Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

That the Virtual Proceedings do consider the fundraising and organisational challenges faced by the charitable and voluntary sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Motion was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to lead a debate that has been so oversubscribed. I say a tremendous thank you to everybody who put their name down, and an even bigger one to all those who tried and failed. It is a pity that we could not find slightly longer for this, but I trust that the Whips’ Office, et cetera, will be able to make sure that we have a chance to discuss other aspects of this subject in the near future.

What inspired me to think about this is the fact that the charitable sector is an incredibly important part of our society. It supports virtually all aspects of things that we do and is a very big unit unto itself. If the Library’s briefing is to be believed, and it normally is, 870,000 people work in the field. It had an income in 2017 of something like £17 billion-plus and is approaching 1% of gross domestic product. That is a big area of activity. Virtually all aspects of life have a charitable input into them. Education, care, support, social activity, the arts and sport are all covered and interact with it in certain ways, as do virtually all commercial activities. This is something we must take seriously and pay attention to, not only during the crisis but as we exit it. Everything I will say here is based on the assumption that this will end at some point.

Today has been what I describe as a blue day for news—we have had good news that possibly a treatment is out there. The red days are when we hear about things that are not going so well; but we are on a blue day today, so let us be hopeful that this situation will end. Until it does, we must bear in mind that there is a huge amount of pressure on this important sector. It has been estimated in the Library briefing—to which slight changes have been made—that in 12 weeks of lockdown it is possible that the voluntary and charitable sector will lose £4 billion. The Government have put in £750 million, which is welcome—and I appreciate that other government measures have also been taken to help—but at the Library’s estimate, this covers only 18.7% of the loss.

We must look at how charitable organisations can survive to meet the needs that will still be there at the end of this period. One reason why I thought this an appropriate subject of debate for the House of Lords is that I do not think there is another group in the country that has as much interaction with, or knowledge of, charities. I do not know how many times we talk about people from the sector who brief us. I draw the attention of the House to my declared interests as president of the British Dyslexia Association and as a trustee of the Atlas Foundation—very different charities covering very different sectors—and I am involved with others as well. All were formed to act on issues that existed before the pandemic and the lockdown occurred. I hope that charities will be there to take on these issues afterwards, but unless we can find ways of supporting them through this they will not be. Without them, we will find ourselves with huge holes in sectors that make life effective and tolerable.

I will give some examples from areas that I know about. The minute that the schools were shut down, the British Dyslexia Association found itself with a huge number of people asking, “How do I support my child at home?” It has had to host online seminars, with huge numbers of people taking part and huge demand for more to come in. This is occurring at a time when the organisation’s income is falling. We could go through many different examples of how and why this kind of thing is occurring. But it is fundamental to charitable activity that you get people together— for example, at a dinner or a sponsored run or walk— and they get other people to give them money. You undertake the thing as a mass group and you hand over the money—great. You also stimulate people to set up standing orders and so on at that time. You make sure they are aware of the projects. You build up publicity to ensure that charitable foundations and suchlike, which are often formed by businesses, pump in a certain amount of money, and that donations will come in from wills drawn up for the end of life when houses are sold and so on. All these activities are either banned by the lockdown or have become much less profitable.

Many charities that have their portfolios invested in the general economy suddenly discover that their investments are reducing in value or dividends are not being paid out. This is doubly true for the charitable foundations. All the money going into these groups to support their work is disappearing or being reduced. This means that we will have a shortfall. Many charities work on the assumption that the money they are raising today will be spent in a certain amount of time. They will have to go to reserves. The whole sector is under enormous pressure—and added to the financial pressures are the individual and unforeseen demands of the crisis. This is all coming together, making it impossible for us to see where we are supposed to go. The longer the lockdown goes on, the worse this situation will get. Charities cannot really plan for their own future; this is beyond their capacity. We must look to the Government to help.

