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Welfare: Churches and Faith Communities

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my namesake, with whom my correspondence frequently gets mixed up. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for introducing this subject and the Von Hügel Institute for its work. The report made two points. The first was that the Church of England, Christian churches and faith-based initiatives make a significant contribution to the provision of welfare services in this country in all our communities. In that sense, they are echoing the views of Edmund Burke about the ““little platoons”” of our society, or, as the right reverend Prelate said, the views of Alexis de Tocqueville, about the local associations, or those of Berger and Neuhaus about the mediating structures. In a democratic and free society such as ours, these institutions—which stand between the individual, who has increasing rights but is rather solitary and lonely, and an all-powerful state—play a crucial role. The report identifies churches as fundamental to this role. The second convincing case that the report makes is that, with notable exceptions such as academies, the church and faith-based initiatives tend to be disregarded by parts of central and local government, the Charity Commission, the NCVO and so on. The title of the Von Hügel report is slightly unfortunate. Certainly, there is a moral dimension to what the Government are doing. It is not that the Government have no compass, but the land that churches occupy is uncharted territory for many areas of government, the Charity Commission and so on. The problem is not a secular conspiracy by civil servants or local authority officials but simply a lack of evidence. We should turn that into ourselves and say that the churches are partly to blame, because we could have done a better job. Personal debt is an area on which I have done considerable work. I chaired a commission on household debt for the shadow Chancellor and then, with Iain Duncan-Smith and Breakthrough Britain, undertook a further study and so on. I found that many debt counselling agencies had grown up in local communities—as the right reverend Prelate reminded us, ““local”” means that local people took part and responded to local needs—yet, while organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau received plenty of funding, the church agencies were below the radar. What can be done? First, comprehensive and detailed evidence should be collected, such as the study carried out by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool in the north-west. Secondly, the churches must become more professional in terms of developing metrics by which they and faith-based charities can demonstrate a public benefit. Thirdly, any body that issues contracts, whether in central or local government, has to make sure that a certain percentage of them go to very small local institutions. Some 20 years ago when I advised the Prime Minister in Downing Street, we wanted local production in television and we said to the BBC and ITV, ““There simply has to be a limit. We have to have ‘x’ per cent local production, otherwise we will never get it””. In conclusion, moving successfully from an old-fashioned welfare state to a modern welfare society will require the Government to consciously recognise and encourage the churches, simply because they are local, they are there for the long term and they can tap the enormous goodwill of Christian people who wish to serve others.