Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is great to catch your eye. It has been a while since I spoke from the Back Benches, and I have certainly never before spoken after the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman).

This place is at its best when we can use real-life examples and be a lot more passionate than when we are simply reading from a briefing document. Whether we are talking about the two-and-a-half hours, or however long it takes to make a cup of tea, about charities shovelling snow, which we do not have in Southend—I suspect we do not have the snow, which is something my children would very much like—I share with the hon. Lady some understanding of the credits. My youngest is five, so I greatly sympathise with her. In particular, I thank her for pulling me up and correcting my intervention about whether it was possible under the existing legislation to change the 1:10 ratio, although I would like to return to that in a lot more detail later in my speech.

This is the first time I have spoken from the Back Benches in some time and it is a particular pleasure to do so on the subject of charities. My constituents are an awful lot more interested in charities and what we can do for them in Southend than they are in some of the very good work that I did overseas. Important as that work was, charity begins at home, and in this case it begins in Southend.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that there are some tremendous small charities founded in our communities that seek to help communities abroad, whether by helping orphanages or schools? Does he agree that we need to support them as much as our charities at home?

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend for pulling me up. In fact, round the corner from my office is a charity that supports people in Uganda, which was within the geographic patch that I was responsible for. It is indeed a Southend charity and it would receive some of the benefits of this legislation.

The Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), mentioned the great value of churches in the community. Like perhaps other Members, I want to pepper my speech with examples from my constituency. I want to pay particular credit to the Southend Association of Voluntary Services, which pulls together charities and best practice and allows charities to be given the expertise to utilise the types of benefits that the Government are introducing.

It seems like only a hop, skip and a jump since 2006, when I remember throwing two lever-arch folders into my bin in Portcullis House, in the knowledge that I would never again have to look at charities legislation. I should have kept those two Bills, but I went back and looked at the Charities Act 2006. It was a much bigger Bill, with 78 clauses, rather than the nine clauses we are considering today. There are a lot of things that are still relevant today: the debate about whether schools should be charities, and whether education is in itself a charitable good or whether charities need to go out and prove themselves over and above. A lot has changed. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) was speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, and there was also a gentleman from Doncaster North—a junior Cabinet Minister with great, or maybe not so great, things ahead of him—who did a good job on that Bill.

One charities issue that was raised during the passage of the 2006 Act was “chugging”, or charities mugging. I notice that the short title of this short, nine-clause Bill is quite wide, so there are perhaps opportunities to insert a few more clauses, whether proposed by Her Majesty’s official Opposition or enthusiastic young Members of Parliament such as myself, or—[Laughter.] It does not say “Pause for laughter” in my notes; that was not a joke. Maybe the Minister will bring forward a review of charities mugging. Even now we get harassed at tube stations, and it is a distraction from the passion for charitable giving that, really, everyone wants to engage in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). He and I often have many common concerns at heart, and I echo a number of the points he has made today. I hope that Ministers will note that similar points are being made across the House today. Before saying anything more, I will follow the proper example set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) by declaring my interests. Not only am I patron of a number of charities, but I am still the senior partner in a law firm that for over 25 years has had charity law as one of its specialisms.

Like many other Members who have spoken, I served on the Committee that scrutinised the Small Charitable Donations Bill in 2012, so I welcome the amendments set out in this Bill to make the donations scheme more effective and flexible for small charities, particularly new charities, and also to make it simpler. One reason I particularly welcome anything that makes running a charity simpler is that over the years I have had many clients in my law firm who have a brilliant idea for setting up a small charity but find it increasingly difficult to recruit people as officers, and particularly for the role of treasurer. I very much welcome anything that makes being the treasurer of a small charity easier.

The term “small charities” is something of a misnomer, because often it is those charities that pack the biggest punches. For example, there are a number of charities in my constituency who work to improve the local environment, and the extent of their contribution to local people’s enjoyment of that environment is staggering. I think of the Sandbach Woodland and Wildlife Group and Dane Valley Woods. Those two groups alone have improved acres of local countryside, public footpaths and areas for local people to enjoy. I also think of the friends of a number of railway stations in my constituency, such as Alsager station, Congleton station, Sandbach station and Goostrey station. Those groups are often the unsung heroes of our communities, yet they add so much to the enjoyment of our environment.

