British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill
Steve Reed Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Tracy Brabin
I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman intervened on that point. I am sure, given his abilities of persuasion, that that is just around the corner any day now. He will have to talk to his colleagues to make that happen, but I am sure he has friends in the right places, which is always helpful.
We will, hopefully, secure the money to support the British Library in Leeds and West Yorkshire. There is also the £13 million, which the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden talked about, to expand the Business and IP Centre national network to 20 centres in 2023, with 18 of those developing hub and spoke models to extend their reach into more local libraries and places across England.
My local libraries in Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike, Birstall and Batley will be delighted to support that, but I have to mention the cuts to our local councils, which have meant that all the libraries I have mentioned are hanging on by a thread. They are being kept open for our communities by dedicated volunteers who are working full time, Monday to Friday. The hon. Gentleman talked about why we keep libraries open. They are centres to combat loneliness, access digital services and keep young people off the street. I believe there is much more we can celebrate about libraries than just books. They are the heart of our communities.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
There has rightly been a lot of very positive talk about libraries in the Chamber this morning, but does my hon. Friend share my regret that, because of the scale of cuts to local authorities over the past 10 years, more than 600 libraries have closed down in that time? Despite talk about the end of austerity, local councils will in fact be receiving even deeper cuts over the next few years. For the libraries that remain, their futures still look tenuous and that is not acceptable.
Tracy Brabin
I could not agree more. My hon. Friend knows more than most about the impact a library can have on a community. I pay tribute to Kirklees Council, which has managed, by taking from Peter to pay Paul, to keep all our libraries open. It is really important that town libraries are not the ones to suffer when we have the conglomerations locally of Leeds, Manchester and other big cities. Town and village libraries should not have to pay the price and I will continue to campaign on that.
The British Library is a proud British institution and a mark of quality, like the V&A, the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum, but these institutions, which, like the British Library, are DCMS-sponsored museums, can borrow money, as the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden has discussed. It seems inequitable that the British Library is not part of that group, and it is right that this disadvantage now be removed, as was first recommended in 2017, in the Mendoza strategic review of national museums. This legislative step will at last bring the library in line with all other DCMS-sponsored museums.
The ability to borrow effectively reflects how cultural institutions now operate. Many of them need additional financial support to improve their digital systems, make their buildings and storage more energy efficient and develop their services. These are all issues that the British Library may choose to address with these new powers. Or it could follow in the footsteps of others by borrowing money to build new buildings, move staff to purpose-built spaces, construct new galleries, increase visitor footfall and make sure that wherever people live they can access the library’s extraordinary offer. There is something amazing about being a member of the library. Members can request the most extraordinary rare book, which is then, by the brilliant staff, brought to where they are studying, writing and researching. It is an incredible facility, and I recommend that anyone who does any research become a member.
Perhaps more importantly, used properly, the ability to borrow will allow the British Library to use its funding more effectively. I would, however, also like to pick up on a point the hon. Member made. We must ensure that the borrowing is not viewed as a substitute for its grant in aid, which is currently worth more than £96 million a year. It cannot be: “Well, you’ve borrowed, so we’re going to reduce your grant”; it must be supplementary to expand and celebrate the brilliant work the library is doing around the country. It must be an additional funding tool, not a replacement.
These are definitely exciting times for the British Library. It had 1.64 million physical visits last year, and it is not just the books; its exhibitions are incredible, the shop is great and the café is great. Visitors have to get to the café very early to get a seat, because it is packed with very young, clever people with their laptops; visitors have to camp out to get a decent view. The library also has 27 million website visits, as the hon. Member said, and 16,000 people use its collections every single day. We are debating today how we can help an already-strong institution thrive in the years and decades to come. It is about time there was some levelling up, so I welcome that, but it must always be reflected in our towns and villages, not just our big cities in the north. That said, I welcome the Bill very much, and I hope it makes progress.
