On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? Just after the Queen’s Speech, you made an announcement about the need for Members to abide by the parliamentary convention that they should not interfere in other Members’ constituencies. On 25 January, Lord Adonis came to my constituency and, on 1 February, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families also came. They both visited schools in my constituency. I was not made aware of the visits and I understand from leaflets that were put out in the constituency that they were there on the encouragement of Mr. Stephen Twigg, who wishes to unseat me at the next election.

That is not a point of order. However, I have said on previous occasions, and I reiterate it now, that when Ministers intend to come to a constituency, they should write to the hon. Member concerned and show them the courtesy of letting them know that they are going to be in the constituency. Of course, they do not need to ask the permission of a Member of Parliament to come into the constituency, but they must notify them. That is the convention, which should be adhered to. I will not be drawn into the argument about motives.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. What advice applies to the Prime Minister when he visits a constituency to hold a meeting? Should the Prime Minister also notify us of his visit?

All Ministers of the Crown should do that.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a bank holiday to celebrate the contribution of Polish citizens to Great Britain since 1940.

When invasion came to Poland in 1939, there was terrible suffering by the Poles. On that first day, 1 September 1939, many Polish aircraft were destroyed on the ground, in the German forces’ dastardly attack. But those Polish pilots did not just give up; they came to this country to continue the struggle against fascism. Some 145 Polish pilots defended the skies during the battle of Britain. Polish 303 Fighter Squadron claimed the highest number of kills of any squadron during the second world war. In total, eight Polish fighter squadrons formed within the RAF claimed 629 axis aircraft destroyed by May 1945. Older citizens of this country remember those brave airmen and their gallantry, but it is difficult for people of my generation to remember their contribution. I hope that my Bill will remind them.

We must also remember that the breaking of the Enigma codes was critical to our victory in the second world war. Polish cryptographers played a leading role in the project at Bletchley Park, a fact not generally known. Later today, I shall donate a book to the Library on the role that Polish cryptographers played at Bletchley. According to the Foreign Office, 45 per cent. of all intelligence reports from continental Europe came from Polish informants. Many of those brave Poles were sent back to Poland by the British security forces to spy on the Germans and to bring valuable information back to Britain about armaments production and all the other things that the Germans were doing. Poles fought with the British in Monte Cassino, north Africa and Arnhem. Britain let them stay after the second world war and they have contributed ever since.

Now we face a new wave of immigration into this country from Poles. They are young, energetic, hard-working people. They are builders, plumbers and decorators; they pick our fruit and vegetables in the fields; they are doctors and engineers. We will not see many Poles on the dole or breaking the law. Most Poles are extremely hard working and law-abiding, and make a tremendous contribution to this country. However, we are now reaching the point at which more Poles are returning home than are coming to this country. When they go, we will miss them dearly.

I have come in for a lot of criticism for introducing my Bill, from various people, but the reason I am doing so is that nine out of 10 immigrants to this country are not Poles or even eastern Europeans; they are from further afield—Africa, the West Indies and the Indian sub-continent. Yet the liberal elite of the BBC constantly refer to immigration from Poland, using the Polish community as a cat’s-paw to try to tackle to the thorny issue of mass unchecked immigration into our country. [Hon. Members: “Rubbish!”] That elite realise that immigration has become uncontrolled and needs to be discussed, but they will not dare to refer to controversial immigration from other parts, always referring repeatedly to Polish immigration. I have undertaken a study of BBC coverage of immigration. Those hon. Members shouting, “Rubbish!” would be amazed at the amount of BBC coverage that focuses on white, Christian Poles because it is politically correct to do so.

I am also appalled by Trevor Phillips of the Commission for Racial Equality. If what is being done to Poles was being done to a black or other ethnic minority group, it would simply not be tolerated. I demand that the Commission for Racial Equality also focus on white ethnic minorities in this country, so that nobody is penalised or made to feel like a scapegoat. As chairman of the Conservative Friends of Poland group, I have come across many cases pointing to increased violence towards Poles in this country. I am convinced that that is a result of the media coverage by the BBC.

I feel extremely passionately about the issue. As a person of Polish origin, I have tried not to abuse my position here in the House of Commons to focus on Poles, yet I feel compelled to speak out because of my deep concern about how Polish immigration is being covered in the media.

On many occasions, I have spoken to you, Mr. Speaker, about the Polish community. You showed great courtesy and kindness to me in the remarks that you made. You spoke to me about the fact that, as a young boy, you went to mass in your parish, conducted by a Polish chaplain who was there to look after the Polish officers who had stayed in Scotland after the war. Your support and comfort mean more to me than you will ever know. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter in the Commons.

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) is entitled to come to the House to ask us to recognise the contribution made by Poles in this country. I unreservedly do so. I am not of Polish origin, although my sister-in-law comes from a Polish family. I have many Polish constituents and I have Polish friends. I was at school with Polish youngsters in mid-Wales, where they had settled, as they did in other parts of the country. However, I do not think it a well conceived idea to introduce a Bill to give a bank holiday to recognise one group of people, however eminent, who came and served alongside us in this country. I would like the House to reflect on how we ought really to deal with this matter, but deal with it in a different way.

There is no doubting the bravery of the Poles in wartime. They had a special role in our services, especially the Air Force, and they are rightly commemorated. The Poles were not the only people who came from eastern Europe to help in the war. The Czechs also supplied brave people. As you will know, Mr. Speaker, people of other countries—not eastern Europe, but other parts of Europe—specifically came and helped in our struggles. In particular, the Norwegians and the Dutch came to help us in our time of need during the last war.

There are people whom we could recognise as having served us in those dark days from 1940 to 1945, but there are others who came from different parts of the world and gave fantastic military service, such as people from many of the islands of the Caribbean. Large numbers of people from India and what are now Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka served in our forces. People from most African countries in the empire—not just South Africa, but the poorest countries such as Sierra Leone—served with great distinction. People from other parts of the world also came. If we were to recognise people who were not British born but who came and served with us, there would be a host of nations that we ought to recognise together.

Since the war, people have come here and made a fantastic contribution in peacetime. Many people whose countries are not members of the European Union but who are European citizens have lived here for 20, 30 or 40 years and contributed, but they are not entitled to full EU rights. Norwegians are such an example.

There are people who have served alongside us in other conflicts, some well conceived and others less so. The French and the Israelis were with us in the Suez conflict. Whether that was a good place to be, history will tell. There are probably a dozen other major countries from all over the world that are with us in Afghanistan to this day, and contributing—for example, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Denmark provide troops. Again, there are others who are assisting in the protection of British interests around the world. People have come from all over the world to do the building, the plumbing and all those other things.

If we are to recognise immigrants in Britain, let us do so, but let us remember, too, the breadth of immigration. Immigrants have come from almost every country in the world. I am privileged to represent a constituency that probably contains people from every country. The other day at my surgery, for the first time I spoke to a woman from the Comoros islands, which indicates the range of people who come here.

We need to be careful when we get into the debate on immigration. To my knowledge, no party has ever argued for uncontrolled immigration. No party has ever considered that to be a responsible attitude. There are different ways of dealing with immigration, and certainly it could be dealt with better. We all accept the need for controls. However, it is obviously wrong to have a go at legal immigrants in this country.

I want to pay a tribute. Were it not for immigrants from Poland, eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and the rest of the world, most of our public services would not function and, in truth, much of the private sector would not function either. If there is a case for recognising immigrants, let us do so, but let us do the same for those who served us in wartime and those who serve us in peacetime.

If the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham wants to engage in a debate about bank holidays, there is a debate to be had. I have long argued that there should be a St George’s day bank holiday in England, a St David’s day public holiday in Wales and a St Andrew’s day public holiday in Scotland as well as the St Patrick’s day holiday in Northern Ireland. There are four other obvious candidates for celebration: Commonwealth day on the second Monday in March—we could rightfully celebrate that as a holiday—VE day in May, United Nations day in October, and Human Rights day in December. There are plenty of causes for celebration and for another bank holiday, but, however much I understand his personal commitment, I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that to single out one nation and its contribution for one specific recognition would not be in the interests of either the Polish community or the other communities in the United Kingdom.

I shall not seek to divide the House on whether the hon. Gentleman should have leave to bring in his Bill, but if he managed to get it as far as a Second Reading debate I would vote against it. I believe that we should be much more inclusive and not so specific in recognising people in this country who come from elsewhere and have contributed so much in peace and in war.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Daniel Kawczynski, Mr. John Battle, Greg Mulholland, Ann Winterton, David Wright, John Bercow, Mr. Denis MacShane, Stephen Pound, Mrs. Nadine Dorries and Dr. Alan Whitehead.

