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Social Policy

My Lords, we have had a remarkable, rich and lively debate and I will not detain your Lordships more than a few moments at this point. I am sure we would all agree that this has been as distinguished, creative and well-informed as we could have wished. We are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, for his remarkable maiden speech and the Minister for a full and clear response. I thank everyone who has taken part. A number of significant themes have emerged. We will not rehearse them all now, but at the heart of them has been a clear and ringing reminder of the great strength of civil society in this country. It reminds us of something right at the heart of our national character—the extraordinary people giving extraordinarily of their time, energy and vision for the sake of others. We have also been given some significant warnings in this debate. The ones that occur to me are these. We have been warned about too narrow a focus on economic growth rather than the quality of relationships. We have been warned about too much attention to proceduralism. We have been reminded of the real cost of volunteering and the need for the conditions of its flourishing, as based fundamentally on the building up of trust. We have been reminded of the profound need for creating the right conditions for a flourishing volunteer society, and the warning not to let this debate become a proxy for another debate about the need or otherwise for cuts. Above all, we have been helpfully reminded of the capacity of this House to address with distinction some of the most significant issues of our day. My sense is that we have begun to set a direction for the new Government and I look forward with others to seeing how that direction is travelled in the months ahead. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.