Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to focus my remarks on the international aid charities, and here I declare an interest, in that my wife Caroline Thomson is the chair of Oxfam. The crisis we are in is global and it is the poor around the world who will suffer most; international action is needed. However, UK charities are having to cut back on their programmes and on their staff, who would be able to assist. The Government’s £750 million package is welcome but as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said, it is not enough and it does very little for the international aid sector.

I would like to ask two questions that reinforce what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said at the start of the debate. First, do the Government recognise that the role of charity shops is particularly important for charities? Oxfam receives a monthly income of £7 million from its charity shops. If they do recognise that, can they find a way of improving charities’ access to the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund, which is offering £25,000 per property? I find it bizarre that this aid is being restricted, apparently because of breaches of EU state aid rules. In this situation, that sounds like legal quibbling over common sense. Will the Government therefore urgently meet with charity retailers to find a solution?

My second question concerns support for international work. Can DfID play a bigger role by, for instance, providing stabilisation loans for some charities and by adjusting its programmes to help them cope with the immediate financial consequences of the Covid crisis? I recognise that the Minister may not have time to answer these questions today, in which case I would like her to write to me on them.