Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill — House of Lords, 2016-12-12
Topic: Social Welfare
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): None the less, there is an advantage in getting it scored as gift aid rather than as a small donation, because there is a cap on small donations but not on gift aid. It is in the charity’s interest to try and nudge donations, wherever possible, down the gift aid route rather than the small donations one. The noble Lord asked about the take-up of the scheme and said that it might be too restrictive and complex. Some 21,300 charities took advantage of the gift aid small donations scheme in 2015-16, claiming a total of £26 million. Take-up of the scheme continues to grow year on year, but I take the point that it has come in below the forecast. That is why we are removing a number of eligibility requirements and relaxing the community buildings rules, which will make it simpler and easier to claim, particularly for smaller charities, and make it possible to score donations that are not collected in community buildings but in the local area. I hope this will help a number of charities which do not claim at the moment to do so. I turn to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hodgson about fraud. Although the headline maximum payment of £2,000 is modest, fraudsters can hijack or set up multiple charities and claim multiple amounts. The community buildings rule enables some charities to claim significant amounts of top-up payments in their own right, so it can potentially add up. In any event, we have a duty to ensure that public money is spent properly. Any amount of taxpayers’ money going to fraudsters is a significant issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, suggested that we should abolish gift aid and—if I have understood her correctly—give charities a top-up on all donations received. This would be a radical reform, but it would not be welcomed by many in the charity sector. In fact, in 2010, charity representatives on HMRC’s gift aid forum considered whether gift aid should be reformed, including removing the link to individual tax contributions. However, they concluded that gift aid should remain as a tax relief. We are open to representations on how we can improve gift aid but are not currently considering reforms along those lines Finally, the Government are anxious to continue general support for charities. Some 73% of adults give money to charity in the average month. We are the most generous nation in Europe, so there is much to celebrate. We are offering incentives to encourage giving: we provide a generous package of tax reliefs for charities and donors which was worth £5 billion last year. The Government are proud to support the Grow Your Tenner fundraising campaign, which starts today. We have contributed £245,000 to match donations from the public through the campaign to local charities and community groups. We funded the small charities fundraising training programme to help small charities build the skills needed to fund-raise effectively and later this year we are going to hold a local charities day to celebrate and promote engagement with local charities and community groups If I have not touched on all the points made—and I am conscious that I have not—I will write to noble Lords dealing with the issues they raised. In the meantime, I thank them for their suggestions. Even if I was totally persuaded by their arguments, this is a money Bill so, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, implied, there is nothing we can do about it. I hope, on that basis, we can make progress with the Bill. I beg to move.