Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Chloe Smith and Gareth Thomas(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Miss Chloe Smith
I want to respond to a couple of the amendments before we wind up. Amendments 3 and 4 would alter clause 1 and provide that lobbying was prohibited unless a lobbyist had both registered and signed up to the register’s code of conduct. Amendment 42 would establish a civil sanction in relation to breaches of the code of conduct. New clause 1 provides that the registrar must produce a code. However, there is little detail about what provision such a code would make other than that it would forbid inappropriate financial relations between registered persons and parliamentarians. The amendments reveal that, as we perhaps knew already, the Opposition intend not only a register of lobbyists but a full-blown regulator of the industry.
Mr Thomas
The hon. Lady says that the amendment makes no provision for a description of what might be in the code of conduct. I gently say that that seems a bit presumptuous. The point is that there needs to be wide discussion with the industry and those who watch its activities about what should be in a code of conduct. Why will she not allow provision for a code of conduct and then ensure that there is proper discussion across the industry on what might be in it?
Miss Smith
It is interesting that the Opposition have spent a good four hours telling us to do what the industry wants and are now advocating something that the industry does not want, which is a fully statutory code of conduct. I will make further arguments as to why there is a problem with putting all this on to the statute book.
I have already dealt with what the Government are trying to do through the Bill, which is to shine the light of transparency on a specific element of the industry. In doing so, we recognise the industry’s efforts to improve lobbying practice by introducing its own codes of conduct, and we are confident that that would continue; we have no reason to believe that it would not. It is right that those codes then promote the ethical behaviour that we need for the integrity—
Miss Smith
It might be helpful if the hon. Gentleman allowed me to make a few points in response to his intervention.
While such codes contain laudable principles and good practice guidance, their translation into statute is not feasible or practical. The experience of regulators in other jurisdictions clearly shows that statutory codes of conduct for lobbying can be unworkable and unenforceable. That is what I seek to guard against in opposing the amendment. The question then hangs in the air of what provisions the Opposition would expect to see in a code of conduct. They have provided very little indication other than that it will, rather intriguingly, forbid any inappropriate financial relations between registered persons and parliamentarians. Can the Opposition give us an example of what an inappropriate relationship might entail? Can the hon. Gentleman explain whether it would not already be prohibited by Parliament’s own code of conduct or laws on bribery and corruption? He is silent, which is rather worrying. This is another example of the rather lazy and imprecise draftsmanship that we have seen from the Opposition today, and that is not good enough. He does not provide any notion about how the code’s provisions might be enforced and what resources the registrar would be required to use to monitor it. The Opposition are setting the registrar an impossible task in expecting them to do that kind of thing. I urge him to withdraw the amendment.
The Opposition’s amendment 31 would alter paragraph 3 of schedule 2 to provide that the registrar’s appointment must be approved by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I think I heard its Chairman say that this was a new job that he had not necessarily asked for.
Mr Thomas
I intervened to give the hon. Lady an opportunity to correct the record. It is not true that the whole lobbying industry does not support a code of conduct, although it is certainly true that a number of people want a hybrid version. However, many within the industry do support a code of conduct. She is yet to explain why a code of conduct is not necessary.
Miss Smith
I have just gone to the lengths of providing the hon. Gentleman with an argument, with international examples, as to why making something statutory from a voluntary position can often be unfeasible. That argument stands. In fact, my reference to the industry relates particularly to the APPC.
The Opposition’s amendment 43 would amend the reference to the setting of the subscription charge from requiring the Minister to “seek to” recover the full costs to requiring them to recover the full cost. That seems unnecessary. I can assure the whole Committee that we are well aware of the importance of ensuring that the register is fully funded by the industry in order to protect the taxpayer. As I said earlier, the Canadian register costs £3 million to run. The Opposition have not fully considered how they would ensure that such costs would be recovered from, no doubt, the charities, playgroup volunteers and vicars whom they intend to register.
