Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry]

The difficulty with the gift aid scheme at the present moment is that churches and parishes have to maintain enormous numbers of paper records, just in case there is any spot check from HMRC. It involves thousands of volunteer hours just to do so, and it would be perfectly possible to do it as effectively online, much more simply. That would be in everyone’s interests, not least those of HMRC. The Church and, I am sure, other charities will continue to pursue that with ministerial colleagues in the Treasury and with the Treasury itself.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

3. What account the Church Commissioners take of ethical criteria when making investments.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

7. What account the Church Commissioners take of ethical criteria when making investments.

[Tony Baldry]

The Church Commissioners are committed to managing our assets in a way that reflects the Church’s teaching and values and take advice on ethical investment policies from the Church’s ethical investment advisory group.

[Fiona Bruce]

How do the Church Commissioners use their substantial wealth to encourage responsible corporate practice?

[Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. The Church Commissioners seek positively to encourage responsible corporate practice by the businesses in which we invest. We are signatories to the United Nations principles for responsible investment. We vote our shares in line with the importance we attach to good corporate governance. We continuously discuss environmental, social and governance issues with our investment managers, and if ever we should have a concern about corporate practice in a company in which we invest, we engage with that company to seek to influence its corporate behaviour at board level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if there are any consultants being used, that will have been signed off personally by a Minister in the Department for Education and will be made public online shortly. He should address his question to my colleagues in that Department and scan the website for notification.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

3. What plans he has to reduce the regulatory burden on the voluntary and community sectors.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

9. What plans he has to reduce the regulatory burden on the voluntary and community sectors.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

We thoroughly accept the implication of the question. Voluntary organisations are subject to much too much regulation and monitoring. That is why, in addition to the important work that Lord Young is doing on reducing the impact of health and safety legislation and the compensation culture on those organisations, we are about to launch a specific taskforce to examine the impact of regulation on small organisations. We hope to announce the chair of that taskforce very shortly and that it will complete its work by next spring.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his answer. One of the key areas of the Government’s big society project is to encourage volunteering. However, it is accepted that in many disadvantaged areas there are lower levels of volunteering. For example, school governor places remain vacant. Will he consider how we can break down the barriers, whether regulatory or otherwise, that deter a broader number of people from coming forward to volunteer, particularly in disadvantaged areas?

[Mr Letwin]

The short answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes. She is absolutely right that we need to break down those barriers, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is currently looking at how we might do that.

It is important to note that the accusation that is sometimes made that school governors will need to have Criminal Records Bureau checks is not correct. Unless those governors are involved in working with children in school on a day-to-day basis, all that needs to be checked is the list 99 bar. We are, of course, also looking at how we can reduce CRB checks to a common-sense level and at the vetting and barring regime. I hope that all those things will help persuade people that it is well worth doing important voluntary work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not wish to be unkind to new Ministers, but answers are, frankly, too long. They need to be shorter.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

3. What assessment he has made of the effects on voluntary organisations of the Government's regulatory and administrative requirements.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd): One of our priorities is to make it easier to run a voluntary organisation, so we are committed to clearing the thicket of bureaucracy that too often gets in the way of doing good and to setting up a joint task force with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to look at how we can reduce red tape for small organisations.

[Fiona Bruce]

The requirements for people to obtain more than one Criminal Records Bureau check when working or volunteering with different community organisations is causing much duplication and expense, both to individuals and to community groups such as Crossroads Care Cheshire East in my constituency. Will the Minister consider reviewing the CRB check procedure and introducing one single registerable and transferrable check for each individual?

[Mr Hurd]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House and wish her every success in following in some quite formidable footsteps. The point she makes is extremely important and that frustration has been expressed to me by a number of voluntary organisations. I hope that she will be pleased to know that, in the coalition agreement, the Government are committed to reviewing the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and I will make sure that the relevant Minister in the Home Office is aware of her concerns. She and I will be following that review very closely.