Speaking in a Conservative Opposition Day debate, Susan Kramer, Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, supports giving greater recognition to those working in the voluntary sector.

Below is a slightly abridged version of her speech. Click here to read the debate in full.

“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 for Future 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.

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.

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. 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.

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 that 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.

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 not we 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.

A number of contentious issues have been raised. The issue of volunteering is interesting. Unlike the official Opposition, I think that a lot of volunteers' 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 volunteering 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.

Yesterday, the Conservatives issued a paper in which they propose to replace the Office of the Third Sectorm, 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.”

I should say that my party has pleasure in the Government’s decision to create a grass-roots grant programme, particularly in the endowment element of it. In my own constituency there are groups such as, they have these terrible, old-fashioned Victorian names, the Barnes Workhouse Fund and the Hampton Fuel Allotment Charity. They have been crucial to the survival of our small charities at a time when the large charities, the premier league of 18 or so major recipients of Government funds through various contracts to deliver services, have managed to use the increased base to thrive and grow, while many of the smaller and middle-sized charities have struggled, and a few in my community have closed. From time to time, charities will close. Their purpose will disappear, or somebody else may start to deliver the service better. However, that is not the case with these groups, and I am glad that there is a nod in the direction of creating an endowment body that can continue to give life to this sector, which has been generally under-recognised.

The Minister made a point of the importance of Government providing investment in and support for charities. However, let us all recognise that the requirements for monitoring and accountability, the application process and the ongoing reporting process are often such that they are virtually impossible to satisfy unless one has a significant staff of people merely to push the paper. I am thinking of inappropriate demands such as a charity for the homeless being required to justify its geographical reach by providing the addresses of the people who attend it, an inept monitoring mechanism if ever we were to choose one. Small charities probably use volunteers to the maximum because they use them in so many broad roles and because they are so often spontaneously driven by the concerns of local people.

I am glad to participate in the debate on this issue, which should not be hugely contentious. I slightly regret the tone that developed at some points, because this is an area where all of us, finger-pointing or not, essentially have our hearts in the same place. I hope that we can make this debate in large part a celebration of national volunteering week and a recognition of the extraordinary work that so many people do."