Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on this important debate. As my register of interests discloses, I am a donor and trustee of a number of charities and I was asked by David Cameron to join a task force from which the Fundraising Regulator, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was formed.

The charity sector statistics are staggering, as the very helpful NCVO report points out. The UK public donate £22 billion a year, across 167,000 voluntary associations. Other Peers have rightly drawn attention to the loss of income and the effect that this crisis will have on some very deserving causes. It might well be that the £4 billion that the NCVO predicts in lost income for the first three months stretches across the year, although personally I am not so sure. However, there will be a substantial drop in revenue. Of course, we would all love the Government to do more to help, in addition to the measures already announced, but if this crisis is costing us £40 billion per month, I cannot see that much more can or will be done, other than perhaps some soft loans.

It will be up to the third sector to take radical and difficult steps. These will include merging some charities where there is clear and significant overlap to reduce costs. The duplication in the sector, with each organisation having its own overheads, is not efficient, nor is the constant competition to raise funds against other charities. Not only do many charities have to think about merging now, but they also have to look hard at their costs. The mean average salary across the top 100 charities was £265,000 for the top CEOs. Of course, many have taken welcome pay cuts, but the lessons of the NCVO’s 2014 report still have not been learned.

No one would have wanted this terrible current situation. Sadly, we have no choice but to accept that the sector needs to be streamlined, more efficient and more focused on its main purpose of helping those in real need. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will agree to help with the streamlining. I really do wish the sector well over this terrible period.