SPAC Nation
Steve Reed Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important and alarming issue this evening, and I am grateful to colleagues who have stayed late to be present during this debate. SPAC Nation is an organisation that has been in the news recently, and I start by expressing my gratitude to Nadine White and Emma Youle at HuffPost, who carried out some extraordinary investigative journalism to bring the matter to light, to Greg McKenzie and the excellent BBC “Panorama” team for their work, and to many others working in the media and in the press.
When I first became aware of SPAC Nation I thought, as many have done, that it was just another church. I started to think differently when one of their leaders stood as the Conservative candidate in a Croydon council by-election. There is nothing wrong with a church leader standing for election, of course, but it was odd to find hundreds of young members of this so-called church shouting abuse at other parties’ canvassers, shouting obscenities at the council leader, and intimidating voters on their own doorsteps, including by videoing them. When I tweeted my concerns about this unchurch- like behaviour, I was inundated with emails and phone calls from young people and their parents, making alarming allegations about SPAC Nation. I took a full two days to phone them all back, and from that I was able to piece together what was really going on inside this organisation.
I am convinced that SPAC Nation is a cult. It advertises events targeted mainly at young black people in poorer parts of London. It offers free food or free bowling sessions to attract young people to come along. The young leaders vet the young people who turn up and then target those who appear to be most susceptible. They befriend these particular young people and invite them to further functions and events, including dinners. One of the organisation’s leaders will start phoning them, sometimes several times a day. They are then given lifts by that individual to meetings. Then, what appears to be brainwashing starts. They are told that if their life is unsuccessful, if their family is poor, that is because they are not giving enough money to God. They call it seed: “If you give seed to God—as much as you can lay your hands on—you will become rich.” This is the message they try to pump into these young people’s heads.
The organisation’s leaders display extraordinary wealth. They drive cars worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. They wear Rolex watches and expensive designer suits, and they live in multimillion-pound properties. All of this is way beyond the experience of the young people they are targeting. They tell these vulnerable young people that they became rich by giving seed to God and tell them that they can have the same, but first they have to give, and by any means possible.
Some young people are encouraged to break their links with their families and move into properties rented by the organisation’s leaders. They call them “trap houses”, the term used for drug dens in the United States. A woman leader of this organisation running one of these trap houses where vulnerable young girls were placed has 27 convictions for serious fraud. No vulnerable child should be allowed anywhere near her. Once in these houses, the control and coercion becomes far more insidious. One young victim told me they had prayer sessions, which she described as brainwashing, for up to eight hours a day, but the emphasis was not on God or spirituality; it was on wealth and money and the need to give seed to God in order to get rich.
Once the organisation has control of a young person’s mind, it pressures them into making fraudulent personal loan applications so that they can hand the money to the organisation’s leaders. They are pressured into setting up fake businesses so that they can apply fraudulently for business loans. The so-called pastors show the young recruits how to fill in the application forms with false information. In some cases they fill in the forms for the young person simply to sign. In at least one case, an application was made in a young person’s name without their knowledge or awareness.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
On SPAC Nation and the financial implications of some of its dealings, my hon. Friend will be aware of the case of the late Mrs Osinlaru, who seems to have obtained a £150,000 secured loan on her house. Tragically she passed away, leaving her two young adult daughters and 13-year-old son in the house, unaware of this control over it. The house was later repossessed and a bailiff’s warrant secured, but that was stopped only because of the presence of the young 13-year-old son. That family risk losing their home and becoming homeless because of a loan they did not know about, and their mum has passed away. I have written to the church and it has admitted that it was involved in securing, or helping to secure, that loan. Does that give my hon. Friend further cause for concern?
Mr Reed
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising yet another alarming case of what appears to be a form of fraud and deception perpetrated on a family who had just lost their mother. It seems to have been deliberately intended to disinherit her children.