Bank Holiday (contribution of Polish Citizens)

Mr. Daniel Kawczynski accordingly presented a Bill to establish a bank holiday to celebrate the contribution of Polish citizens to Great Britain since 1940: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 October, and to be printed [Bill 114].

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the Leader of the Opposition asked his question about vehicle excise tax during Prime Minister’s Question Time, should he not have declared that he had received a donation from a Bournemouth motor company, Jacksons?

Donations are a matter for individual Members, and I should not be drawn into it.

I should inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister for the second debate.

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes National Volunteering Week and the publication of the report of the Morgan Inquiry; recognises the outstanding contribution made by volunteers to what, sixty years ago, William Beveridge called ‘the vigour and abundance of voluntary action...which are the distinguishing marks of a free society’; notes that every week millions of people volunteer their time for others, providing indispensable personal care and attention in all of Britain’s communities; emphasises the continuing importance of volunteering even as the voluntary sector expands its paid workforce and takes on the delivery of public services; further notes that some voluntary organisations experience shortages of volunteers in key positions; supports the call of the Commission for the Future of Volunteering for ‘volunteering to become part of the DNA of our society’; congratulates employers who encourage and make time available for their employees to volunteer; and urges the Government to address the bureaucratic barriers that lie between volunteers and volunteering.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is currently abroad, and the Minister has courteously explained his reasons for not being present. On behalf of the Conservatives, let me say that we regard the Minister as a more than adequate substitute, and look forward to hearing him speak at both ends of the debate if the House consents to that course.

Everyone is in favour of volunteering. This could turn out to be one of those debates in which there is a serious danger of violent agreement breaking out. It is good to see that no amendment has been tabled to our motion, which I think will be seen as a positive development by the world of volunteering. It will see the House, as would be expected, responding to national volunteering week in a unified and consensual way.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Beveridge report on voluntary action, in which he said that

“the vigour and abundance of voluntary action…are the distinguishing marks of a free society”.

He is often described as the architect of the welfare state and is sometimes thought of as the apostle of stateism, but he was by no means that. He was a passionate advocate of the benefit to society of what people do themselves.

This is national volunteering week, as I said, which I am sure is why the Chamber is relatively empty. I am sure that hon. Members are taking part in voluntary activities. [Hon. Members: “Henley!”] My hon. Friends make the most ignoble suggestion that the voluntary activity—

That would not be voluntary.

Exactly—but I digress.

There have been three major reports, in quick succession, on volunteering: Baroness Neuberger’s wide-ranging and excellent Commission on the Future of Volunteering; the Morgan inquiry, which looked at the barriers that discourage young people from volunteering; and, yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition launched our radical and groundbreaking policy paper on voluntary action in the 21st century. The latter is very much the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has immersed himself in the subject for some years and is widely regarded in the sector as a serious authority on it.

Every week, millions of people across Britain volunteer their time for others, providing indispensable personal care across the country. Less than half of those voluntary groups receive any income from Government, and most of them simply would not exist without the work of volunteers. A survey of 59 hospices has concluded that the value of volunteering to the hospice movement as a whole is £112 million, which is almost equal to the financial contribution of the NHS. It estimated that for every £1 spent on supporting volunteers, hospices receive a return worth more than £11, so there is a huge return on modest investment. Indeed, few investments can produce such a rich yield.

Whole areas of community life would simply cease to exist without volunteering. Local sport is an obvious case in point, as 93 per cent. of sports clubs use volunteers. According to Sport England, volunteer coaches, officials, minibus drivers, match secretaries, umpires, treasurers, stewards and countless other helpers sustain more than 100,000 affiliated clubs with more than 8 million members. The annual contribution to sport is about 1 billion hours a year. The London Olympics, in 2012, will mobilise and rely on the energy of many hundreds of thousands of volunteers specifically for that event.

We know that Britain stands well in international comparisons of volunteering. It is unclear exactly how much volunteering is done, as different studies show different numbers, but we are exceeded only by Norway, among comparable countries, on the number of people who do any volunteer work. About half of Norway’s population are volunteers, compared with about 30 per cent. of ours. However, if one measures the number of volunteer hours rather than the number of volunteers, we slip down the ranks to fifth among comparable, developed nations. We compare rather less well with Sweden and the Netherlands, in particular, on the contribution that is made by volunteers. They are well ahead on volunteering as a share of gross domestic product. Those figures suggest that there are very different patterns in different countries, as one would expect.

In Britain, lots of people do some volunteering, but a smaller proportion here than in other countries volunteer regularly. Volunteers are spread pretty evenly across age ranges, with no huge bias in any particular range. Women are twice as likely as men to volunteer, as are those who describe themselves as religious. The Charity Awareness Monitor independent quarterly review shows that except for a few shallow peaks and troughs, the level of volunteering has remained essentially unchanged at a little below 20 per cent. To add to that confused picture, while some volunteering organisations say that they are reaching saturation point, others warn of a shortage.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the excellent work being done by the third sector and volunteers in prisons and youth offender institutes? They are going in and helping youngsters, in particular, to rebuild their self-esteem. Above all, they are giving them the confidence to go out and find work when they leave prison. Is he aware that many volunteers are put off by the over-onerous and over-bureaucratic work of the Criminal Records Bureau, which puts in place obstacles that surely should not be quite as tight as they are?

I shall come to exactly that concern. I was going to mention the work on penal reform and the incredibly important work that needs to be done to address our appalling rates on the reconviction and reimprisonment of prisoners. My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point.

Some parts of the volunteering sector have as many volunteers as they need, whereas others warn of a shortage. That indicates that episodic volunteering is flourishing, rather than the kind of long-term commitment that most volunteering organisations seek. Youth organisations such as the Scouts and Guides are, happily, growing fast, but they are finding it hard to recruit enough leaders to cope with the serious growth in the number of young people who want to take part in those activities.

There have also been shortages in the public service. The number of special constables has dropped sharply in the past 10 years. The National Trust reports an increase in volunteer numbers but a decrease in the amount of time that the average volunteer can contribute. At the same time, there is evidence that some existing volunteers are taking on ever more responsibilities. It is not surprising that in a Volunteering England survey of charities, 86 per cent. of respondents said that their priority was to keep existing volunteers rather than to search for new recruits.

A fantastic amount is being done, and nothing that we or any other party proposes should in any way diminish our recognition and celebration of that. Every volunteer whom I meet—I expect that other hon. Members have found the same—passionately wants more people to volunteer and volunteers to do more.

Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, whose headquarters are just outside my constituency? The RNLI is a great example of how a national charity can not only raise funds but perform an important service, rescuing up to 22 people a day. It succeeds because it is independent of Government interference.

The RNLI is an amazing national institution that carries out a crucial public service in an exemplary way. My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point: the fact that the RNLI is able to raise that funding and to use volunteers to the extent that it does puts it in the happy position of being independent of government. The pluralism to which that contributes is a crucial part of a free and civil society. I am grateful to him for drawing attention to that point.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a real challenge for volunteering in an era of high employment is encouraging people who are in work to do voluntary work? One of the most powerful ways of doing that is to persuade volunteers how much they can personally gain from volunteering.

I totally agree, and I shall come to that point, which has been addressed in our policy paper that was published yesterday. There are great benefits not only for the employees who give their time to volunteer, but for employers. I shall return to that point towards the end of my speech.

We support the Government’s desire to build on what already exists, and we share many of their ambitions, but I want to look at their record. I do not want to be churlish or partisan, but there are some differences of approach that it would be only right to highlight in the debate. In recent years, there has been a bit of a tendency for Ministers to launch one “eye-catching initiative”—as Tony Blair used to describe them—after another to boost volunteer head count. There is a suspicion—these are not my words—that many of those initiatives amount to little more than a launch, a lunch and a logo. Despite the evidence that a culture of volunteering has to be grown from the bottom up, the Government have slightly tended to prefer a top-down approach involving high-profile Government initiatives. Rather than investing in the grass roots of volunteering, there has been a tendency to create more public bodies that, from the top, aim to change what happens.

I noticed that catchy phrase, “a launch, a lunch and a logo” on page 22 of the right hon. Gentleman’s document. Will he give us some examples of initiatives that he thinks have failed in that sense?

I am coming to exactly that point. An example would be the Experience Corps. A volunteering initiative was set up by the Government. It was aimed at retired people—a splendid objective—but it greatly underperformed in relation to its targets and was subsequently abandoned.

