Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Jane Ellison

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

[Jane Ellison]

Text messages can, as my hon. Friend knows, be gift aided, so we do not expect problems in that regard, but the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), will seek to respond more fully on those points at the end of the debate.

The final change proposed in the Bill is simplifying the rules on the top-ups that charities can receive on donations that they receive in their community buildings. Those rules were designed to ensure fairness and parity of treatment for charities structured in different ways. Without those rules, some charities are entitled to hundreds of thousands of pounds more than others simply because of differences in their historical structures. The gift aid small donations scheme is particularly well used by local churches. That was made clear by the Archbishops Council, which recently noted that in 2014 parishes could claim record levels of gift aid, with a significant part of the increase arising from the use of the gift aid small donations scheme. We want churches to continue to benefit from the valuable extra income provided by the small donations scheme, but it is important that the scheme continues to deliver the policy intention of providing fair and equal outcomes regardless of structure. The Bill will therefore address an anomaly in the original legislation.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I support the Bill, and I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation, but does she accept that the majority of charities, especially in my constituency, are small and rely solely for governance on volunteers? There has been a reduction in volunteer numbers across the United Kingdom. For many the Bill does not go far enough in promoting equal access to fundraising opportunities for charities that do not rely on staff.

[Jane Ellison]

Perhaps that is something that we can look at in more detail in Committee.

These are important simplifications. Throughout the consultation, we received supportive comments from charities, as demonstrated in the quote I gave earlier. There are always additional asks, and we would all want to be open to ideas about how we can further support charities. However, we think that the measures that we have introduced in the Bill are important next steps to make it easier for charities of all sizes.