people have been engaged in at various stages of the four-week process that they follow. I can certainly attest to the growing confidence I have seen among those young people, the interaction between them, coming as they do from many different backgrounds and never having met each other before, and the enthusiasm that they have. I welcome that. I never heard a voice raised to say that it was a waste of time or a bad thing; it was all about wanting to go back and tell other people that it was something they should think about when their chance came. I therefore accept the trust’s own findings of greater positivity among people whom it has managed to persuade to come into the scheme. The hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham referred to the Ipsos MORI poll evaluation, which is good evidence that young people themselves feel positive about it.

So what are the concerns? I suppose there is the possibility that the NCS has an effect on recruitment to other organisations, whether it be Voluntary Service Overseas, Médecins Sans Frontières, UN Volunteers, Save the Children, Oxfam, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme or the Prince’s Trust, but that is not the right way of looking at it. It is more likely that the NCS will be a stepping stone to looking around for other things that people may do in life having had the knowledge and experience of what being part of it was all about. In short, I do not see anything that the NCS can spoil. It is about inculcating a habit and an approach among young people, and that can only be for the good of our society.

Of course it is right that we should be concerned about governance. One or two colleagues have mentioned how we control the scheme, make sure it is offering value for money, and so on. It seems to me that an annual report presented to Parliament offers us all a way of checking that. I support the idea of a debate about it, because we should talk about such things more often. The achievements of young people as they are manifested in the NCS each year should be highlighted in Parliament. Too many people are ready to believe the worst of young people simply on the basis of a story that they read in a newspaper that puts young people in a bad light, while completely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of young people mean well and, indeed, do well in their contribution to society, the local community and so on.

Having had the pleasure and privilege of some involvement with voluntary organisations over the years, I believe that one thing we must be careful about is supposing that we can attach a precise value to the benefits of being involved with the NCS. How can we measure somebody’s contribution—the enthusiasm with which they go out to collect money for a cause that they have become familiar with, and the way in which that becomes an ongoing part of how they want to run their lives? How can we measure that? We cannot. We cannot measure how a person’s outlook on society has improved, to make them a more positive citizen than they might otherwise have been. Although we must be responsible about the amount of money that is spent, we do not want to pretend that we can implement a view that amounts to knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. I have visited schemes throughout my constituency, and three of my children have attended the NCS or been a mentor on the NCS. The benefit is some way down the line, in growing their confidence and their ability to understand where other people come from. One of my daughters is studying at university with a young man whose background, before they were both on the NCS, was somewhat challenging, but everybody equals out in that place. One of the fundamental benefits of the NCS is to level the playing field, both educationally and in ability. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

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[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and other hon. Members. I join them in welcoming the Bill and the provisions it puts in place, because I believe that the National Citizen Service should be a rite of passage for young people across our country. The Bill will embed the NCS as a national institution and make it an important part of our national fabric.

In Yorkshire, I have seen at first hand the great work that the challenge trust and the English Football League Trust do on behalf of the NCS. Last year, Barnsley football club’s community sport and education trust oversaw 326 people taking part in the scheme. The fact that this is well over double the number that took part in 2013 gives me confidence that, with the right support, the scheme will become more and more successful.

For many, the NCS is the first step on their youth social action journey, and their involvement in the programme embeds in them the value of service. I am very supportive of the role it plays, because the NCS is a part of the youth social action sector that is going from strength to strength. That fact is very clearly demonstrated by the good work of organisations such as City Year, V Inspired, the Prince’s Trust and the Scout Association. I could speak about the achievements of each of these organisations and many others at length, but I want to confine my remarks to the NCS and what makes it so special.

President Obama said in his farewell speech just the other day:

“For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles...surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook, and never challenge our assumptions.”

The NCS consistently pushes our young people out of such bubbles and brings young people together from different backgrounds, across socio-economic and ethnic lines, which must be both applauded and built on. This is a timely moment to be having this debate, because 2016 was a year when the divisions in our country became more apparent than ever. Accordingly, it is hugely important that national institutions such as the NCS exist, where people can come together and meaningfully engage with those from different backgrounds to bridge those divides.