Amendments 136 and 138, tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), demonstrate his desire to secure the independence of the registrar. I share that desire and hope that I have reassured him. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) refer to this point as well. It is important that the registrar will be independent of both the lobbying industry and the Government and will have a clear remit to operate independently. Ministers will be able to dismiss the registrar only if they are satisfied that he or she is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of the office. I urge hon. Members not to press amendments 136 and 138.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chloe Smith and Gareth Thomas(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
While there are now rumours of significant concessions, Ministers still need to explain why charities were not consulted before the lobbying Bill was published. Why could not even the junior Minister be bothered to pick up the phone to the Royal British Legion, cancer charities or the National Council for Voluntary Organisations before producing a Bill that will have such a chilling impact on the work of charities?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
The hon. Gentleman knows very well that we spent a significant amount of time on this in the House yesterday and that there is more opportunity to discuss it next week. He will also know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I met charity leaders on Monday and will continue to do so. [Interruption.]
Small Charitable Donations Bill
Debate between Chloe Smith and Gareth Thomas(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Miss Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, which I hope has given the House enough to go on on this subject.
The purpose of the scheme—
Miss Smith
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to set out the purpose of the scheme, I shall be happy to engage in further debate as we proceed.
The purpose of the scheme is to enable charities and community amateur sports clubs to claim a gift aid-style payment on small cash donations of up to £20 in cases where it is often difficult to obtain a gift aid declaration. In general terms, eligible charities and CASCs will be able to claim top-up payments on up to £5,000 of small donations each year. As I said, the crucial point is that the Bill provides for top-up payments to be made to eligible charities that find it difficult to claim gift aid on donations, such as those from street buckets and church plates—when donors might be reluctant to stop to fill in gift aid declarations. In such situations, charities are currently missing out on income.
Mr Thomas
It is not just the Institute of Fundraising, which the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mentioned, which has concerns. Caron Bradshaw, the chief executive of the Charity Finance Group, has said:
“Eligibility for the scheme is limited and…will stop those that need it most from using it.”
Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, has said:
“Even for those of us who spend a lot of time looking at Gift Aid, some of the restrictions are hugely complex to understand”.
Why does the Minister think that charities that were initially positive about the Bill are now so sceptical about some of the detail?
Miss Smith
I do not want this debate to descend into a battle of quotations—although I could, for example, provide the hon. Gentleman with a quotation from Mr Graham, the chief executive of a charity not far from my constituency, who has said:
“Being a very small charity relying on small private donations and monies collected in tins positioned in shops etc I welcome this Bill. It will certainly make a difference to the very needy children in Kenya that Mnarani Aid supports.”
The Bill has been broadly welcomed by the sector. It puts cash towards charities. I shall set out how it does that and deal with some of the points that some stakeholders have made over the summer and beyond. I am confident that the Bill does what it sets out to do, which is to support charities in a constructive way and the funding will be welcomed.
Miss Smith
I shall try to be careful in responding. A number of interesting issues have been raised that are not necessarily part of today’s Bill. In addition, a number of improvements to gift aid have often been mooted or discussed, but they are not necessarily part of the Bill either. In direct answer to my hon. Friend’s question, therefore, the matters for consultation and scrutiny to date relate closely to this scheme and the mechanisms within it, which I shall now set out.
Under the scheme, charities will be able to claim top-up payments equivalent to the basic rate of tax paid on a donation, which is currently worth 25p for every £1 collected on small cash donations of £20 or less. Therefore, if a charity claims on the full allowance of £5,000 of small donations in a year, that will mean an additional £1,250 of income. It is that which charities will welcome. Hon. Members will know that tax reliefs for charities and charitable giving are an important source of income for charities, totalling over £3 billion a year. Of those, gift aid is the largest relief and is worth over £1 billion a year. We estimate that the gift aid small donations scheme could result in additional Government funding of around £100 million a year for charities and CASCs by 2015. That represents a significant boost in income for the sector and will be especially valuable to small charities. That is why—I again emphasise the point—this is a Bill that is to be welcomed and which has been welcomed by many across the voluntary sector.
To ensure that the new scheme is as accessible as possible to charities, it will be administered using the same mechanisms that apply to claims for tax relief under gift aid. The scheme will look and feel familiar to those charities and CASCs that already claim gift aid, and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will publish clear guidance ahead of the commencement of the scheme to ensure that it is simple to access. However, because the new scheme will not be a tax relief, it cannot be legislated for through the usual Finance Bill route— I regret to deprive my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) of the chance to serve on such a Bill and discuss the philosophical principle—so we are legislating for it in this programme Bill instead. The scheme was widely welcomed by the sector when it was announced in Budget 2011 and continues to be well received. We have worked closely with the sector to get the scheme right.
