It is a great pleasure to be able to speak to you today and welcome you to the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister has also sent a message of support for what you are doing. He has particular interest in the whole idea of volunteering and what he describes as `the Giving Age'. I think it is a concept I will touch on a little this afternoon. Being able to give whatever we are, wherever we come from, whoever our parents are, whatever our culture and wider deprivation, one thing we are all able to give to each other is that commitment of friendship and personal support. That giving of ourselves which is something entirely different from the operation of the market place globally or locally. It sometimes draws on the patience of those we are giving to as well. When I was sixteen, a friend of mine and I, he could not see either, visited an old lady in her eighties called Mrs. Plum. Mrs. Plum was a very indulgent old lady. It was only when we were leaving college and no longer able to visit her that she confided in us that she thought that she had been more use to us than we had to her in terms of the giving we had done, and we had learnt more from her not only in the history she had told us, not only in her life that she had imparted to us, but also in how to make a decent cup of tea and how to clean the things we thought we were cleaning for her.

So the Giving Age comes both ways, it comes from the receiver as well as from the giver, and I think that it is very important, because the difference between volunteers and community citizens' service on the one hand and paternalism and people salving their own consciences on the other is very stark. That is all part of the interaction between those who are giving and receiving, between the individual who is giving of their time and energy, and the results, the added value, the making a difference which their lives can create. I think this is something we can share, wherever we come from. The experience will be different in style, but actually very much the same in terms of the outcome, and I would like you to reflect on that in your subsequent discussions.

I also want to touch on how volunteering affects wider social policy. Social policy is traditionally debated in terms of what Government does, how different programmes relate to each other, how education and housing, the environment and health, and the provision of social benefits welfare actually relate to the life of the individual. Whereas I would suggest that social policy is the interaction between civil society, between people changing the world around them by what they do and the Government that represents them for social and economic policies which create the framework and culture in which they provide that giving. I think that in the broader context of why Government should be supporting and engaged in volunteering we need to be able to see that relationship -between the civil and the political, between the interaction at community level, with the provision of time and energy from the individual, with the Government at national, European and strategy levels is able to do.

There are obvious differences. Government is able to provide resources. I have so far secured sufficient resources to get particular programmes supported and off the ground. That often means retaining and supporting what is already happening, not just creating anew. The Prime Minister is supporting in Britain in the early autumn a major drive, not by Government, but in support of others wanting to highlight the importance of voluntary action and volunteers, of organisers of voluntary action, and of individual giving as volunteers, so that we can mobilise the enormous goodwill that people have and the commitment they have to each other, not in a bureaucratic or overt, structured way, but by giving the necessary backing, by providing the mechanisms for information, for people to be able to find ways of contributing, to find what they are good at, and to be able to use their time. There are lots of examples that you are all better aware of than I am in terms of the experiences you have had, as the majority of people here this afternoon are already deeply engaged and interested and would not be here otherwise.

What is happening on the ground is very important. We have been experimenting in a number of ways. Community Service Volunteers (CSV) and other organisations like the Prince's Trust Volunteers and the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) have been partners in looking at ways in which people can link up in entirely new ways of helping each other. My Department deals with education and skills training and employment, and we are very interested in the idea of mentoring - specifically, linking up with young people in terms of developing their literacy or to provide mentoring in terms of social exclusion and exclusion from the education system, people acting as mentors, perhaps fostering and supporting people in the way parents or grandparents would be able to do if they had the wherewithal or the time. We are looking at ways in which that could also be developed in terms of the world of work.

We are looking at ways in which we can develop what we are calling Millennium Volunteers, which is the giving of a specific and substantial amount of time, either full time and engaged for a substantial period (perhaps three to twelve months in terms of being able to provide continuous assistance) or by being released for a reasonable amount of time from employed or paid work, so that people can give of their time and energy and learn how to respond and be better human beings for it. The Millennium Volunteers idea, building on what already exists in this country, is about actually engaging with the development of young men and women in their lives, developing their expectations, harnessing their self esteem, building their self belief in terms of what they can do for their communities - making them not only better citizens and more valued human beings, but potentially better employees and contributors in the workplace. I am selling this version, because it is quite important that employers are prepared to release young people, but we also want them to provide resources and support Millennium Volunteers.

It will be delivered at arms' length from Government. It is important that it will not be seen as a civil service or Departmental exercise. The whole idea behind it and the idea which links with other forms of volunteering is that by developing the talents of these young people we can also add value to the lives of those they help. Sometimes it would be providing support to a severely disabled man or woman. That kind of practical help day in day out can enable them to live a normal life on even terms with others.

In the UK we are in the middle of a major debate about the next three years' spending, which is preying on my mind at the moment. Normally Cabinet ministers have to fight for one year ahead. It is a great bonus to get three years if it goes well; it is a total disaster if it goes badly. It will all be decided in the next few weeks. Whatever I get for education and employment it will not be enough in resource terms, but it will also not be enough because actually Government pretending it can do things for people rather than giving the opportunities to do them for themselves is an outdated concept which is no longer, if it ever were, acceptable or viable.

What we are about is actually being an enabler, in which we provide the values, but in which we allow people to do what they do best. We can never provide friendship. We can never provide it, even with the best benefit system or the best welfare system. The best social and welfare services can never provide for people giving time when it is needed in a flexible, responsive way tailored to the needs of the individual. Only someone prepared to work on a day-to-day basis with that individual, linking professional support, linking trained guidance with the commitment of people in their normal life as organised volunteers or as good neighbours can make all the difference between success and failure in the delivery of coherent social policies.

Of course, the same thing is equally true in terms of the organised commitment to improvements in volunteering in our communities, as you are all well aware. It is not simply about giving, perhaps to someone in need in terms of their physical requirements or their emotional needs or in terms of household or childcare or within provision in a hospital. It is also about transforming the neighbourhoods and communities from which they come. Some people are active citizens and change the world around them, not merely asking others to change the world for them. So, that coming together in environmental programmes, coming together to change the state of housing, coming together for community development programmes, are all part of the process of generating active citizenship - so, citizenship, democracy and civil society linking the social policy with the economic; the ability to find a way in which people can learn about the world, at the same time adding value.

It is important that we link that with what we are doing in our education system. In the UK we have set up a Working Group looking at how we can teach citizenship and democracy - not politics in the ideological or party political sense, but how we can foster an understanding of citizenship so that people can see how what happens in their own lives relates to the lives of others and to our institutions. How we treat the development of the curriculum in education and schools can develop and support young people in learning to give - being encouraged and supported to give at school or after school and when they leave school - so that we can develop and foster giving in a positive way, so that young people feel they have experienced an understanding of volunteering, so that they may later take a year out and become part of, for example, Voluntary Service Overseas. They may become part of the European Voluntary Service Programme which I have been promoting over the last six months during our presidency of the European Union.

We want to develop cross-border interaction between young people. Students can take time off to spend a year in another country. It is more difficult for young people who are not so well off, whose parents are unable to afford the financial security which allows them to travel. We want to help young people on apprenticeships or other training to take time out to exchange their talents. Inter-country volunteering should not be an experience that is only available to the better off. Learning for life is as much about the shared experience of coping with a changing world as it is about formal education and training.

Our experiences are rooted in where we are, but old boundaries are disappearing and change can frighten people. People can cope better if they are able to relate to their own neighbourhood. We need to build on this by giving support from Government. We can enable young people to contribute and help them make sense of their lives. The effects of volunteering can help people feel valued for the rest of their lives.