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Charities Bill

My hon. Friend has made an extremely good point. The voluntary sector is now characterised by huge diversity not only in terms of size, but in terms of form—there are social enterprises, community organisations, residents’ organisations and charities. In a moment, I shall touch on the point that the Government have tried in this Bill and other legislation to make it easier for voluntary organisations to choose from a variety of different legal forms. My right hon. Friend the Minister has referred to the charitable incorporated organisation, which we touched on in Joint Committee, and there are other forms, too. I welcome the blossoming in voluntary and community organisations, which are making a difference in how services are delivered not only locally, but nationally, and I welcome the diversity that we are beginning to see within the voluntary sector. The third reason why the Bill is needed is that the right framework of law and regulation can help realise the potential, which the hon. Member for Isle of Wight has touched on, that undoubtedly exists for the sector to grow even further, which would help the Government to deal with some of the formidable social challenges faced by a modern society such as ours. Because charitable organisations are often grounded in local communities, they are well placed to grow social capital, which can deal with big social issues such as fighting crime, improving health or regenerating communities. Some of the most inspiring people whom I have met in my constituency are members of community organisations who are leading the local effort to tackle such types of disadvantage. The truth is that we now live in an era in which, by and large, citizens are far more informed and inquiring; they know more and want to be engaged more. The old proposition that our job here is to do things to people no longer applies—doing things with people holds the key to progress. In that context, charitable and voluntary organisations have an enormous role to play. A vibrant voluntary and, in particular, charitable sector forged from the combined efforts of millions of unpaid volunteers should surely be the bedrock of a modern civil society based, as it is, on active citizenship. In other words, charities can do more than do good—they have at least the potential to change the way in which our country is governed. That is long overdue. For decades, policymakers—this is not a partisan point, as it applies to all parties of Government—have practised a top-down approach in dealing with the big social issues of the day. I see that graphically illustrated in my own part of the world, the north-east, where the inner-city regeneration schemes of the 1970s and the 1980s were characterised by one thing—the pouring in of millions, in some cases hundreds of millions, of pounds of public investment, with, at its heart, the fallacy that was the failure to consult and, more importantly, to involve the residents who were the supposed beneficiaries of such resources. It is hardly surprising that such schemes came and went, came and went again, and failed. Some of the new programmes that I am proud to say that this Government have pioneered, such as the new deal for communities, have begun to change that top-down approach and to substitute a bottom-up approach whereby local residents are not only consulted on, but involved in, how services are provided and how their communities are run. However, we need to go beyond individual initiatives, however good they might be, to a wider approach encompassing what the Government do, and how the state behaves, to empower individual citizens and local communities to take greater control and thereby exercise far greater responsibility for themselves. That is where charities not only have a key role but stand before an open goal. Over recent years, the reforms that the Government have made in our public services to introduce common standards and systems of inspection allow our country to make progress towards a system that is commonplace in other European countries, where the origin of the provider becomes far less important than the quality of services that they provide. In local government nowadays, more and more services are run by the private sector. In social services, the majority of elderly care services have been contracted out to the private sector. There are issues about standards and so on, but by and large it is fair to say that standards are better than they were 10 or 20 years ago. In education, we have more partnerships between the public and private sectors. I would argue that those partnerships have helped to drive up standards, particularly in the most disadvantaged communities. As for health, when I was Health Secretary I signed a concordat with the private sector. That was not universally popular with Labour Members, and was indeed subject to a great deal of criticism from Opposition Members. We brought in new overseas providers, again from the private sector. The end result has been to improve standards and outcomes and to shorten waiting times to the benefit of NHS patients. The next step is to move beyond an automatic assumption that the only alternative to the public sector is the private sector. Over the next decade, the charitable and voluntary sector should become as integral to public service delivery in Britain as either the public or the private sector. It can help to open up public services so that they become far more responsive and offer those who use them far greater choice.