I would like to draw the House’s attention, however, to research showing that the number of NCS graduates from hard-to-reach backgrounds has fallen since the introduction of the scheme. The hardest to reach are, by their very nature, hard to reach. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), I would like the Government to consider what more can be done to make the NCS open to those who need and would benefit from it most. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister considered whether the language used in the royal charter laying out the primary functions and purpose of the NCS Trust is sufficiently focused on the integration aspect of the NCS. Social integration—the act of mixing and forging bonds with those from different backgrounds —is a process. Cohesive communities are the outcome.

For many young people, taking part in the NCS is the beginning of creating the diverse social networks they need to flourish. Therefore, we should focus on ensuring that the hardest-to-reach young people can take up the opportunity afforded to them by the NCS. Programme providers such as The Challenge are doing fantastic work to that end, employing dedicated personal coaches to support young people with complex needs prior to and after completing the NCS, to ensure as few barriers to entry as possible for these young people.

[Jo Churchill]

One of the mentors said to me that one of the young people who got the most out of her course was a young carer. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is perhaps a group that should be targeted? They often have a hard job accessing holidays or recreation or are unable to lift themselves out of their current environment in a way that is helpful and meaningful.

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. If I might say so, I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North was slightly unfairly chided for seeking to make the most constructive of contributions to this debate, because there is a consensus across the House that this is a great scheme and that young people benefit enormously from it. The challenge that Government and all of us find is that those who would perhaps benefit the most are, as I have said, the hardest to reach. Opposition Members are offering a constructive critique of the scheme—a scheme that we support and believe in—to ensure that it maximises the benefit for all those who we think would benefit from it.

Prior to the hon. Lady’s most helpful intervention, I was alluding to the incredibly important work done by The Challenge in dedicating personal coaches to support young people with complex needs and ensuring that they have the same opportunities as participants from more affluent backgrounds. For the programme to have integration at its heart, it must be a programme for all and providers must have adequate resource to focus their attention on this work. Although the NCS plays an important role in enabling social mobility, it should not be seen as a ready-made remedy to the problems caused by cuts to other youth services. It must be part of a sector-wide investment strategy.

My life both outside and inside politics has shown me the value of service and active citizenship. The National Citizen Service is a 21st-century manifestation of those values. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the Opposition’s point—which, I think it is fair to say, was made most constructively—about the NCS’s role in facilitating integration and including the hardest-to-reach groups in our society, but most of all I look forward to the programme growing from strength to strength as a result of this Bill and the royal charter.

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[Jo Churchill]

That 40% is a large growth, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of that broadening of numbers will mean that there will need to be a large number of additional volunteering projects from which those children can benefit? That is something that those of us in this Chamber can help with, but I would be interested to know how the Government will fulfil that need so that we get more children helping in those residential homes, playgroups and all the other groups right across the spectrum.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is a very good and well-made point, and the Minister will have heard it.

The challenge for us is to see how we can increase the number of volunteering opportunities, and how we as a Parliament can challenge ourselves to deliver the objectives. It is not a criticism to turn around and say that we have not got the numbers that we would all like; it is a challenge. It is not for us to say that the Government are wicked and the Opposition are terrible. It is for us as a Parliament to say that this is a collective view about what is good for our country and for our young people, and therefore what do we have to do to achieve our objective? That is the big challenge for us. Imaginative and different things need to be considered.

There are 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds in our country—my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) looked that up for me—every one of whom would benefit from an NCS-type programme. We are talking about how we increase participation to 360,000—again, I say to the Minister that I am not criticising him—and how that is a massive challenge and yet we all agree that it is something that we would like our young people to experience. How do we deliver that? That is the challenge and the question that we need to ask ourselves.

Finally, this business of integration and of how we bring people together is so important. Members have talked about the need to reach the hard-to-reach groups and about the worrying statistics in the NAO report. Clearly, participation is an issue, whether it is about the hard to reach or other young groups.

Integration is hugely important, whether that is between ethnic groups, social groups, hard-to-reach groups and people who are well off, and so on. I say to the Minister that we should also consider integration between the regional divides that there appear to be in our country, and the divide between urban and rural areas. The divide is not just between white and black and all those other areas in which we would wish to see it overcome—what about the generational divide?