The right hon. Gentleman might not be aware that, in three weeks’ time, I shall be hosting the annual event of the Experience Corps in the House. The organisation has certainly not been abandoned. When it was set up, it was intended to be a three-year programme, but it is now in its eighth year. It deals not only with retired people but with people over the age of 50. We have a problem with this year’s event, in that it is significantly over-subscribed by hon. Members who are working with the Experience Corps to draw attention to the work of older volunteers in their constituencies. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to congratulate the Experience Corps, five years after Government support for it finished at the end of the programme, on still being a thriving and active organisation.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but my understanding is that the Experience Corps has not met the targets that were set for it, and that the Government have had to come back and chop and change in a way that has been disadvantageous. I am delighted that lots of our colleagues across the House are going to attend the event; that is very good news. However, that organisation is an example of the kind of top-down approach that does not always work.

Another, more recent, example is v, another volunteering initiative with a splendid objective, aimed at young people. It is still establishing itself, and so far, its impact has inevitably been limited. I made a visit in my constituency that was set up by v in order to show me exactly what it did. I visited a voluntary organisation based in West Sussex, and I am afraid that I came away from it without any sense of what v was doing that added to an initiative that was already busy and successful. There were words rather than actions, and it was not clear that anything was going to be done in the future that was not already being done by that excellent organisation.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I will leave him alone in just a moment. I hope that, in November, he will take part in an event in the House: v will invite Members of Parliament to bring young volunteers from their constituencies, so that we can come together to celebrate the work of young volunteers. There are new initiatives in my constituency and elsewhere that are being helped along by v. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bring a young volunteer from his constituency, with whom he has been working over the next few months, to that celebration later in the year.

Of course I would be delighted to do so, but we all do this kind of thing all the time. I suspect that, every Friday in our constituencies, we are all visiting organisations in which young, middle-aged and old volunteers are doing fantastic work. We celebrate that all the time, and it is important that we should give our support in that way.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and I were members of Baroness Neuberger’s commission, and he will know that, when we had the opportunity to discuss those matters with volunteers, v was raised by a number of those who were working with young people’s organisations. They said that they were not quite sure why v was there or what it was adding. Perhaps, in time, that will change, but that concern was raised during the commission’s work. It might be helpful to my right hon. Friend to know that the concerns that he is expressing have also been raised by others close to the coal face.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I should stress that, when I made that local visit, I went there almost wanting to be persuaded, really wanting to understand what was being done that had not previously been done, and why v was needed. I went with the most open mind in the world, but I could not see anything being done that would not otherwise have been done.

The problem with these debates is that they often descend into a discussion on who celebrates the role of the voluntary sector the most. The truth is that all this is nonsense about celebrating the voluntary sector. I spend a lot of time with people who work in the sector—we are holding the awards for the Poverty Fighters Alliance in July, for example—and what they say, time and again, is, “Visits to the House of Commons and celebrations are okay, but just release us, give us the ability to find the money and let us get on with the job. We don’t want to be celebrated; we want to celebrate the work that we do ourselves.”

Speaking of recognition, the House should recognise the work that my right hon. Friend has done, particularly through the Centre for Social Justice, which has been absolutely superb. It has promoted good practice and focused attention on what can be done when inspiring, dedicated people commit themselves to solving social challenges. He has done the country an enormous service in focusing on those issues in recent years. I totally take on board the point that he has made about what the people who run these organisations want—namely, to be allowed to get on with the job that they have been inspired to do.

We have mentioned Baroness Neuberger’s commission, on which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) served. The commission noted

“a very large amount of criticism of several aspects of the Government’s initiatives to promote volunteering”,

which focused on a

“lack of joined-up thinking...poor communication…funding timescales...reporting and monitoring timescales...targets to the detriment of quality...quality and quantity of volunteering placements available”.

It concluded that

“the depressing thing is that messages about short-termism and a project based approach that fails to become mainstream—all of which we have heard repeatedly—are not new.”

There are issues, and it is important that we seek to address them with an open spirit.

There is an urgent need to promote volunteering, as well as other non-state activity, in what we believe to be the rather ill-named third sector. There is growing consensus across the political spectrum that the limit to the size of the taxpayer-funded state has been reached or exceeded. We read remarks by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), and we see the Lib Dems’ direction of travel; it is clear that there are no longer any serious advocates, outside the ranks of doctrinal statists, for the state as the answer to all social ills.

Of course, there remain pressing social challenges for today’s Britain. We think of the linking of family breakdown with crime and addiction, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has done a huge amount to highlight. We already have the largest prison population in Europe, yet we can also see the appalling record of prisoners being reconvicted and imprisoned within two years of their release. We see 2.6 million people with disabilities on incapacity benefit, when so many could and would prefer to be in some sort of work. We see the pockets of acute poverty that still exist in too many parts of our country.

Addressing those challenges requires active intervention, because in most cases the key to success is breaking the cycle of deprivation. That means treating each person individually and working with them in a holistic way to solve their problems. The state is not good at that.

I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend for making the point about the importance of volunteers to criminal justice and about the concern in the community that we have important role models, not least male and young adult role models, who can lead young people into better ways. The Scout Association is an example of a group providing fine grassroots work, but it needs young adults to come through as volunteers. We need to provide flexibility and support to grassroots organisations to provide the work that will lead young people away from crime.

My hon. Friend makes an important point very well. The Scouts are expanding, which is excellent, but they need the encouragement of new leaders and volunteers to come in and work with young people to provide exactly the sort of support that my hon. Friend mentioned, particularly male role models. Many boys and young men are growing up without a father in their lives and, in many cases, without any male teachers; the proportion of male teachers in primary schools is now down to 10 per cent. or so, and is 20 per cent. in secondary schools. There are lots of young men growing up without any male role models in their lives, which is a concern.

The state is not good at that holistic treatment of the challenged individual—the individual with significant problems which society has a vested interest in solving—but voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises are good at that. That is why our approach to these challenges unashamedly places emphasis on the role of an active and enlarged civil society.

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman in what is an interesting debate. Does he agree that there is one very important role that the state must play, which is to provide a high level of sustained investment in the provision of services? Is not the reality that we have had a sustained level of high investment from the state in the voluntary sector over the past 11 years? Is he saying that his party would match that?

When the hon. Gentleman has time to read our paper, he will see that one of our concerns is in regard to the compact, one of whose central tenets has been that, where voluntary, third sector organisations provide public services, there should be full cost recovery. As we know, that is much more honoured in the breach than in the observance. We are saying that there should be at least the possibility when that happens for voluntary and other organisations to make a surplus in what they do. Part of the problem is that it is much too difficult for really outstanding organisations that have found innovative and successful ways to address a particular problem to replicate that in different places in the way that a private sector organisation naturally would be able to do.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the need for sustainable investment in these organisations and we draw attention to the amount of statutory funding for voluntary organisations and charities. The proportion that comes from grants versus contracts has crossed over, so a smaller proportion is now coming from grants. That impinges on the independence of those organisations, which is their lifeblood, makes them distinctive and enables them to do their fantastic work.

On finance, in Shropshire many volunteers are senior citizens and people on very low incomes. They play a vital role as volunteers, but owing to a lack of support from the Government to Shropshire county council, the council is struggling to give those people enough money to pay for their mileage in covering very large distances in a rural county such as Shropshire.

My hon. Friend makes an important point.

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about full cost recovery. Clearly, both sides wish to see a relationship where services are delivered in common, where common aims exist and where there is a professional relationship between the third sector and the public sector, but one of the problems with full cost recovery has often been the inability of third sector organisations to judge properly the full cost element. They are building up that experience over time. Throughout his document, the right hon. Gentleman decries the professionalisation of the sector. It seems to me that we cannot keep the values of amateurism while being good in terms of administration and accountancy.

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman says and I am delighted that he has had the chance to look at our document, but he is wrong to say that we decry professionalisation. We talk about it and say that the lessons of growing professionalisation are unclear. If we are to see the sort of growth in the sector that we believe to be essential for the strength of our society, organisations need to be efficient and professionally run. We do not have the slightest problem with that.

There is a real nub to this debate and my right hon. Friend has touched on it now: whether or not the state sees the voluntary sector as an add-on to the work it does, or as a viable, separate entity that it will help and support in the areas where it works. When Beveridge designed what we call the welfare state, he wrote a third paper in response to the introduction of the welfare state by the then Labour Government. He warned that the voluntary sector would be subsumed into the welfare state, instead of being viable and separate in its own right. Think of the private sector: write off vast sums of money from small businesses in taxation and do not ask them to pay the money back when they fail. They get huge write-offs. When it comes to the voluntary sector, we say, “There is only a year’s contract. Give us full cost recovery. If you can’t do that, goodbye.”

