Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill — House of Commons, 2016-10-11
Topic: Social Welfare
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time I obviously welcome the number of colleagues who have remained in the Chamber after the important debate that has just happened. I am sure that they will contribute to the debate on this important and, I hope, uncontroversial topic, as we set out to give further support to our fantastic charity sector. Although the Bill proposes relatively minor changes, they are really important none the less, because they can further the practical support that we give to our outstanding charities sector in this country, and the childcare payments provisions will help families with childcare. I shall take both aspects in turn and start with the measures to help the UK’s charity sector I am sure that I speak for everyone in the House when I say that I am enormously proud of the fantastic work done by charitable organisations in this country. Obviously, as the Member for Battersea, I might be forgiven for pausing to make special mention of just one of those charities: the fantastic animal charity, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home—one of the most famous animal charities in the world, let alone in this country, which finds new homes for more than 8,000 animals every year. Indeed, the Treasury has been a beneficiary of its efforts recently, with the appointment of the new chief mouser, Gladstone the cat, which managed to make me only the second new arrival from Battersea to the Treasury over the summer Right across this country and our constituencies, we see charities of all shapes and sizes right at the heart of our communities, whether large charities working here in the UK and across the world, researching cures for diseases or running relief efforts for those who suffer from conflict or crisis—obviously, Haiti is in our minds at the moment, and the House has just debated Syria, where so many charities are doing such brave and important work—or the smaller, more specialised charities run by just a handful of dedicated volunteers. We want to give them all the support that they deserve Last year alone, we provided more than £5 billion to help our charities to do more of that brilliant work. Of course, one of the biggest ways that we give them that additional revenue is through gift aid, which was worth about £1.3 billion last year. We want as many charities as possible to benefit from that, but as things stand, it is not always practical or feasible for charities to claim it. If people are out there, collecting money with a bucket, for example, they can hardly ask someone to fill in a gift aid declaration form, alongside giving a handful of small change. That is why, as many colleagues who were here during the last Parliament will remember, we introduced the gift aid small donations scheme in 2013, to allow charities and community amateur sports clubs to claim a gift aid-style top-up payment on donations received in circumstances where it is difficult or burdensome to obtain a gift aid declaration. It is important to point out that that scheme is not a replacement for gift aid. Where charities can obtain a gift aid declaration, they should do so. Unlike gift aid, which is a tax relief linked to donors’ tax contributions, the gift aid small donations scheme is a public spending measure, under which the Government pay a top-up of 25p for every pound of eligible donations received, regardless of the donor’s tax status. This scheme was designed to complement gift aid. When we introduced the scheme, we promised that we would review how it was working after three years, and we have done so. It is therefore a pleasure, as a result of that review, to introduce three measures in the Bill that will make further improvements to the scheme.