What is in it for government? If people are successfully educated—to go back to the dyslexia charity which I have talked to your Lordships’ House about often—you make sure that people are identified and supported through their education. In the long term, success in education is probably the biggest determinant of success in life: you will be reasonably successful, and you will be able to pay your bills and go forward. If things break down here, you are making sure that oncosts and pressures will affect you later. That is just one example.

Britain’s status overseas is raised by the actions of our charities to help nations that have a less well developed economy than us or have other problems. These charities are under particular pressure. Other charitable operations are taking place now that would not normally be, and the economy is shrinking, so there is going to be a problem, and a point at which we will have to say who gets the money. For the general public, it will probably be the problem in front of them at the time, not something in the future. All charities will be pressurised; they will find themselves curtailed and squeezed at virtually every level. We have to think of better ways of helping and supporting them, to make sure that the functions they have taken on are still there later.

I have some more examples. I have dealt with many autism charities: for instance, I have recently been talking to Autism Hampshire, a small charity that offers supported living and runs a series of care homes for people with autism. If it is not getting a reserve of money in, can it run these homes in future? Will that group be able to function properly? We must always keep our eyes on what happens next; if we do not, getting through this will not bring about results that are beneficial to our society. We need something which means that we can go back to a decent level of civil existence. If we come out of lockdown through a series of staged activities, as seems to be happening in the rest of Europe, we must make sure that we interact with charities as they go through those stages.

Government help is available in various forms, but has the sector been informed about it? Are the Government saying, in sector-by-sector blocks: “Here is the information you need in an easily accessible form”? If they are not, much of it will be wasted.

I have seen this in the past when working with people: “Oh yes, the information’s there. Click once here, go through that site, click twice, then ask for the booklet, and then it comes back to you”. Most people will have given up by that point; in particular, if amateurs are running an organisation, they are not going to follow through to find out what is going on. I have spoken to theatre groups that are running large theatres as charities, with youth wings and professional performers—the whole panoply. If they are under pressure, they have to know where the help is, particularly if staff have been furloughed or lost. You have got to make it as simple as possible. In this situation, the Government have to make the help available as easily available as possible. I hope that when the Minister replies for the Government, she will be able to point out where this has been done, or where it is going to be made simpler still. If the sector does not know where the help is, it might as well not be there.

If this situation continues and there is continued pressure, everything will get a little bit worse and the intervention will have to be more aggressive. We have to make sure that everybody knows there is assistance, or the state will have to start to take over some of these activities. If the state has to do that, there will be greater pressure on budgets all round. Will the Government please make an undertaking that they will assist those groups which take on the work that they have otherwise done? To put it bluntly, if you want more vulnerable people in society, you make sure that they cannot go to a dance group for the over-60s in a local church hall or school. When we go through this process, are we going to make sure that everyone knows when the school will be available and what appropriate groups can go in and act? That is a fundamental part of what is going on.

Such levels of communication will be complicated, but they will be needed. At the moment, the message is “Stay at home”. When we want people to go out, to be active and engaged and do positive things for society and for themselves, we will have to know that that is the message.

As I bring my arguments to a close, I call upon the Government to make sure that information about the infrastructure to help is communicated and emphasised at every point, and made as simple as possible. Without that, we will not be able to access the good will which is undoubtedly there, in most of these sectors, to help us come out of this properly. The organisation and financial structures of charities now will dictate what they can do when this process ends. The Government must take this seriously and address it in future planning. If they do not, I am afraid that much of the good work may be spoiled, and our society will be much weaker and more vulnerable in the future. I thank noble Lords for listening.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, particularly the Minister for her detailed response. I hope that when the guidance is published, the department will heed my vision that it be easy to understand by non-professionals. I got a smile there, which we do not often get. I think that is a key thing for everybody taking part in this: whatever we do, it will probably not bring us back to where we were, but to get to the best place we must be able to understand what is being done. That was a message I took from everyone in the debate and I hope we can all actually gather together to see that, even if we do not agree that the Government are doing all of what we want, at least what they are doing is done well. Having said that, I thank all noble Lords for taking part and I look forward to the next time we discuss the issues that have been raised here.

Motion agreed.