My right hon. Friend makes the point powerfully and he is absolutely right. That is what is meant by having an active civil society, which is thriving and vibrant. [Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position about Victorian society. I notice that he made a rather intemperate, knee-jerk response to our paper yesterday, plainly without having read it. I am hearing a rather more moderate and thoughtful response from his Back-Bench colleagues. I do not want to be partisan. This is a good debate without particular doctrinal differences, but we need to explore differences of approach, which are important. If the approach is, as ours is, that to address many of these powerful social challenges requires the work of third sector organisations, voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises, the question properly to be raised is, “Where will the additional capacity come from?”

Is it simply enough to hope that 100 flowers will suddenly and spontaneously bloom? The truth is that new flowers are coming into bloom all the time. This is generally about a person or group of people who see a problem and have an idea as to how to solve it, but too often these flowers wither and too rarely do they seed themselves and multiply.

We have been seeking to address those challenges in our paper published yesterday. We have set out a Conservative alternative that we believe can boost volunteering as a central pillar of the regrowth of civil society. We believe that it can contribute to a vibrant culture of giving and volunteering. Our proposals reflect wide-ranging discussions with charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises as well as the input from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green’s policy group and the party’s social enterprise taskforce. I am sorry that the Minister’s knee-jerk reaction to our paper yesterday was to trash it, rather as Sir Clive Booth, the Labour chairman of the Big Lottery Fund, attacked our proposals for the reform of the lottery before they had even been published. He then had to retract his remarks, which were profoundly inaccurate. We look to the Minister to do the same today when he stands up.

Our ideas are very much drawn from what leaders in the sector have argued, and the Government would do well to learn from that. Notably, the comments that people in the sector have made in response to our papers have been uniformly positive, in sharp contrast to what the Minister said yesterday and what he seems still to be planning to say today.

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks with interest, and, to my regret, I read the paper last night. On the charities’ response to the Conservative proposals, how does he respond to NCH’s excoriating analysis of Conservative proposals in respect of single parents and jobless people, particularly those in the north-west of England?

I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman has made, but it is certainly not relevant to this debate, nor does it come out of anything in the paper that we published yesterday. If he wants to raise those questions later in the debate, I am sure that the House will listen with great respect to what he has to say.

Our ideas draw heavily on what the sector itself has argued, and we make a number of proposals. They can be found in the document, and I do not need to go through them all today, given that I have taken up much more time than I intended and that I am aware that many hon. Members want to participate in the debate. I shall, however, mention one or two of them. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) has mentioned, one is our support for the long overdue moves being made to improve the Criminal Records Bureau checks system. Such moves have been recommended. We know that confidence and morale can be destroyed by bureaucratic hurdles and burdens. It is important to understand that Britain—society—will lose volunteers who are fired up and enthused, and who want to get on with things, if they find themselves parked for weeks while the bureaucracy creaks its way through the checks, because, all too often, the moment will have passed, the spark may have died and the enthusiasm may have waned.

This follows up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk made. There clearly must be a case for simplifying and speeding up the CRB process. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given cases such as that of a constituent of mine who underwent all kinds of checks to enable him to be employed at a young offenders institution, only to be told that he would need another CRB check when he approached the Scouts to offer to help on a Thursday night, we should, at the very least, ensure that one check will suffice for all similar activity?

My hon. Friend is right. It is painful, it kills the spark and it takes the edge off things when people who are fired up and want to get on with volunteering are suddenly told, “You can’t do anything for five weeks because we have to go through this whole process.”

We will also act to clear up any remaining confusion surrounding the rules on volunteering and benefit claimants, so that misunderstandings on that front do not dissuade potential volunteers. We also want to exclude any notion of compulsory volunteering, which is, of course, a contradiction in terms. There is a sense that the Government, frustrated by the failure of their volunteering campaigns to deliver the growth for which they hoped, are displaying a bit of a tendency towards making volunteering compulsory in some circumstances. There is a hint of that in the Education and Skills Bill, which proposes volunteering as an enforced alternative to work or education—even v, the Government’s own youth volunteering organisation, is aghast at that. We are also concerned at the apparent Home Office plan to force volunteering on new immigrants as part of its probationary citizenship scheme.

We will encourage and promote a new environment conducive to volunteering. We believe that there needs to be more of a culture change to create a social norm that volunteering is what people do—so many people already do it. Indeed, the Commission on the Future of Volunteering referred to

“a culture change in society so that helping others and benefiting from a culture of mutual dependence becomes a way of life”.

We would say that that is social responsibility in action. All the evidence tells us that volunteering is infectious: people who volunteer in one capacity in their community generally end up helping lots of other community groups as well. A study for the Scout Association found that young people who are members of a youth or sports club are twice as likely to have helped out in their community as those who are not.

Meanwhile, many pioneering companies—this deals with the point raised by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—from John Lewis to KPMG, have begun to establish volunteering as a social norm of working life. They give their employees an entitlement to volunteer, and a small number of hours that they can use during the year to add to their own time spent volunteering. KPMG, for example, allows each employee 3.5 hours of firm time per month to volunteer, and last year, KPMG people contributed more than 38,000 hours to the community. The company recognised that their volunteering commitment is a major factor in giving it a competitive edge in retaining vital staff and recruiting the top people of tomorrow. Therefore, that is an important point.

As we know, social norms cannot be legislated for, but the Government can lead by example. I would like to refer to a final proposal today. The Conservatives would make a start by allowing every central Government employee eight hours’ volunteering during employed time a year. That is perhaps not a huge amount, but when one adds up all the hours, one finds that it amounts to a big contribution. I applaud the Government for being very ready to pick up our ideas in recent months, so there is one that we have prepared. What a great contribution to national volunteering week it would be if the Minister were to announce in his speech that that is yet another Conservative idea that the Government intend to implement. I commend the motion to the House.

I very much welcome this debate. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) evinced from me a combination of laughter, when he made claim to a raft of proposals that the Government are already putting into practice, and despair—at the proposals that the Conservatives are bringing forward. Although I did not agree with everything in his speech—I shall pick up on some of those areas in a moment—we are voting on a motion to support volunteering, and on that I very much agree.

My right hon. Friends and I welcome the interest shown in volunteering by the Conservative party, although some interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) on examples associated with older people’s volunteering and youth volunteering would suggest that there remains a need for the right hon. Member for Horsham, and the Opposition, to play catch-up on the marvellous things going on around the country, which are supported by both central and local government in many ways.

Like me, hon. Members across the House will want to praise the work of volunteers around the country, particularly given that this is national volunteering week. We can all welcome, too, the healthy state of charities in general. The motion rightly points out that this debate takes place

“as the voluntary sector expands its paid workforce and takes on the delivery of public services”.

The Conservative paper published yesterday says that “we are doing well” on volunteering, that we are

“second out of 36 countries”

on one measure and that Britain is “leading most of Europe” on charitable giving. That is absolutely right. Indeed, I think that the right hon. Gentleman said that a fantastic amount is being done, and it is great to know that the Opposition are celebrating the success of this Labour Government in supporting and promoting volunteering and the third sector.

The Minister makes a slightly glib point, but it illustrates an unhelpful premise in his mind: that what ordinary people are doing up and down the country in giving their time is somehow something for which the Government should take credit. People do this despite the Government, not because of them, and they have been doing it for much longer than new Labour has been in existence.

The right hon. Gentleman did say that he did not want to be churlish in this debate, but he has just demonstrated how he has given up on that ambition.

As the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, despite the pressures of work and family, and the rush of modern life, millions of Britons—the previous survey suggested a figure of 20 million—give up their time to help others. It is right that, across the House, we say that British society is not an “elbows culture”. The headlines about problems in neighbourhoods do not tell the whole story, because people in Britain do care about their neighbours and, both formally and informally, through voluntary organisations and in other ways, they contribute their time and their money to make our society a better place to live.

Does my hon. Friend agree that people who do charitable work need the tools to do it? One of the most important tools that the Government provide is investment. There has been a substantial increase in the charitable sector thanks to sustained Government investment. The sooner the Conservatives accept that and recognise that it is part of the reason for the success of the charitable sector, the better.

My hon. Friend is right. It is because the Government have acted in partnership with the third sector and listened to their concerns. We have responded, through direct investment and by creating an environment in which the third sector—charities, voluntary organisations, small local community groups and social enterprises, the whole panoply—can thrive, be dynamic and make progress in the future. I shall say more about the nature of the investment that the Government have put in and the outcomes that it has had in a moment.

It is through volunteering that neighbourhoods are drawn together. Knowledge is the best, surest weapon against prejudice, and shared activities that bring together the old and the young, people of different ethnic backgrounds and people with different levels of education, are among the surest ways to dispel assumptions and reduce tensions in our communities.

