Women Offenders and Older Prisoners

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and David Amess

Thursday 16th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

Garbage.

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Amess, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) just described what I said as garbage. Whether that is parliamentary or not, I am not particularly bothered, but if he wants to make an intervention to challenge my assertion, why does he not do so, rather than make such remarks?

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. It is not in order to use the word “garbage”. Someone may wish to make a further intervention, but for now I call Mr David Nuttall.

Public Sector Funding

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and David Amess

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I hope hon. Members will accept that the maths that I have done are correct. Four-minute speeches would get us all into the debate. Are you, Mr Amess, in a position to impose a four-minute limit?

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Not officially.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I look forward to your unofficial imposition of a four-minute limit.

I welcome this debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing it. The voluntary sector is very important in our society. It is important for community cohesion and for newly arrived communities, and, in inner-urban areas such as the one I represent, it is a crucial part of the social fabric of both local government and health services. It is highly professional, efficient and well organised, and stressful for those who work in it. I am president of Voluntary Action Islington, formerly Islington voluntary action council, and a trustee of several local organisations, including Hanley Crouch community centre, Elizabeth House and a new-ish group called Light Project International, which provides weekend and after-school activities for young people, so I am acutely aware of and involved in the valuable work done by the voluntary sector.

The voluntary sector has always been a combination of a small amount of general fundraising from events and collections, and much larger funding from local health authorities, local government, various charitable institutions and, occasionally, business donations. That is complicated, and we should have regard and respect for those people who manage community centres and local organisations, and spend an inordinate amount of their time stressing over funds, staff and conditions, and funding applications. They spend a fantastic amount of their time completing funding application forms. An industry has grown up, with professional fundraisers offering to complete application forms and to fundraise for fixed fees or a proportion of the funds raised.

We must think through the efficiency of having highly skilled community centre managers spending sometimes 70% of their time on fundraising activities, which obviously diminishes a centre’s day-to-day work. A clearer, more defined role for local government and local health authorities in supporting and funding over a much longer period would be much more efficient. The current system is not efficient.

I have been involved in voluntary sector organisations in my constituency for a long time, and in a previous incarnation I was chair of community development in Haringey council. We developed community centres, particularly for minority ethnic communities, disability groups and others, as a way to bring in people in partnership with local authorities and health authorities. I strongly support the voluntary sector, but am sanguine about its role.

When I hear the Prime Minister talking about the big society, there seems to be a complete disconnect between my experience in inner urban London and what the voluntary sector means there, and the vision that he seems to have of fairly well-off retired people donating money to run a library and so on in a community with highly skilled people with time and money on their hands. That is not the reality of life in my community. If the council closed a library, which fortunately it has not done, and offered it to the local community to run, it would not happen, not because people do not value the library—they absolutely do—but because they do not have the time, the money or the skills necessary to do it. If we want to maintain the social fabric of our society, we must be prepared to put public money into voluntary organisations with the add-on benefit of community usage and all that goes with that. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South said, that core funding is essential.

Another point for the Minister, which I hope he will answer seriously, is the operation of the transition fund. As with every other community in the country, mine faces enormous cuts in local government expenditure and less grant money from the health authority, as well as less money from London Councils. There are great difficulties. The Government established the transition fund, but I have concerns about it. I received a good brief on it from Gerard Omasta-Milsom, director of Islington Peoples Rights, which is a very good voluntary advice agency. He says that to be eligible for the transition fund, applicants must be

“spending… 50 per cent of your total income delivering frontline… services”.

I wish that someone would define what a front-line service is. It is easy to say that we must support people on the front line and not those in the back office, but if a community centre does not have a bookkeeper, a cleaner, a caretaker or someone to repair computers and so on, it does not work. There cannot be a simplistic distinction between the front line and the back office. It is the totality of the service that is most important.

Another condition on transition fund applicants is that they

“have approved annual accounts that are no more than 12 months old which show that… your total income for that year was between £50,000 and £10 million and”

that

“at least 60 per cent of your total income came from taxpayer-funded sources.”

But £50,000 is quite a lot. We set up a community chest system in Islington, which operated until the Government cuts, and the council has now set up a new but smaller community chest. It gives small grants to new, seedcorn organisations such as new Somali organisations—we have a growing Somali community in Islington. The grant may be as little as £4,000 or £5,000, and in some cases even less. When such organisations are small and have only just come into existence, a small investment goes a long way.

The briefing goes on to say that free reserves could

“pay for your organisation’s total expenditure for no more than six months.”

I do not understand that requirement. Anyone who is running an organisation must have enough money to pay for ongoing costs and redundancy costs for at least three months. I hope that the Minister will tell me two things: first, whether the transition fund will be simplified and will continue beyond this financial year and, secondly, whether, as it has been so vastly oversubscribed throughout the country, he will speak to the Chancellor and obtain more money for it.

As every other part of the Budget seems to have been leaked, there will be no harm done if the Minister tells us exactly what part of the transition fund will be made available to the voluntary sector. It is vital to put money into such organisations and to keep them going. The health, well-being and strength of communities are so important. Removing the seedcorn funding and the basic running cost is damaging, and I hope that the Government will think again about that.