Small Charitable Donations Bill

Debate between Cathy Jamieson and Martin Horwood

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Is it the hon. Lady’s understanding that Government amendment 31, which seems to allow some flexibility for subsequent changes of the rules, nevertheless—according to the explanatory statement in the notes—insists that previous gift aid claims have to have been made, which of course may well preclude large numbers of the very small charities that the Minister presumably wants to help? Therefore it will still work against the interests of some of the smallest charities, and I am personally very disappointed that an amendment with more flexibility has not been tabled.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that powerful point, and we will come back to it later when we discuss other amendments. Whatever happens, I would hope that the Minister sees the point that the hon. Gentleman raises as a reason for ensuring that, at the very least, a review clause is built into the Bill. We would want to know whether a continuing number of small charities continued to be unable to access the scheme and gain benefits. Indeed, at some stage we will discuss the whole question of charities set up in response to particular circumstances—for very worthy causes—that may not be able to benefit at all from the scheme because the need will have been met and they will have moved on by the point at which they become eligible even to apply.

The idea behind the scheme is to boost the income of small groups that rely on bucket donations, and the hon. Gentleman has pointed out very succinctly that there are many such groups which simply will not be able to take advantage of the scheme, including those which do not have the resources to apply for gift aid or are just starting out. Our amendments seek to help those charities by removing the requirement for the start-up period and instead introducing a qualification period. We had some debate on this in Committee and our amendment would allow charities—new or established —without that claims history of gift aid to claim for a reduced amount of £2,000 after one year of claims history and then to claim for the full £5,000 once they had built up a three-year history.

As we have already heard, there are concerns that the Government’s requirements will be a significant barrier to participation for many charities that have not previously registered. They will also exclude organisations to which even an additional £500 would make a huge difference in income. Instead, it would tend to favour the bigger, more established organisations that may have the finance and fundraising departments to make gift aid claims. Many of the smaller, ineligible charities will already have been registered with the official regulator for three years. They will have had to submit accounts and pass the fit and proper person test, which is pretty robust. For some charities, their major fundraising may be from non-eligible sources, such as donations from trusts, events and charity shops, and they will not have been able to claim gift aid for the required three years even if they have significant income from small donations through collections which would be eligible for this scheme. For trustworthy established charities to be forced to wait a number of years before making claims reduces the incentives for registering.

The sector gave us a couple of examples. I will not go into all the detail, but one example was Wansbeck CVS, which has just set up a small grants fund in memory of a community development worker. It is designed to give small grants to local charities, but it had not been previously registered for gift aid. Under the current proposals, only donations received years after it registers for gift aid will be eligible. That is one of the examples of possible problems we were given.

We suggested that introducing a qualification period would go some way towards allowing charities that stand to benefit most from the scheme to be able to claim a reduced amount of £2,000 after only one year. That would at least allow them to cover their administration costs for claiming, while giving them an incentive to fundraise further and claim for standard gift aid. We tabled the amendments to try to provide a way forward that would balance the risk of fraud, identified by the Minister in Committee, with the ability to give a boost to the scheme for charities that need all the help they can get in tough times.

Amendments 17, 18, 19 and 20 relate to community buildings, on which points have been raised consistently during this process. The Minister will recall that in Committee we tabled a number of amendments to try to change the community buildings provisions substantially. We believe that they are seriously flawed and unfair to charities that would find themselves disadvantaged and unable to benefit. Many in the sector were disappointed that the Government did not give any ground, and I am disappointed that they have not used the opportunity of the Report stage to reconsider, as the Minister has done on other matters.

I suspect that the Minister will not move on these provisions, but if we cannot have a wholesale change to the Bill at this stage, I hope that the Government will at least be persuaded to look again at one particular aspect of the community buildings provisions. Clause 6(3) defines the community building amount as

“the sum of the small donations that are made to the charity in the community building in the tax year by group members while it is running charitable activities in the building”.

Even before Second Reading, that point was raised consistently as one that had the potential to cause difficulty for some organisations. In an attempt to solve the problem in relation to churches—the Minister rightly and understandably wanted to find a solution—we have a scenario in which it will be very difficult for other charities to take advantage of this part of the scheme, and that will potentially cause more problems than it solves. As we have heard previously—it is worth reiterating the point—clause 6(6) goes on to define a group member as:

“a member of the group of people with whom the charity is carrying out the activity”.

We heard a number of examples relating to that point, most vividly from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie), who spoke about a potential scenario with regard to a charitable group involving Alzheimer’s patients and asked whether it would only be those within the group who were able to make donations.

We have an issue with the principle here. We are concerned that for a great number of charities the beneficiary and the donor groups are likely to be two separate constituencies of people, and we do not want that to become a discriminating factor in whether charities can access the scheme. Indeed, it seems to us to be the exception rather than the rule that funds would be raised during the course of charitable activities by those benefiting from them. If we set aside churches and the collection plate, there are many scenarios where it would be entirely inappropriate for the bucket to be passed around the 10 or more members sitting there while the charitable activity was being undertaken. For example, during counselling work or work that provides activities for young people, or in which young people are involved, that would simply not be sensible.

The nature of fundraising is highly dependent on the type of activity and an organisation’s beneficiary group. The requirement in question would disadvantage the types of charities in respect of which it would not be appropriate or possible to raise funds in this way. Notwithstanding the debates we had in Committee, we still have concerns about whether such provision will go against the benefit principle of gift aid where gift aid is not available and where a donor receives personal benefit. In Committee, the Minister was at pains to say that that was not the case. However, we still have some concerns about the wording in the Bill, so this is another area where it would be important to have some review and some consideration about whether the Bill will work as it is intended to.

