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Charities Bill

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why it is important that there are organisations such as the Big Lottery Fund to make objective decisions rather than simply giving the most money to, for example, the organisation that gets the most votes on a television programme. There has to be public input, but equally funds must be distributed rationally and objectively. Those who are in receipt of services provided by the voluntary sector are impressed by its work, and it enjoys very high levels of esteem and confidence. I have one slight reservation about the title of the Bill, because I had hoped that we could move on from the word ““charity”” and deal with issues in terms of the wider sector. I have come across elderly constituents in High Peak who have told me that they are aware of pension credit but will not claim it, despite being in poverty, because ““I don’t want charity.”” There is still the Victorian idea of charity being a handout rather than a leg-up, but charities and voluntary sector organisations enhance people’s capacity to deal with their own lives and give people a leg-up rather than a handout. Communities in which the voluntary sector is healthy are themselves healthy communities, and we can judge how healthy and effective a community is by the activities of the voluntary sector within it. I shall provide three examples of how different voluntary sector organisations in my constituency have changed in the past 10 years. Ten years ago, I was on the management committee of my local citizens advice bureau, a modest organisation in Buxton which delivered advice and which was known for being well meaning. However, access was limited, and the advice was made available to those who knew where the CAB was, who knew how to access it and who could understand the advice when it was given. That organisation has changed in the past 10 years: it is still a voluntary organisation and its principal function is still to provide advice through highly trained volunteers, but it has a professional local leadership, a professional way of working, two fully equipped offices and a sub-office and a contract with the Legal Services Commission to deliver legal aid. It is a much bigger organisation than it was, and many of the volunteers have developed specialist areas in which they advise their clients. The information and advice provided by Citizens Advice can be accessed by us all through its excellent website, so one does not have to go to an office. It has done something tremendous in my constituency: in partnership with the PCT, it provides a volunteer adviser once a week in every GP surgery in the rural area in my constituency, which has led to some £2 million in previously unclaimed benefits going into people’s pockets in the past two years. Those people are getting their entitlement because a voluntary organisation dedicated to the public benefit has delivered, which is why I was upset when the Conservative and Liberal High Peak borough council decided to freeze its funding for the CAB this year. It took people like me—I swam 100 lengths of Buxton swimming pool to raise £1,700—to make sure that my local CAB was not in deficit this year. My second example concerns the council for voluntary service in High Peak, which did not exist 10 years ago—my constituency comprises 650 sq m of territory where 75,000 adults live, but there was no co-ordinating body for the voluntary sector. Nowadays, the council for voluntary service is a professionally led organisation which is the main source of advice for voluntary organisations. It provides physical resources, such as office facilities and meeting facilities, and access to funding, and it is an incredible source of training for people who are setting up their own voluntary sector organisations and charities or working in their communities. Through the council for voluntary service, the voluntary sector is well represented on the local strategic partnership between local authorities and other service providers in my area. The council for voluntary service provides an invaluable service, and it has the respect of other public services with which it works to provide rounded, comprehensive, holistic and personally focused services. It is a wonderful example of the sector flourishing and helping people by delivering a public benefit, and I wish that more local strategic partnerships around the country treated the voluntary sector with the importance that it receives in my constituency. My third example of a local organisation concerns the Nepal Children’s Trust. My constituency does not stretch as far as Nepal, but before I visited that country a few weeks ago, I was contacted by the trust, which began with four ladies in the New Mills area in my constituency. One of those ladies went on holiday to Nepal, where she saw the problems that children were having in one of the world’s poorest countries and decided to do something about it. She has built up a network of a few dozen people around the country who not only engage in fundraising, but go over to Nepal to make sure that schools are built, that the children of prisoners get the support that they need and that children’s human rights are upheld. The trust is doing excellent work, and it is a lovely example of how a group of people with a conscience and a sense of purpose can set up their own charitable organisation and make a difference. All those organisations will welcome the Bill—for example, if the children’s trust is one of the smaller organisations, it will no longer be required to register. The organisations that I have mentioned are a long way from the traditional image of charities, which was, if hon. Ladies will forgive me, of members of the blue rinse brigade with their collecting boxes. In the past, too many of those people saw volunteering as an end in itself. Volunteering is a vital part of the way in which a community operates, but it is not an end in itself—there must be a purpose. One organisation—I could name it but I will not—was asked to deliver a different service that was better for its recipients, but withdrew from it because the volunteers did not like change. We can see the same changes happening on a national level. For example, Leonard Cheshire now delivers most of its services on contract to local authorities. Its residential homes are no longer the independent organisations that they were. It is providing an essential part of delivering care but at the same time ensuring that its users are much more closely involved in the delivery of services, and the shape and nature of those services. It has become a membership organisation in order to become more accountable. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People has also taken that step. More than one Member has mentioned its tremendous pioneering work—at a time when I was one of its trustees, although I take no credit for it—in joining up as partners with the Department of Health and delivering a £100 million programme to bring in digital hearing aids on the NHS for the first time. It was able to do that because of its professional approach and because of the economies of scale involved. It was able to use its power and size to get the best possible financial deal on the purchase of those hearing aids, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said, have made a real difference to the lives of millions of people. Another national example is that of last year’s Make Poverty History operation, which involved the coming together of a huge coalition of groups, some of which have their priorities in far-distant countries and work according to their consciences on behalf of people around the world who are worse off than ourselves. Many groups have taken on that initiative and made it into a practical commitment. Two towns in my constituency are on the verge of acquiring Fair Trade status. They have achieved that because over the past few years voluntary organisations have grown up and worked with local authorities, caterers and all sorts of other organisations to build a coalition of voluntary sector, private sector and public sector interests that are backing the Fair Trade cause. The initiative was created by the voluntary sector in a way that will produce long-term benefit for us all. I was fascinated to read in today’s newspapers about the largest ever donation to charity. A 75-year-old American gentleman by the name of Warren Buffett has just given more than three quarters of his $44 billion fortune—about $35 billion—to the Bill Gates Foundation, which is, according to The Times,"““the world’s largest philanthropic organisation””" and which"““funds the international fight against diseases such as malaria, Aids and tuberculosis.””" Mr. Buffett justified his actions thus:"““What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it? That is how I feel about this decision about my money.””" Any donation of that nature sets an excellent example—it does not have to involve billions of dollars, which most of do not have.