Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill
Debate between Chris Green and Kevin FosterTuesday 11th October 2016
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Act 2017 View all Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Green
Absolutely; I agree entirely. I was just thinking about the fantastic work done, often in hazardous conditions, by the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team. It is not just the team itself that raises money. Rotary clubs and other organisations raise a lot money for them, too. Civic society is so important. We ought not always rely on central or local government to do everything for us. We ought to look to civic society for many important things in our daily lives. By celebrating, recognising and communicating that as widely as possible, we provide the opportunity for more people to hear about such work and get involved in these organisations. Recently, I worked a shift in the local Bolton Hospice Macmillan Cancer Support shop. Little did I realise how much time and effort goes into running the small charity shops on our high streets. A fantastic amount of effort and organisation goes into them. The relationship between the volunteers and professionals is also fantastic. Professionals in charities are able to provide continuity and a political edge.
Kevin Foster
My hon. Friend talks about how charities are supported by volunteers and professionals working together. The Torbay Community Development Trust supports a number of small charities by providing an administration hub. The Bill will reduce administration, but there will still be a need for this kind of support so that volunteers can get on with the job that they want to do.
Chris Green
I agree entirely. That support network is often vital and it really sustains people. People who run charities can think they are in a uniquely difficult place, so it makes it so much easier if they can share ideas and overcome problems. Colleagues have talked about the importance of communication and awareness. Local media have a key role in communicating these changes. I am looking forward to a “Wearing it Pink” event for breast cancer awareness, which will take place on a week on Friday. I have been assured that there will be a pink buffet with pink marshmallows and pink drinks. I just haven’t decided what to wear. If hon. Members have any ideas, please let me know. I am sure the whole House would like to wish them well.
The Bill will allow charities to claim gift aid from contactless payments of £20 or less. This respects the modern way in which people now pay and donate to charities. The scheme is not a replacement for gift aid itself. It is important that gifts are made in person to retain the local link, as required by the scheme. It is important, too, to recognise that £20 is a reasonable amount of money. It is not excessive. I think that for most people £20 will be seen as a reasonable small donation. Keeping in mind the sense of a country that works for everyone, I am more than happy to support the Bill.
Daesh: Genocide of Minorities
Debate between Chris Green and Kevin Foster(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Green
Absolutely. This is why many people in Britain are leading the debate, because they recognise this to be a genocide, and I appreciate that many, if not all, Members in this Chamber agree with so many of the British people.
Daesh is creating what it would deem to be the caliphate, targeting those who do not fit into that vision. We have seen the systematic persecution, torture, enslavement, rape, kidnap and murder of a number of groups solely because of their religious identity. Daesh’s desire to establish a caliphate in the territory it holds is only a starting point; it is intending to draw many more Muslims from across the region, Europe and beyond. Clearly, Daesh is an expansionist organisation that has far greater territorial ambitions than to hold on to the land it currently has, and so, given the opportunity, it will take more land and subject more people to the systematic persecution and killing with which we have become familiar.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that this issue has many of the hallmarks of what we faced 75 years ago, in that Daesh is like National Socialism: it is not just a movement trying to take over one country; it is a movement trying to make a race and a belief dominant, and in doing so eliminate its opponents?
Chris Green
My hon. Friend is entirely right to speak of Daesh in this ideological way. People are getting caught up in this and are divorced from their humanity—the humanity they would have been raised with and that they see around them. More must be done to ensure that we tackle that extremism, be it online or from other sources.
The continued existence of Daesh means it will continue to be a draw and an inspiration if this caliphate does take hold and persist. To see that, we need only look at Libya, where Daesh-inspired terrorists kidnapped and beheaded 21 Coptic Christians—the anniversary of that was recently marked by a service in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft.
Genocide is fundamentally about committing acts with the intent to destroy, in part or in whole, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Although the classification of “genocide” is a matter of legal rather than political interpretation, for the international courts and the United Nations Security Council, this is not simply a debate about semantics. Furthermore, it is important for the British people, through their Government and the media, to understand what is going on in the middle east. Does the term “human rights violation” really fit what we see happening to Christians in the region? Can the systematic and targeted attacks on the Yazidis really be understood by referring to them as one of a number of middle eastern “humanitarian crises”?
The UK is playing a leading role in a global coalition of 66 countries and international organisations responding to Daesh’s inhumanity, but I join the voices of many in this House by asking the Government to make a referral to the UN Security Council. A referral from the Security Council is the only means by which the International Criminal Court can investigate and prosecute these acts of genocide. Genocide is understood by most to be the gravest crime against humanity, and this is what is being perpetrated by Daesh. We have a responsibility as a democratic nation to apply pressure to the international judicial bodies.