Can the Minister be specific about how much of the £75 million investment in v has had an impact on actual volunteering in projects involving young people?

I will address that point directly later in my speech.

Volunteering is not only about building stronger communities and neighbourhoods. Volunteering can transform the prospects of volunteers themselves. We have all met volunteers who learn as much as they teach, or are helped as much as they helped, whether the volunteer is someone moving from a long period of unemployment—former users of services can become volunteers and, in some cases, paid staff members—or a high-flying professional who volunteers and sees a different side of life. Many people from the City are now moving into third sector organisations and transferring their skills, and they gain hugely rewarding experiences in becoming leaders and chief executives in the third sector.

My hon. Friend will have noticed the recognition of the value of training in the voluntary sector on page 30 of the Conservative document. It states:

“It’s essential that such a system is of practical value to volunteers and is fully owned and controlled by the voluntary sector.”

Does he agree that what is really important is that skills acquired by volunteers should be transferable and part of an overall training gateway or network that is not confined to the sector, but allows people to progress and take their skills with them because they are recognised by industry and others?

My hon. Friend’s experience and knowledge in these matters, and his contribution to the charity world, the third sector and volunteering, are unsurpassed in this House. He speaks with great authority and knowledge about how developing the skills of those who work for and volunteer with the third sector—and the public and private sectors—has enormous benefits, both individually and to the nation, because those skills can be transferred. Such training can improve the ability of the third sector to deliver the aim of creating better outcomes for users, but it can also enable individuals to make a wider contribution to community life. He is right to highlight that benefit of volunteering.

Our thriving culture of volunteering cannot be taken for granted, and we must take some important steps to secure it for the future. I wish to use this opportunity to say that we must encourage volunteering by making volunteering easier, by actively supporting volunteers and by using the leadership of the public sector. Volunteering does not happen in a vacuum. It is informed by other debates, and I will go on to say what we can learn from the silence on those debates from the Conservative party.

We have been listening to the sector and working with it to make volunteering easier. We have heard concerns about criminal records checks and we consulted with the sector and across Government. In March, we promised that we would look at how to make the checks easier. Today, I am delighted to say, we published guidance that makes it clear that CRB checks are not always necessary. When volunteers do need a criminal records check—as is often right, when they will be working with children or other vulnerable groups—those checks are free. Volunteers are not charged for CRB checks, and last year that saved organisations involving volunteers more than £26 million.

I raised this point with my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude). I understand the Minister’s point and it is generally accepted that CRB checks are necessary for those who work with children, but surely it is not necessary to require multiple checks for the same individual when they wish to work in the same general field. Can the Minister reassure us that part of his changes will include a considerable streamlining of that process?

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. Section 5 of the guidance document, entitled “The portability of CRB checks”, sets out in detail when it might be necessary to carry out a new CRB check. There is a simple template and an eight-point checklist that organisations can use to address that issue, so that they and volunteers will know where they stand.

We have removed one barrier with the requirement for multiple CRB checks, but the sector also told us about the problem of volunteers being left out of pocket. So in March we introduced the Employment Bill in the other place—it will shortly be considered in this House—to change the law to allow voluntary workers to claim expenses such as travel and child care without triggering the national minimum wage legislation. That is a major step forward.

In 2006, we also took action to change benefit rules to lift any barriers to volunteering by people receiving benefits. We ensured that they could be reimbursed any reasonable expenses when they volunteer, and that move was greatly welcomed by the sector. The chief executive of Volunteering England, Justin Davis Smith, said that

“this is great news as it lifts a barrier to the two million volunteers on benefits who were affected by the guidance”.

During the commission’s work, we picked up on continuing misunderstanding about the position of volunteers on benefits, so can the Minister reassure the House on the question of how the changes are being monitored? The feeling was that they are not being universally applied in the way that the Government would want, and that misunderstanding creates a barrier in places where the rules are not as effective as they could be.

The hon. Gentleman is right. It is one thing to change the rules to ensure that individuals on benefits can continue to volunteer and claim expenses, but the guidance needs to get out to every single jobcentre and organisation that uses volunteers, who also need to know the rules themselves. We do need a good communications campaign. Part of my job as champion for the third sector in Government is to ensure that when that does not happen I talk to ministerial colleagues, Departments and others to ensure that they understand and implement the new Government policy.

We welcome the report by Baroness Morgan, which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Horsham, on volunteering by people on benefits. It includes further ideas and suggestions. We will consider them and see what more we can do to ensure that we ease volunteering into the role of a route into work for workless people. Many of us can think of projects and examples where that has been the case.

When it comes to expenses, benefits and CRB checks, volunteering is getting easier, but if one listens to the right hon. Members for Horsham and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) one would sometimes think that the only thing the state should do is get out of the way. Those are almost the same words as were used earlier. I do not agree.

That takes me to my second point. We need actively to support volunteers and the small voluntary organisations that bring them together. Let me say how. Often, volunteers work for very small community organisations—we all have examples in our constituencies—often with no paid member of staff and little or no access to funds. For those very small volunteer-led community projects, a small amount of money can make a huge difference. That is why we now have a new programme, announced in last year’s Budget, to provide small grants to the smallest community organisations. The grassroots grants scheme will give grants of between £250 and £5,000 over the next three years to small volunteer-led organisations based in the heart of our communities. In July, we will announce the local partners who will give out the money, and I hope to see the first grants go out to those community groups in the autumn.

Embedded in the programme is an endowment component. Part of the money for the grassroots grants will create new endowments in every area of the country. That is a fundamentally new approach that has not been taken before by any Government and will create a sustainable source of small grant funding in every area of the country. The endowment funds will never be spent, but the interest generated by them will provide a supply of small grants to small community groups in every part of the country. That is an extraordinary new and ambitious way forward, and I hope that it has the support of the House.

Volunteers are often deeply rooted in their community. That is what makes them so effective. They do not always hear about the best ways to recruit other volunteers and to ensure they are used effectively. That is why in November 2007, as part of an overall £11 billion a year investment in education, employment and training, the Government opened up the flagship Train to Gain skills programme not only to paid staff of voluntary organisations but to volunteers. I want to use the debate to encourage all third sector organisations to access the Train to Gain funding pool to help to upskill their staff and volunteers.

Last March, we announced £4 million to train volunteers and those who manage them. That is why our GoldStar programme, which started in 2005, is working nationally and locally to spread good practice in volunteer management, going out to local and voluntary sector groups and providing them with training and support. I want to pay tribute to Baroness Neuberger for her work with the independent Commission on the Future of Volunteering—members of the commission have already spoken in the debate—which has drawn attention to these issues. She is a tireless champion for volunteering and is viewed with huge respect—some would say fear—across this House and in the wider volunteering community.

Not only small grants and training but active support can be needed when people want to volunteer but need an extra bit of help to do so. If someone is disabled, has no formal qualifications or faces other barriers, they can be left trapped and isolated without a helping hand. That is why Government programmes such as Volunteering for All are so important. They help to dispel the myth that volunteering is “Not for people like me”, spreading the message that volunteering is truly for all and that it should become part of the DNA of our society.

Our most significant investment is in the future of volunteering. Strong habits—such as volunteering, taking responsibility and taking part in the community—are best started early, so over three years the Government are investing £117 million in the independent charity v. The remarks made earlier by the right hon. Member for Horsham, which were critical, were unwise and, as he must know, inaccurate. So far, v has created more than 210,000 volunteering opportunities and it plans to deliver more than 500,000 more in the coming years—I hope that answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes). That is a way in which we can encourage hundreds of thousands of young people to engage in a variety of youth-led projects and initiatives across the country, to get involved in their communities and to make a difference. Once they have that habit, I think that they will keep it for the rest of their lives.

It is important that we reward and recognise the contribution made by volunteers. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green was wrong to say that we should not recognise and celebrate the work of volunteers, although I do not think that he quite meant it in that way. I was at Buckingham palace only a few days ago to watch the volunteers and groups of volunteers receive the Queen’s award for voluntary service. Those awards were presented by the Queen, and other members of the royal family were present, and those who came to the awards were over the moon at the recognition of the value of the contribution made by those often unsung heroes. Although it is not the only thing that we should do, we should not underestimate the importance of giving such recognition to individuals who play a part in their communities.

I did not say that volunteers should not be rewarded. I said that debates in the House tend to be about who celebrates them more. The truth is that they do not need that much celebration from politicians. They need a lot of action to help free them up to get on with things on the ground. That was my point.