Let me now address some of the points of detail that have been raised, and which I am confident will be well understood by hon. Members. I shall set out the rationale for the ways in which we have designed the scheme, but first I want to set it firmly in the wider context. We have had to take steps to ensure that it operates as fairly as possible, but also to ensure that it remains affordable and is protected against fraud. We want this money to go to legitimate charities doing important work with real social benefit. We also want the small donations scheme to be as fair as possible. We want to ensure that charities doing the same kinds of work at local level, but which have different historical structures, get allowances under the scheme that are not hundreds, or even thousands, of times different from one another.
Those are the key driving principles behind the scheme: fairness, protection against fraud, and providing a complementary scheme to gift aid. We also want to channel some extra funding to charities, which I suspect that no hon. Member would want to speak against. I ask hon. Members to keep those principles in mind as we debate the detail of the gift aid small donations scheme. Let me take them in turn.
First, we want the scheme to complement gift aid rather than to replace it. I would urge all charities that receive donations to make full use of gift aid, where there is no limit on the amount of donations on which the charity can claim. However, there are some donations for which gift aid declarations are hard to come by, and that is what the scheme is designed to address.
Mr Thomas
Will the hon. Lady tell the House how much the Bill will cost the country? I ask that question in the context of transitional relief for charities having come to an end last April, at a cost of about £100 million. Will the Bill simply lead to a replacement of that money?
Miss Smith
I have already said that the Bill will channel up to £100 million to charities over the years in which the scheme gears up. That is to be welcomed. I think that the hon. Gentleman will also understand that the clue is in the title, in relation to transitional relief. This is a new scheme that ought to be welcomed in its own right.
The second principle behind the proposal relates to protection against fraud. We have designed the scheme so that for a charity or CASC to be eligible to claim, it must have a minimum three-year track record of successfully claiming tax relief under gift aid. It will also have to continue making gift aid claims while it is claiming under the new scheme. I know that the three-year rule and the requirement to match claims with gift aid claims have raised some concerns among charities, but I must be frank and say that the generous nature of charitable tax reliefs means that they are vulnerable to exploitation, with a small minority looking to take advantage of the arrangements.
Miss Smith
That point has been raised, and I look forward to addressing the details of it with my hon. Friend and others. She will be aware that we have sought to put in place restrictions in respect of community buildings—the other being commercial and is in the same part of the Bill—because we want to focus the Bill’s provisions on charities that are operating for charitable purposes.
A separate rule ensures that charities that are connected qualify for just one allocation of the £5,000 maximum limit between them, so that there is no incentive for charities to fragment solely in order to qualify for extra allocations of the maximum limit. We had originally suggested a broad test in respect of connected charities. Following consultation, however, we have developed a much more targeted rule and, as a result, fewer charities will be connected for the purposes of the scheme.
As I have said, some in the sector have raised concerns that the community building rule does not go far enough. They have said that more charities should be able to benefit from the rule. It has been suggested that any charities carrying out one-to-one support for their beneficiaries should be eligible, and that the top-up should not be restricted to cash collected during the charitable activities carried out in the community building.
I want to remind Members of a central point. The objective is to allow individual charities to claim a top-up payment on £5,000-worth of donations. That is the starting point. It is not the intention to give a £5,000 allowance for every building they use; that is different from having an allowance per charity. Rather, I have used the existence of a building as an indicator that there may be a local group that warrants an additional £5,000. I do not envisage every charity that has a local presence claiming up to £1,250 of the payment for each local group or building from which it operates.
The community building rule is an effort to minimise some significantly unfair results between different charities. As I have said, some have been able to claim perhaps many thousands times more in the way of payments than others, in what are otherwise, to all intents and purposes, very similar situations. We have to draw a line somewhere, and I look forward to getting into the detail of the scheme.
It is very important to note a point that has emerged during scrutiny of this issue, and which I look forward to being published in guidance, so that it is clear to charities. Some of the examples that Members are raising will not necessarily be excluded under the rules of the scheme. It is a question of ensuring eligibility against the guidance once it is published. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned the example of hospices. If the hospice itself is used for mainly residential purposes, it does not qualify as a community building under the provisions as drafted. However, if it is not so used—indeed, many are not—it could qualify as a community building if a section of the public has access to it, in ways that the guidance will make clear. Lines do need to be drawn, but there is a keenness to get this Bill right.