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Charities Bill

I welcome the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and her Parliamentary Secretary to their new responsibilities. It must be a great relief to the right hon. Lady to be relieved from the vow of silence that binds the Government Chief Whip, and I am sure that it will do us all good to benefit from the additional intellectual weight that the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Miliband) brings to the new office of the third sector. Last week, I talked briefly to some youngsters in my constituency about the Bill. One aspect of it interested them. It was not the public benefit test or the establishment of the charity tribunal. It was not even the transformation, after 400 years, of the charity commissioners into a body corporate. The thing that interested them was the section on fundraising and whether we will retain the ban—as they see it—on volunteers shaking their tins during street collections. Those youngsters, like youngsters nationally, are the best—they keep up a tradition of fundraising for charity at the numerous carnivals in my constituency, which date back to the first documented carnival in Britain that took place in Ryde in 1888. However, as collectors compete with the amplified music on many carnival floats and with bands such as the Medina marching band, the Wight Diamonds or the Vectis corps of drums, and 40,000 excited spectators, it is difficult for them to draw attention to themselves if they are banned from even rattling their collecting tins. If local councils have the power to impose such a ban—many people think they do—they should use it sparingly, if at all. I would not be forgiven if I did not pursue that point in Committee because little things, as well as strategic issues, matter in legislation. If we get the little things wrong, as the Licensing Act 2003 is demonstrating, we disrupt people’s lives and destroy the local voluntary effort that is at the heart of much charity work, whether it is fundraising for large charities such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with a national turnover of nearly £90 million a year, or for small charities such as the Isle of Wight Historic Lifeboat Trust, with an annual turnover of between £5,000 and £10,000.