Let us hope that we can agree on that one. We should be doing more; that was the next point I wanted to mention. Volunteers need freedom, with as little bureaucracy as possible, but they also need active support: small grants, training, and help for those who face barriers. They also need leadership from the public sector.

Before the Minister leaves the point about on-the-ground assistance to small voluntary organisations, will he deal with this point? I am sure that he will accept and appreciate the huge contribution that community amateur sports clubs make to local communities by encouraging participation in healthy pastimes, particularly for young people, who are diverted from antisocial behaviour. Will he join those Members, some of whom are in the Chamber today, who are campaigning for tax relief on junior sports club contributions?

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I regret the fact that as a Member of the Government I am unable to speak on behalf of the Chancellor, but my hon. Friend has made a powerful point that I am sure will be heard in the Treasury as a proposal for encouraging more people to volunteer, not least in the world of sport. Volunteers in sport and the arts play a huge role through not only increased participation, but the wider benefits that that participation brings. Young people become engaged, gain greater skills and are diverted from antisocial behaviour into social behaviour. They learn to gain skills and self-confidence as a result. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the wider benefits of volunteering in a range of ways.

Will the Minister give way?

Yes, I will. My hon. Friend has a track record of campaigning on behalf of the world of sport and volunteers in sport that is second to none.

Follow that, as they say. I chair the national strategic partnership for volunteers in sport, which represents 3 million to 5 million sports volunteers across the country. Does the Minister recognise that most organisations that are set up to look after the voluntary sector do not necessary regard sport as part of the traditional voluntary sector, and vice versa? Most of us in sport tend to regard ourselves as helpers rather than volunteers, so some of the structures do not quite match. I know that some work is being done, but we need to look further at bringing that right down to the grass-roots level so that voluntary sector organisations are cognisant of that slight difference of approach to volunteering and what it means to individuals.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to find better ways to connect those in the world of sport who are involved with not-for-profit organisations in sports clubs up and down the country that take part in and encourage participation in sport to be seen as part of the whole community of the third sector. We must ensure that our policies and programmes reflect that. In a debate only yesterday, the point was made to Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, that organisations such as the NCVO could see how they could look at themselves as part of a large infrastructure body that we support and fund as a strategic partner to embrace a whole wealth of organisations in not only the world of sport but the world of art.

The Conservative party has been talking about leadership. The right hon. Member for Horsham concluded his speech by talking about volunteering by civil servants. Indeed, I think that he briefed the Daily Mail that

“Tories accept that a day off a year is only a first step”.

He talked about eight hours today. However, on that first step, he has fallen over. Every civil servant in every central Government Department already has the right to paid time off for volunteering. Those in the Cabinet Office have the right to three days a year and in some Departments, such as the Home Office, the right is to five days a year.

The right hon. Member for Horsham will have welcomed our moves to help not just central civil servants but all public sector workers, including doctors, nurses, police and teachers. Thanks to a new £13 million fund that we announced in March, they can now volunteer in some of the poorest countries in the world without losing their pension contributions. I am sure that he will welcome today’s announcement by the Cabinet Secretary that we have established a cross-Government working group to promote volunteering in the central civil service. I am delighted that, rather than our adopting Conservative party policy, the Conservative party has caught up with something that has been Government policy for some time.

We have a great track record on volunteering, and we are working with volunteers and voluntary organisations to push back the frontiers of what they can do. However, volunteering does not exist in isolation. There are two debates that affect it deeply, but they have met only silence from the Conservative party. The first is on money. When questioned, the right hon. Member for Horsham felt unable to tell the House that total public funding for the third sector has more than doubled in real terms over the past decade from less than £5 billion in 1997 to more than £10 billion according to the latest figures. That record investment is a proud achievement of a Government who are working in partnership with the third sector to ensure that it continues to thrive and succeed.

There is more than that, however. This comes down to a philosophical divide: do volunteering and the ethic of volunteering get weaker or stronger when public services are well funded? Labour Members know the answer. Volunteers complement good funding. If one talks to them and hears what they are working to achieve, there is no doubt that they are helped, not harmed, by good public services. Indeed, the Conservative party’s publication shows that countries with high public spending have lots of volunteering. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Norway. Volunteers add most to gross domestic product in the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, and the countries with the largest number of volunteers are Norway, the UK and Sweden.

If one listens to the Conservative party, one hears this:

“Many things that are done by the government or the private sector could be done more effectively, or more cheaply, by the third sector.”

Those are the words of not some off-message Back Bencher but the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the Conservatives’ policy chief, who is writing the party’s manifesto. He let the cat out of the bag while speaking to the NCVO in February. The Conservatives do not believe in a strong society that supports services that enhance that society being paid for fairly through taxation, even though the international comparisons suggest that volunteering thrives in societies in which public services are strong and collectively paid for.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern and that of many commentators on this entire debate that we are talking about a fundamental difference of opinion on the role of the state in society? Does he believe that we are hearing from Conservative Members a proxy for compassionate conservatism, the like of which is espoused by George W. Bush? My hon. Friend does not have to take my word for it. The man who coined the phrase “compassionate conservatism”, Michael Gerson, said in the Washington Post in March that what the Conservatives were doing was the “reincarnation of compassionate conservatism”.

There is a philosophical divide, not least when we think about the wider role of volunteers. When volunteers see for themselves that something needs to change, do they feel able to have their voices heard and to campaign for those changes, or do they worry that if they speak up against the way in which law works or public policy affects the people whom they help, they will find themselves on the wrong side of the law or cut out from decision making regarding the public services about which they care so much? Volunteers are not motivated by plugging the gaps where public services fail. They are motivated to change those services through speaking up for the people affected, campaigning to change the law, being involved in the design of services that could make all the difference, and working towards ensuring that new services are the right ones that are properly funded by all of us through taxation.

When we have clashed with the Conservatives here and in other places on campaigning, their discomfort has been palpable and their silence deafening. Although there is no mention of the issue in the report that they published yesterday, we remember when charities such as Oxfam were afraid to campaign because the Conservative Government were disapproving. I see volunteers acting as advocates for those whom the system has let down, and acting not only as individuals but as a group, to change the system altogether. One great example was the mass movement of volunteers who were mobilised through the Make Poverty History campaign.

The Minister talks about philosophy, but before he gets too carried away with the way in which volunteers see the Government, will he explain why there is so much criticism from the grass roots of volunteering about how the Government are handling volunteers, using them in the public services and pushing them towards targets? Will he explain why those people complain about how they are being controlled, and why volunteers feel that they are unable to contribute to their fullest because of the way in which the public sector drives them at the Government’s command?

If everything is as good as the Minister says, why is there page after page of criticism? That criticism indicates that there is a philosophical difference. We want to give charities and volunteers more freedom to do what they do best, but there is a sense among those volunteers that the Government are using them to plug the gaps. I am not sure that they would appreciate the way in which the Minister is trying to set out a difference between his party and ours, because I do not think that they would agree with him.

The hon. Gentleman cannot deny what his party has published about the future role of volunteers and the third sector. The publication makes it clear that the approach is not about setting volunteers and the third sector free, but about abandoning them to work in some of the areas of the country with the greatest challenges. That is the wrong way to go about things. The philosophical divide between us is on whether volunteers and voluntary organisations should be left to cope on their own—isolated and without support—or whether there should be a genuine partnership among ourselves, the third sector and volunteers to create new ways of responding to needs, not least those of the most needy individuals and families in our society with the most challenges.

There is a fundamental difference, and I welcome a debate on it. The Minister has just let the difference slip out. In all his extolling over the past five minutes of the virtues of the voluntary sector, he concentrated hugely on its ability to campaign for change in the public sector. At no point did he address the point of delivery and what people are doing to change radically what is happening on the ground by changing and saving lives. He did not talk about the small voluntary sector that works against the odds because local government and its officials are often inconsiderate of what it does and do not take a huge interest. Those involved fight to get funding from the sector because they cannot control it, or the organisations are subjected to tick boxes, targets and lists, and feel that they are taken over. The fundamental difference is that Conservatives say that these people need to be set free and to be given real opportunities and access to money, but not to be lectured to and directed by the Government, whereas Labour talks about direction and campaigning at the top.

Order. Before the Minister replies, may I say that I have noticed that interventions are getting longer? Several hon. Members hope to participate in the debate before it concludes.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has listened to what I have said. He will know that I have just described how we have reduced bureaucracy and made volunteering easier by enabling people on benefits to volunteer, and how volunteers can claim expenses. I see volunteers every day of the week; one of the great privileges of being the Minister for the third sector is that I spend a lot of my time with volunteers, as well as users and staff of third-sector organisations, and see the remarkable work that they do on the ground, changing and transforming people’s lives.

