Rob Wilson
Main Page: Rob Wilson (Conservative - Reading East)Department Debates - View all Rob Wilson's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons Chamber1. What recent representations he has received on religious organisations and charitable status.
I have not received any representations recently from religious organisations on charitable status. More than 25,000 registered charities involve the promotion of religion. They play a hugely important role in our communities and support those in need. I pay tribute to their excellent work. They are often first in and last out of some of our toughest communities.
The Minister may recall the campaign that some of us waged on behalf of the Plymouth Brethren to retain its charitable status. It must have been for love, because they refused to vote on principle. We eventually won that campaign, but there is a worry on the part of many religious groups that increasingly so-called British values will trump faith values. Can the Minister assure faith groups that in the context of toleration for others they will be allowed to have space to teach their own faith?
My hon. Friend will know that the Charity Commission is independent of the Government and the Cabinet Office. It already respects the diversity of religious views, registering hundreds of new religious charities from a range of faiths every year, but it is fair to say that the Charity Commission did need to improve, as the National Audit Office said. It is now well on its way to doing that, but he can be assured that the Charity Commission has learned its lessons from the case he raises.
This is not about the Plymouth Brethren, but about a tiny sect of the Plymouth Brethren known as the Hales Exclusive Brethren. It is practising cruelty, I believe, in many ways against its own people. This is a dangerous sect. Rightly, the Charity Commission withdrew its status. The sect then had a campaign, which spent £2 million, to convince the Charity Commission that it had changed, and it changed its deeds. It is quite clear that this is what it calls “spoiling the Egyptians”, a process to deceive the Charity Commission. It is not abiding by its new status.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, but the Charity Commission looked at this matter in detail and that religious group retained its status. Public benefit has always been a defining element of charitable status. That is what is unique about charities and what distinguishes them from private enterprises. We have no plans to change that.
Does my hon. Friend accept that British values have been forged in large measure by this nation’s Christian heritage? It is very important that our Christian heritage should be put at the forefront of our concerns. Will he make sure that the Charity Commission understands that there is widespread concern that Christian values are being treated on a par with other faiths, and that Christian values must be pre-eminent? There is a particular threat in our schools, where Ofsted is not taking the right view.
I completely understand what my hon. Friend says, but I have been assured that the Charity Commission has learned the lessons of the Brethren case. The commission is currently undergoing a major change programme to address the recommendations of the National Audit Office and become a more focused, robust and proactive regulator.
The case exhibited a deal of interest among the media, but the Brethren people went out of their way to ensure they provide a public good, in particular in schooling in my part of Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister maintain the stance that that public good far outweighs any perceived evil on the other side?
2. What progress he has made on implementing his Department's transparency agenda.
T5. Will the Minister join me in praising the vibrant charity and social enterprise sector in west Norfolk for all its superb work, especially the two charities chosen by this year’s mayor, Barry Ayres, namely the Prince’s Trust of King’s Lynn and the west Norfolk Kandoo club?
Social enterprises and charities make an invaluable contribution to our economy and society, and I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in thanking those charities in Norfolk and others across the country for their work. We are investing about £470 million over the spending review period directly to support charities and voluntary groups.
T7. At Prime Minister’s questions in November last year, the Prime Minister said that “there are 1,000 more GPs across the country than there were in 2010.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 822.]According to the UK Statistics Authority, however, there were actually 356 fewer. That is just one error. The UKSA recently revealed that, since May 2010, it had had to investigate the Government more than 200 times for the use of dirty statistics. When will this Government stop their fiddling?