I also welcome the inclusion of community amateur sports clubs in the Bill, because their contribution to our communities can be substantial. They of course contribute to health and wellbeing, but they also strengthen community ties and foster a sense of belonging, particularly for children. I want to pay tribute to three clubs in my constituency, Triton hockey club, AFC Alsager and Alsager cricket club. They have been at the forefront of a successful campaign over several years to ensure that the former site of Manchester Metropolitan University in Alsager is reopened for use as a community sports facility. It is their dedication over many years, combined with their understanding of the community’s sporting needs and their contribution to encouraging literally thousands of young people to take up sport that has ensured the recent success of that campaign. I pay particular tribute to those groups this evening.

I welcome the Bill because, according to the Government’s figures, the take-up of the scheme we debated and then brought forward under the Small Charitable Donations Act in 2012 has been regrettably low—far beneath hoped-for levels, as has been said. In 2014-15, the Government budgeted £84 million for the scheme, but the actual spend was £21 million, which was a clear shortfall. The number of charities accessing the scheme was just under 20,000, far fewer than the 65,000 we would have expected if the £84 million spend had been achieved. I therefore very much welcome the Bill’s intention to increase take-up by simplifying the eligibility criteria, but I ask the Government to ensure that there is some real and effective promotion of the scheme once the Bill is passed, as I hope it will be.

I echo other Members’ requests that the Government look again at simply dropping the matching criteria—again, a most effective method of increasing uptake. As has been said, the eligibility requirements could be simplified to make them the same as those for gift aid, so that if the charity knows it is eligible for gift aid, it will be eligible to gain access to funds from the scheme. I understand that there have been concerns about fraud, which the Minister has expressed, but, again, I concur with other Members and ask what evidence there is of that. I am told by charities that there is actually little, if any, evidence that fraud has been a problem with the scheme or that the matching criteria have been effective at highlighting those intent on making fraudulent claims. Will Ministers review the issue, and provide any evidence in Committee? Alternatively, will they look at whether fraud is in reality a barrier to consideration of dropping the matching criteria altogether?

I draw the attention of the House to a joint survey by a number of groups. The Association of Independent Museums, the Charity Finance Group, the Institute of Fundraising, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Small Charities Coalition surveyed more than 340 charities across a range of sizes, from those with fewer than 10 employees to those with more than 500. They found that the take-up of the current scheme in percentage terms was, as we would expect, and as Members have indicated, far higher in very large organisations than in very small ones; in fact, it was 71% in large organisations, compared with 41% in smaller ones. While the sample was small, there is a clear indication that organisations at the smaller end of the spectrum use the scheme less frequently, so anything that can be done to assist them to access it is to be welcomed.

The charities were also polled on accessing information about the scheme. Some 22% of medium-sized organisations said they found it difficult to access information, and 26% of small organisations found it difficult or very difficult, but 41% of very small charities found it difficult or very difficult. That goes to show how important it is that the Government focus on the promotion of the scheme. Many survey respondents were still unaware of the scheme or that they could be eligible. It would be a far simpler message to charities if we simply said, “If you are registered for gift aid, you are eligible for the scheme.”

Let me touch on the issue of cheques. I concur with other Members and ask that the Government consider making small cheque donations, as well as contactless payments and cash donations, eligible for the scheme. I welcome the contactless payment proposal, but many donors—particularly elderly ones—still write cheques for £10 or £20. The logic behind allowing cheques to be included in the scheme is very similar to that for allowing contactless or small cash donations—namely, that it can be administratively burdensome to get declarations from cheque donors, particularly if those donations are irregular and small charities do not have the resources to chase up donors. Making such a change will arguably help small charities even more than allowing contactless payments to be included, because contactless technology is expensive. Small and local charities, perhaps set up by someone who has retired, may not possess the technical capability to process contactless payments, while they might very well receive a good number of cheques.

In conclusion, I suspect that most of my points are not novel—many have been raised this evening, or were raised with the Government during their consultation—but I hope it will be helpful for the House, and indeed for the thousands of charities in the country, if further reflection on such issues is conducted as the Bill travels through the House.