My point was that in the Conservative party’s policies, there is an absence of any mention of the other roles that volunteers play, for instance as advocates for users, and in being the voice of the voiceless. They do that both collectively and individually; people even come along to our constituency surgeries to act as advocates on behalf of individuals who are in need, and who are struggling with the local council’s systems. The absence of mention of that campaigning role tells me that the Opposition see it as the third sector’s part to be silent and grateful. That simply will not do. That is not the case for the third sector in the 21st century.

The Minister will be aware that one of the proposals in our document is to strengthen and enforce the compact. The compact enshrines the right of charities to campaign. Will he condemn the Department for International Development, which, when it gives grants, has attempted to impose the condition that charities do not campaign?

First, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. Secondly, the compact was introduced in 1998 by the Labour Government—10 years ago. We have appointed a new commissioner, Sir Bert Massie, who is hugely respected in the sector. I congratulate Richard Corden, the new chief executive of the commission for the compact team, who will drive forward ways of strengthening the compact, so that it works across Government and in local government, too. A key part of the Government’s contribution to strengthening the third sector’s ability to deliver was the introduction and promotion of the compact. I am glad that we might have cross-party consensus on that, at least. The hon. Gentleman is just wrong.

We have heard that it is Conservative policy to free up voluntary organisations to do what they do better, but we see in the document that has been published that under a Conservative Government, cognisance would have to be taken of the reputation of the lottery when it came to giving lottery funding. Does my hon. Friend think that those two policies combined would help organisations that set out to help asylum seekers, refugees or people with HIV/AIDS? Does he think that their cause would be enhanced by those policies? I certainly do not.

My hon. Friend, with his wealth of experience, again speaks knowledgeably about the possibly unintended—I suspect that they are intended—consequences of policies that the Conservative party would put in place, were it ever in a position to do so. Those policies would not be in the interests of some of the most disadvantaged, alienated, disfranchised groups in our communities.

Mention of the Government’s track record in leading the way for improvements and support for volunteering and community action has been absent from this debate, and it was also absent from the Conservatives’ report. However, looking at the report, I say that perhaps that silence is better. We have waited a long time for the Conservative party’s ideas. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) started promising ideas on charitable giving for the new year in 2007; we have been waiting for them. The right hon. Member for West Dorset started promising a Green Paper in February, at a conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, but after all that waiting, when we finally read it, we can see that it is a rush job with heavy use of cut and paste, not least from Government policy on the third sector.

Let us take idea No. 1, which is to reduce administration on gift aid. I will send the right hon. Member for Horsham a copy of the Budget so that he can read for himself how charities can now bundle together donations under £10, so that they do not have to list all the individual donors on the claim form—a major step forward in reducing bureaucracy. Charities with small claims will no longer be penalised for errors in record keeping. Charities with a good record of bookkeeping may soon be able to self-certify. All that comes about after our discussions with charities on how to make the system work, and individuals can already give oral declarations rather than fill in a form. He and his party make warm noises about getting rid of paper trails, but they have no ideas to contribute. The truth is that we are cutting out unnecessary paperwork. I challenge him now: would he abolish the need for a record of declarations—for an audit trail for more than £800 million of public money—or does he admit that he was creating false expectations by promising action when there is nothing that he can deliver?

Or let us take idea No. 3, which is about giving “Direct support for volunteering” through real volunteering groups, not Government-controlled bodies. Let me send the right hon. Gentleman copies of the reports by v, the independent youth-led charity that we have already mentioned, which works with hundreds of other grass-roots volunteering organisations to deliver volunteering opportunities. Those opportunities are directed not by Government, and not even by organisations, but by young people themselves. I can send him our press release of 31 January on the small grants programme, which, as I said earlier, will support voluntary organisations, not through a Government body but through local funders with grass-roots knowledge and experience of grant-making in their area.

The Conservatives’ idea No. 5 is to introduce a volunteers’ hours scheme for central Government employees. As I said, we are already doing that. Every central Government Department now gives at least one day, and in many cases they give up to five days. Idea No. 6 is to improve Criminal Records Bureau checks. We have just had a debate about the fact that we have published a document on improving CRB checks.

When?

We announced our intention to do so months ago, and today we announced the details because it is national volunteering week. The list goes on; ideas Nos. 13 and 15 are on multi-year funding and community assets, and there are ideas about the compact. More than half the Opposition’s proposals are cut and pasted from Government reports.

In our last debate on the subject, called for by the Opposition, they seemed unbriefed about the fact that the central thing for which they were calling—a civil service Bill—was already being taken forward. They are making a habit of not knowing what Government policy is, making policy up, announcing it and pretending that it is theirs. They are in denial about the need for Government funding. They are uncomfortable with charities’ disruptive, campaigning voices. They are unbriefed on the facts of Government policy. They can praise volunteers today, and we are happy to join them in doing so, but there is little doubt about which side of the House will support volunteers with action and which side is still playing catch-up.

I confess that I thought that this would be a worthy, celebratory but rather dull debate, but it is turning out to be anything but that. The Liberal Democrat party obviously supports the motion; it would be hard not to when many of the references in it are to well-known Liberals or Liberal Democrats. The motion uses a phrase from the Commission on the Future of Volunteering that we very much approve of; it calls for

“volunteering to become part of the DNA of our society”.

It is part of the DNA of my party, both now and in the past.

At least we have all agreed today that the health of a society is largely to be judged by the commitment of its citizens to that society. That is incredibly well expressed through volunteering. For me, this is a relatively new area to focus on from a policy perspective, so I was pleased to have the opportunity earlier this year to attend a Volunteering England event with two hon. Members who are present today on different sides of the Chamber—the Minister and the hon. Member for West Dorset.

Tunbridge Wells.

I got the constituency wrong again; I meant the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). I am terrible at constituencies. I sincerely apologise. The event was in Newcastle. It was more interesting to listen to the questions from the floor than to the discussion between the participants, because the participants shared so much common ground.

The first concern expressed from the floor was the potential for substituting volunteers and volunteer activity for public services. The feeling was that that line should not be crossed. We heard from volunteers and volunteer groups that the focus must be on additionality, not on substituting what professionals and public services should deliver. That is an important message to underscore, because it seems that there is tension in the way in which the Government relate to the public sector and public services. Voluntary sector organisations are trying to cope with that tension, and are working out what role they should play. The issue of independence has been stressed throughout the debate.

It was reiterated that there is confusion about how volunteering expenses should be paid. On that occasion, the Minister explained that changes have been made to clarify the fact that payment of legitimate and reasonable expenses should not compromise access to benefits or put at risk the ability to enter into job-seeking activities. That had not communicated itself to people at large, so the point was made that that crucial fact should be communicated far better. Perhaps at some point the Minister will clarify the position. I am not sure that he recognises the need for expenses to be paid up front. It does not work if someone who has no resources, particularly a young person, has to pay and go through a reimbursement cycle. The problem needs to be taken on more directly.

On Criminal Records Bureau checks, I can confirm that the Minister said on that occasion that changes in regulation were under way and would be announced shortly. We heard that repeated today. May I raise with him the issue of the Official Secrets Act? As other hon. Members will know, prison visitor volunteers struggle with requirements to sign the Official Secrets Act in the course of their activity. There are many small bureaucratic issues that interrupt the process of volunteering. CRB checks are only a small part of that.

The topic of full cost recovery was raised from the floor at the conference. I am not sure that I fully understand where the Government stand on that issue—whether that is a policy in process or whether it is being delivered.

The Treasury has issued guidance on the importance of three-year funding and full cost recovery.

I thank the Minister for that. I hope he will follow it up. The Treasury’s policy on payment should be monitored and observed by other parts of Government. The subject is still an issue of contention for the major charities and has yet to be addressed.

We have had two superb reports on volunteering—the “Manifesto for Change”, chaired by Baroness Julia Neuberger, and the Morgan inquiry, published this week, which was chaired by Baroness Morgan of Huyton. The focus of both reports is on enabling people to volunteer and removing obstacles so that people can make a genuine choice whether to volunteer and how best to do so. I am glad to see from the Green Paper that they issued this week that the Tories have finally dropped the idea of compulsory volunteering, which always seemed to be a contradiction. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells says from a sedentary position that that was the Government’s idea, but the national citizen service proposal always seemed to contain the notion of compulsion, and I am glad that that has been dismissed.

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has raised the matter, because it has always been clear that national citizenship service is a voluntary option for young people.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. It has probably taken the Green Paper to provide clarity. When I have had discussions with the voluntary sector, I did not find that it shared that perception. They have seen national citizen service as a step towards a compulsory strategy. It is important that that does not happen. Community service of various kinds and volunteering should not be confused.