I will not repeat what was said in all the debates, but in Committee we heard that it would be difficult for such charities as Victim Support and the Alzheimer’s Society to benefit from these schemes, which is why we have tabled these amendments. Once again, the charitable sector—most recently the Charity Finance Group, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Institute of Fundraising and the Charities Aid Foundation—has stressed that point. Such organisations are concerned that the only donations that will count will be those made within a community building. Although some changes have been made, there are concerns about whom the provision would actually apply to, because the people participating, not including staff or volunteers, might be vulnerable people.

I appreciate that I am speaking at some length, but we have a number of important and significant amendments. In my notes, my shorthand for amendment 21 is that it is a review amendment. It may seem that all Opposition Members talk about is review, review, review, but I hope that I have begun to lay out exactly why we feel that the provision to review is important. Although we have tabled an amendment that focuses on the part of the community building provisions I have just been talking about, however, I do not want the Minister to think that we have given up on all the concerns we had on other aspects of the community building provisions.

From our debates in Committee, the Minister will recall our concerns about clause 7. The clause states that charities must run their charitable activities “in a community building” for them to be eligible for top-up payments. We had a wide-ranging discussion about whether charitable activities could be run from community buildings, whether they had to be in community buildings and the relationship between the organisation setting up and those participating. The Bromsgrove scouts became a touchstone—how the provision would effect the Bromsgrove scouts became the main discussion point. We also heard from charities such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which runs its charitable activities—this has been mentioned on a number of occasions—at sea, and a large number of charities that run their activities in the community, such as Victim Support and the Alzheimer’s Society. They often hold their counselling sessions or work in homes or in other community spaces, and we heard concerns that those organisations should not lose out.

We also raised concerns in Committee about clause 8, which specifically excludes from the scheme properties used for residential purposes, limiting the ability of care homes and hospices to access it. In Committee, the Minister stated that patients in hospices would still be registered at their homes, as he understood it, for the purposes of the Bill. People go to a hospice at a sad stage in their life, but to all intents and purposes their home is elsewhere and therefore a hospice should not count as a residence. He gave us some assurances on the care home sector, but there are still some concerns.

I gave the example of organisations providing residential provision for young people possibly for 52 weeks of the year. To all intents and purposes, such provision might form young people’s home for a time. There remain concerns in that area. The sector is also concerned that this approach might be a bit short-sighted, failing to take into account not only the ageing population and possible changes in hospices’ and care homes’ functions but the possibility, notwithstanding the best will of the Minister, that the legislation might exclude people from benefiting.

Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between Cathy Jamieson and Martin Horwood

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and, in particular, to follow so many hon. Members with great expertise in the matters that we are discussing. I do not claim to have such expertise, but it is important to put on record some of my concerns and those conveyed to me by constituents, including women—I note in passing that I am now the only female Member in the Chamber.

It is important for us to debate a situation that continues to develop on a daily basis in Libya, as well as wider issues relating to the middle east and north Africa. There are far too many of those issues for me to be able to cover them in a short speech, so I shall focus on matters involving Libya.

Like many other Members, I thought long and hard before deciding to support the Government in their Libya mission. I am not naturally inclined towards armed interventions, and many of my constituents expressed concern about what such an intervention would lead to, but—albeit with a heavy heart—I felt it necessary for us to enforce UN security resolution 1973 in view of the rapid deterioration towards a one-sided armed conflict and the humanitarian crisis that was likely to follow, particularly given the number of non-military casualties.

I have no doubt that the British forces have performed their role in an exemplary and professional fashion, as they always do, and that they have contributed significantly to the protection of the civilian population. As we have already heard, however, the challenge now is to define our future role and establish at what stage we will feel able to withdraw. Regretfully, I have to say that there currently seems to be a lack of strategic direction. In recent weeks, the Government appear to have made tactical and operational decisions that begin to depart from the original mandate of protecting civilians. The Government’s decision to provide telecommunications, body armour and a number of military advisers seems to me, and to many of my constituents, to have more to do with a military situation developing on the ground in Libya than with simply enforcing the resolution. I also regret having to express the view that the Government have failed to communicate to the public, and indeed to Parliament, the exact role of those people in a developing situation. For how long will they be deployed, and how does their role relate to the wider remit of protecting civilians? Those questions remain unanswered.

It seems that none of the measures represents a breach of the mandate provided by the United Nations and approved by the House, but they suggest a move towards measures that are beyond what I expected in supporting the Government when we debated the issue. Perhaps, when he winds up the debate, the Secretary of State for International Development will identify some specific issues and make the case for the strategic role of the advisers in resolving the crisis. Specifically, the advisers are there as a result of the Foreign Secretary’s assertion to the House on 26 April that

“it is impossible to see a way of securing the full implementation of the UN Security Council resolution while Colonel Gaddafi remains.” —[Official Report, 26 April 2011; Vol. 527, c. 40.]

A number of Members have commented on that statement. Is the mission now to remove Gaddafi at all costs, rather than simply to ensure the protection of civilians? If the Foreign Secretary’s statement is informing strategic military decisions, the Government must be absolutely clear and up front. That is vital in the context of some of the comments made today about a possible move towards identifying different targets.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady appreciate the distinction between the wishes of the British Government, in terms of someone who is now wanted by the International Criminal Court, and what the UN resolution sanctions in terms of the military mission by the international community? Those are two different things.