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Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to support the amendment, even at Third Reading. It is immensely imaginative and in years to come, if passed, might be seen as a landmark. As my noble friend Lord Shutt said, it could develop, by degrees, into a quiet revolution in opportunities for young people to serve society. We all know that the modern world of education is such that the fees students must pay for university, and then for post-university qualification, are a huge disincentive for many young people to engage in voluntary activity. We also know that the level of giving of time and money by young people under 30 has declined and is declining. We know, too, that the top 10 per cent of earners in the population gives less than a third of what
 
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the bottom third gives as a proportion of their income. Those are manifestations of the pressures and the particularities of modern life.

I urge the Government to give the amendment a fair wind because they know better than anyone that the voluntary sector often does the job of government in a more effective and cost-efficient way. If this scheme is established, the benefit to the community from all angles, particularly regarding the cost to the Exchequer, will not be the concession by the Exchequer to those students that it might appear to be, but will be of huge net benefit in real terms, admittedly in ways that are not easily quantifiable. I would hope that in future it might be possible to extend the scheme to provide opportunities for people before university, so that they could gain a credit for doing their voluntary service before going up. I hope that the amendment will be accepted by the Government.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I spoke to a similar amendment on Report. I do not believe in repetition on Third Reading and I hope that the amendment is carried.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, I echo the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If I have a reservation about the amendment, it is that it should not be necessary to amend the Bill to make the Government use their powers for this purpose. Both the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, have tabled the amendment in the hope of teasing the Government to go down this course.

Of course there will be much detail to be decided relating to how the scheme would work, how it would be evaluated and so on. But it is a good idea that would encourage many of our youngsters, who, more than in any other country in the world, have a distinguished record of involvement in volunteering. So, I hope that, even if the Minister is still reluctant to accept the amendment, the Government might hint that they are open-minded about considering a scheme of this kind.

The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, for moving the amendment and I was glad that on Report we could agree the inclusion of part-timers. Voluntary work is a fact of modern life and an indication of its complexity. If the Government cannot look kindly on the amendment, I hope that they might smile on the creatively Jesuitical intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—and I use that adjective in ecumenical brotherliness.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, I have not spoken on this matter before, but I shall be brief, nevertheless. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, that voluntary service is a valuable part of national life. It is vital to society and, perhaps, no less to the individual who gives it. However, I am less than enthusiastic about putting this amendment in the Bill. A minor reason is that it would be the third time that we have, as it were, diverted some money that was intended for higher
 
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education to another cause. My particular reason is that the essence of voluntary service is of giving without payment. We diminish that when we begin to say that it attracts remuneration. A second point is that it is a bad principle to identify this form of financial stipend with graduates, rather than to all members of our society who give. There are other people in straitened circumstances who give to society. Let us celebrate that, along with the gift that young graduates make to society. On those grounds, I do not think that this is an appropriate matter for the Bill.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, I agree with all noble Lords who have spoken about the importance of volunteering. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said about celebrating our young people who do so much to ensure that people give to society in the most appropriate ways. I declare my interest as having spent a great deal of my life working around the voluntary sector. Indeed, I spent part of it with the Charities Aid Foundation looking at the whole question of incentivising people to volunteer.

I start by echoing the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, because there is an issue of principle about which I am uneasy. I believe that volunteering gives huge benefits to society—I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, about that—but I also believe that it gives huge benefits to the individuals who participate in it.

It is important to understand that the principle behind volunteering is that one gives of oneself. We would need to think very carefully about incentivising people. In the work that I have done, that has always been a matter of training and providing opportunities for accreditation of the work that people do as volunteers. It is also a matter of recognition by employers and universities of the fact that people have worked in a voluntary capacity in some way. Much of the work that I have undertaken personally has related to ensuring that recognition is given to the contributions that people make to society in this way.

The amendment concerns a different principle—that is, it states that we shall also, in a form, remunerate people for doing that work. I have some difficulty with that. I understand that underlying the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, is the desire to look at the issue of volunteering and to ensure that a real pool of talent is available. It is a desire to ensure that young people, including young graduates, participate in this way with the talents that they have.

