Charities

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have also seen that report and looked at it in some detail. It is interesting, incidentally, that as of September this year there were 2,000 more charities registered than there had been three years before so the trend has not, so far, been downwards, but it is worrying. From my experience of the charities sector, and I have visited a large number of additional charities since I took over this post, I am shaken by some that I meet in Yorkshire that are almost entirely dependent on public funds. That seems unwise. I strongly approve of those that raise some of their money through their own activities. The social enterprise model is very much part of what charities should be doing. The Government are doing a whole range of things to encourage the new generation to give more of their time and money. The National Citizen Service is one of them.

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, given that the number of donations being given online and by text is increasing, does the Minister agree that charities are losing out, because gift aid is not yet fully digitised? Does he agree that it is imperative that the Government help charities to achieve a universal declaration of gift aid so that online giving can be much more beneficial than it is now?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I strongly agree with the noble Baroness. We are also looking at the difficulties of payroll giving. The Government want to encourage it. A small number of, by and large, large companies make that easy for their employees. We would like to see an expansion of payroll giving. The figures suggest that older people are now much more generous than the younger generation, and we do not entirely know the reasons. Again, that is not entirely fitting. I trust that all Members of this House are giving at least 10% of their income to charity.