Voluntary Sector: Faith Organisations — House of Commons, 2016-05-05
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen Daniel Double (Conservative, Centre-right): I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on securing a debate on such an important subject, and it is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) I will talk about a number of things, but I first want to state that I have a great deal of experience in this regard, as hon. Members will know. I was born into a family whose members have devoted their lives to Christian service in running several Christian charities and, indeed, churches. That has been my experience for my whole life, and I speak as someone from that background There is no doubt that faith-based organisations play a very significant role in our local communities up and down the country. The vast majority of those involved are volunteers, who freely give their time, their talent, their energy, their love and, very often, their money for the good of other people. As I say, they do so freely and willingly. As we have heard, they do so in the vast number of food banks that have sprung up throughout our country to meet a very important need in our communities; in the pre-schools or youth clubs that are run by Churches and other faith organisations to provide such vital services to families and our young people; in the groups that provide meals and shelter for the homeless, the elderly or the lonely; or organisations working with ex-offenders and those suffering from addiction and, as has been mentioned, the street pastors who go out in our towns and cities to provide a very important service at weekends. They all provide vital services in supporting some of the most vulnerable and needy people in our country Back in 2014, a report commissioned in Cornwall sought to put a value on the amount of time given by volunteers from Churches and other faith-based organisations. The report came up with a figure of £20 million every year for the value of the time given by volunteers from Churches in Cornwall, which has a relatively small population. If that was reflected across the whole country, the amount contributed by such volunteers to our country would be several billion pounds a year. I should say that that figure was based just on measuring the contribution of Christian Churches, but many other faith organisations also contribute significantly to our communities up and down the country. We are therefore talking about groups of people who make a very significant contribution to our society, and they should be respected for that It is clear that people of faith make such a contribution across the country, but this is not a new trend; it has gone on throughout the history of our nation. Our very nation has been shaped throughout our history by great men and women of faith who have stood up to be counted and who have broken new ground, such as Wilberforce in abolishing slavery, Florence Nightingale in nursing injured soldiers, the Rev. Chad Varah in founding the Samaritans or, more recently, the street pastors. Throughout our history, people of faith have brought change and reform to our society, and it is very much because of their faith that they have carried out such work.