We have heard much about the benefits that come from volunteering, the way in which volunteers can build confidence and pride in their communities, and that volunteering across communities helps bring people together. I shall focus on the need to embed the culture of youth action and youth volunteering. That should become part of our education system, but there is a tension that needs to be recognised.

My children grew up in the United States. In order to graduate from high school, it is necessary in many schools there to perform what is called voluntary service, but it is not very voluntary. As it is regarded as part of the curriculum, most youngsters find some way to do it more in the breach than by actively engaging. When volunteering becomes embedded as a necessary part of the curriculum, there is always the risk that that will undermine the spirit of community and engagement that should be part of a healthy volunteering community. Opportunity within the education system makes an enormous amount of sense, but compulsion, whether it is back-door compulsion or front-door compulsion, is not a particularly attractive characteristic.

Does the hon. Lady agree that, as the Morgan inquiry, in which I was lucky enough to take part, recognised, getting young people to recognise the benefits of volunteering for their CVs and training and employment opportunities is an important factor? Without in any way undermining her points about the need to promote volunteering in its purest sense, those benefits could be emphasised as a further dimension of volunteering.

I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but I would caution him in this respect: we have many youngsters in our community, and I can think of many in mine, who have extensive responsibilities in their own families—for example, young carers. There is no formal recognition of the contribution that they are making. I would hate to see them lose out because that cannot be captured in the same way on a CV.

Let me give my son as an example. He chose as his route to go and play with puppies once a week—apparently socialising them. I honestly cannot say that that was of serious educational benefit or an addition to his skills, but he was able to craft it in such a way that it probably sounded quite good when the written CV was issued. I ask for an element of common sense in the way we deal with youth volunteering, although, as we know, common sense is hard to deliver.

I would like much more opportunity for family and intergenerational volunteering in my community. That might require some different thinking by organisations. I hope that part of our discussion of volunteering is addressed to the voluntary sector, encouraging it to think of ways of structuring opportunities so that they strengthen our communities generally. Sometimes the view seems to be, “Here’s the task. Now let’s find the volunteers.” It becomes more interesting when organisations look at the volunteers and think of ways of structuring their activities to meet broader social needs.

In the world in which we live, with the stress arising from our work-life balance, when parents and grandparents find it difficult to spend the time that they wish with children, volunteering should be not an additional challenge but a mechanism to let people spend time together. I have been impressed with voluntary groups in my community that have seen the opportunity for young people—sometimes young people who, we sense, might be involved in antisocial behaviour—to be brought in to spend time with older people. The young people have taken the opportunity to flower, because for the first time they are met by people who have no preconceptions about them and who are delighted that they are coming in to spend time with them. Mutual respect begins to grow out of those circumstances.

Like many people, as I reach my current age I would like to dispel the image of the volunteer as the elderly lady in the charity shop, but let us not denigrate the elderly lady in the charity shop, who does an enormous amount of work in our community.

Many of the statistics on volunteering suggest that people often look at the different activities of ethnic groups. We need to tackle that before the perception develops that people from various ethnic groups do not participate. The statistics tend to show that people not born in the UK are less likely to volunteer. Perhaps that suggests a weakness in reaching out to those groups and giving them a sense of inclusion and welcome.

Like many hon. Members in their constituencies, in my own community I meet a number of asylum seekers, who do volunteer, but their activities tend to be restricted to organisations structured by the local church or mosque or some faith group. There is a hesitation on the part of charities and voluntary groups more broadly to engage those individuals. I hope that we can get better guidance to make it clear that that is a resource that we can turn to, because there are often incredible skills in the asylum community. We can argue about issues of immigration and asylum, but we have not used the skills of people willing and sometimes almost desperate to become engaged in some way, because the boredom of living day to day with no activity is utterly shattering and destroying.

I have been fascinated, too, by some of my local mental health charities and my local primary care trust, which has been working with people recovering from mental illnesses and helping them use volunteering as a way to regain their confidence and self-respect; contributing can help the individuals themselves.

There has been discussion of employer-supported volunteering. The Government are to be congratulated on making time available for civil servants to participate in voluntary activities and it would be excellent if the initiative were strengthened. However, should we not consider not only giving time but matching time? That might be much more palatable to the private sector, part of which still resists the notion of giving time for volunteering.

If people are willing to give a day of their own holiday, giving a matching employment day can become a much easier strategy. We have missed a trick in not looking at the potential of that. Obviously, the issue would be difficult for small businesses. Ironically, however—the statistics do not bear this out, perhaps because of a flaw in statistics—small businesses in my community value volunteering because they already see themselves closely engaged with the community. I do not find resistance from small businesses; the large business organisations, which feel that things have to be put on a more formal basis, struggle rather more.

We fully support the idea that volunteers should get recognition for the skills that they acquire. However, as we discussed earlier with reference to job hunting and CVs, there is an element of tension in making sure that the volunteer is carrying out tasks important to the activity, rather than getting a paper national vocational qualification or whatever else.

On the formalities of volunteering, we have to recognise that lots of people do not see themselves as volunteers. We had that debate during the Morgan inquiry, even though the word “volunteering” was used from the start.

Most people help; they do not necessarily want to be dragged into a volunteering system that has recognition and all the rest of it, through to formal qualifications. Most people are seeking to help the local Scout group, church or community group, for example. Is there not a better way of doing things? Without going through formal recognition, we could allow people to help a little, rather than have them get into all the formal structures, which can be a burden. The hon. Lady is going in the right direction on that issue, but we need to look much more closely—particularly in my own area of sport—at letting people help the local sports club, for example, without having to get formal qualifications to be able to continue to do that in the long term.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. When we see something good, the risk is that we will try to find a way to structure it, put rules around it and formalise it; it then loses its spirit and spontaneity. At the same time, it is probably legitimate to encourage people to make sure that when they write a CV they stress not only their employment activities but their helping activities. We should get that into the culture and encourage employers and recruiters to recognise the value of it. Perhaps that could be done on a more conversational basis, without our trying to crystallise everything into an actual qualification.

A number of contentious issues have been raised. The issue of v is interesting. Unlike the official Opposition, I think that a lot of v’s work has been valuable and it strikes me as a very positive organisation. However, I confess that I still struggle with its fundamental structure. It was conceived and set up by the Government and its board was put in place by the Government. Essentially, it is funded by the Government, although it can raise funds from other sources. It strikes me that v is rather a different animal from what I would consider to be a typical charitable organisation; we do not have a category for it. I recognise the good work that it has done, but we must be careful about the route that it has taken. There is always a risk of trying to co-opt, for entirely good purposes and intentions, the energies, activities and roles that we want to be carried out by an entity whose character and associations are not part of the Government. Recognising the importance of that requires an act of self-restraint by the Government.

One element of the voluntary sector that no one has raised today is its ability to innovate and experiment, and thereby knowingly to risk failure. We like our public sector organisations to innovate and experiment, but we do not expect them to risk failure; the voluntary sector, however, can do that. Perhaps v is getting a bit of that voluntary sector feeling about it, in that it can be risky, innovate and do things that would not be done by a straight and narrow traditional organisation. Perhaps it is gaining from voluntary sector values in that way. Might that be an explanation of its history to date?

I do not question the intent or the fact that it has done good work. However, I am cautious because of a much broader, more fundamental point about the health of a democratic society. We live in an environment where the tendency for many decades has been to pull power to the centre. That has always been done with good intent—“We know better”; the removal of London government might be one of the dramatic examples, but centralisation has continued under the Labour Government in a number of ways. A healthy, democratic society needs centres of power and influence that are outside the remit of central or local government.

Yesterday, the Conservatives issued a paper in which they propose to replace the Office of the Third Sector—I agree that the name is perfectly meaningless—with an office of civil society. By definition, civil society should not be fully co-opted into Government. When we go overseas, we see civil society as key, for example, to delivering aid in a way that will not be influenced by the local Government—frequently because we think them corrupt, biased or whatever else. We see civil society as incredibly necessary as a mechanism for challenge; we want it to be an authentic voice of the people. There is real risk if we try to grasp it, draw it in and co-opt it. I am concerned about that and about the approach that says, “Let’s put civil society in the Cabinet.”

To set the hon. Lady’s mind at rest, I should say that we want the office to be for civil society, not of civil society. It is important that all the incredibly valuable activities that we all wish to flourish and prosper should get support from the Government; much of this debate has been about how that should happen. What we propose does not in any way try to co-opt civil society into the Government. In fact, the very reverse is true: we see the independence of the body as crucial to its future thriving.