Noble Lords will know that we have established the Russell Commission, which is specifically working towards a national youth volunteering strategy. As the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, indicated, we believe that it is very important to examine any deterrents that may exist to participation in voluntary work.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in particular, that I recognise that there are issues surrounding the number of people who take up voluntary work. But, as
 
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the noble Lord knows very well, all the research in which I have been involved and the work that I have done with organisations has indicated that one of the critical factors is not financial incentive but time. The inability of people to take part in regular volunteering led to, for example, the setting up of the New York Cares project, which I consider to be spectacular. I recommend that noble Lords take the opportunity to have a look at that project. Rather than trying to persuade people to make a regular commitment, which they find impossible to meet, the project allows young professionals to volunteer in imaginative and creative ways.

Therefore, I hope that one way in which the Russell Commission will support such work is in examining how we can ensure that opportunities exist to volunteer in appropriate ways. As I said, that includes considering the issue of availability of time.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Does she accept that the amendment does not remotely require remuneration at what one might call a "market" level and that it would provide the possibility of modest financial assistance to the young people involved, which might make all the difference between their being able to give a major chunk of their time and not being able to do so at all?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I return to the issue with which we began our deliberations on the nature of the proposals before your Lordships. We are saying that people who earn less than £15,000 a year will not pay back any of their student loan. Indeed, after 25 years, the loan would be written off. A salary of £15,000 is not huge; in many cases, it is a modest sum. None the less, the Bill contains what we believe to be appropriate measures in relation to the contributions that students make. I do not consider it to be debt in the traditional sense, as the noble Lord knows very well.

I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, that if one remunerates people for carrying out voluntary work, a different principle is involved. In his amendment, the noble Lord is clearly saying that there could be an incentive for people to participate in such work. We cannot ignore that and say that it should be viewed in the same way as volunteering, as I understand the concept.

Real issues arise concerning the number of voluntary organisations that we have and how we would ensure that such a scheme recognised the kind of volunteering that would be eligible. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, touched on that when he described the scheme that would need to be set up. I am very keen that people volunteer in all kinds of ways in all kinds of communities. I would be nervous about saying that if one volunteered for VSO, that would be acceptable, but that if, for example, one volunteered for Home-Start (Stevenage), that would not. We want to encourage volunteering in all its forms in all our communities and, again, I have some concerns in that respect. I am not sure that we would be able to find
 
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ways around that which would be satisfactory to all concerned. It is very nice of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, to leave it to the Government to sort out the detail. I thank him very much.

There are also issues of principle behind the detail concerning how the scheme would be run. If we had such a scheme, we would need to ensure that people turned up to volunteer when they said they would. They would need to be monitored because we would, indeed, be writing off student loans. Therefore, a system of fraud prevention would need to be in place. Noble Lords will appreciate that this is public money and we would have to ensure that the scheme was carried out properly. It sets a challenge in terms of bureaucracy and so on, and, as I said, there is an issue of principle about which I have some concerns.

I have set out my reservations on the matter and I hope that the House will appreciate that they are genuine. We have already raised this proposal with the Russell Commission. I can say to the House that if, having deliberated on it, the commission decides that it has merit, then, under Section 186 of the Education Act 2002, we already have the power to pay off loans and we do not need to amend this Bill. I am happy to accept the general concerns raised by noble Lords, but I hope that I have balanced them to some degree by describing not only the logistical issues concerned but the issues of principle.

We cannot agree to a duty on the Government to provide such a scheme without looking at the implications of that duty, and I have outlined some of those. I have not even raised the issue of the cost that would be involved. Costs have already been mentioned but, again, this would involve another sum of money to come out of the higher education budget. I simply refer to the theme of top-slicing in passing; none the less, it is important.

I give the commitment to your Lordships that we shall raise the matter with the Russell Commission and we shall do so in the spirit of those who tabled the amendment. We need to think through how to obtain high-quality volunteering from our young people. If the Russell Commission felt that this issue was important, we would already have the power to carry it out. I believe that, at this stage, that is a commitment worth having from the Government. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

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