There are many ways in which the leaders of this organisation appear to be perpetrating fraud in order to enrich themselves. I have spoken to young people who, sickeningly, were taken to private clinics to sell their blood, with a so-called pastor pretending to be their parent in order to sign consent forms. I have spoken to young people who were coached to commit benefit fraud. I have met students—I have also spoken to their parents—who were coerced into handing over their entire student loans before being taken to banks to raise further money through personal loans, so they lost their ability to continue in education and ended up in serious debt.
Tragically, where criminal exploitation is taking place, there is often also sexual exploitation. One young woman told me that she was just 16 when she moved into a trap house and, in her words,
“everyone was having sex with everyone else, it was disgusting”.
I asked her to clarify whether she meant older pastors having sex with younger girls, and she said yes.
When that young woman complained to her pastor, she was taken to the organisation’s leader, who told her that if she complained to the police, it would rebound on her, because he was powerful and had friends in high places. He made that claim look real to these vulnerable young people by inviting politicians and senior police officers to his church services. He even met the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing Street. I believe all those people thought they were engaging with a church that helped vulnerable young people, but in reality they were being used to intimidate young victims and prevent them from speaking out.
SPAC Nation is not an organisation that is getting young people out of crime, as it claims; it is an organisation that is criminalising young people for its own ends. It operates right across London and has already expanded into other cities, including Birmingham and Leicester.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and raising what is clearly an important issue. Does he agree that what he has described is criminal activity and preying on the most vulnerable, and it is essential that the Government intervene and take action?
Mr Reed
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. I look forward to hearing what Ministers have to say about how we can work constructively and collectively to tackle many of the problems and horrors that are associated with this organisation.
As I was saying, SPAC Nation started in London. It seems to have spread right across the city, and it is expanding into other cities including Birmingham and Leicester. It has no fixed location—it does not have a home church—which makes it much harder for the authorities to track it. There is no home police unit keeping track of what it is doing. There is no local safeguarding board keeping track of the risks to young people. It holds its services in vast venues in many different boroughs and cities.
I have reported to the police and safeguarding authorities every single allegation that has been made to me, but I am deeply worried that more has not been done to stop this organisation from exploiting vulnerable young people. SPAC Nation claims to have up to 1,000 young people involved right now, and every one of those young people is at risk. It appears to have up to 15 trap houses scattered across London, and every young person inside those properties is at very serious risk. A teacher in north London told me that SPAC Nation had been recruiting schoolgirls outside the school gates. A youth worker in Croydon told me that it had been recruiting outside the youth centre. SPAC Nation is targeting young people so that it can exploit them, and it is imperative that the organisation is stopped.
I have some questions that I would like the Minister to answer this evening, if possible. Allegations about this organisation have been circulating widely in the black community and on social media for up to four years, so why has police intelligence failed to pick anything up? I was able to find out most of this information over a couple of days by speaking to people and googling on social media. If I can do that without the resources of the police, why has police intelligence failed to recognise what is happening to potentially thousands of vulnerable young kids across this city? What action can be taken immediately to stop this organisation recruiting any more vulnerable young people for abuse and exploitation in my constituency and beyond? Given what we have heard, and given what victims have told us, we surely cannot allow this organisation to continue targeting other young people for abuse and exploitation when we can take action to protect them.
What help can be given to young people involved in SPAC Nation now? That includes those living in trap houses who urgently need to get out before they are further criminalised, their family relationships destroyed and their future lives ruined. And why has no help been offered to potentially thousands of young people who have managed to get away from SPAC Nation but who are left burdened with huge debts and who have been criminalised, many of them homeless and many suffering trauma and mental ill health? We cannot simply leave these young people to suffer the consequences of abuse by an exploitative organisation.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What the hon. Gentleman has illustrated tonight is worrying to everyone who has heard it. It is hard not to be moved and to feel concerned. The magnitude and the massiveness of what he has outlined indicates that it should not be an ordinary police investigation; it probably needs a specialised unit with the resources and the manpower and womanpower to conclude the investigation and put an end to what has gone wrong. Exploitation of young people is abysmal and despicable, and it needs to be addressed.
Mr Reed
As always, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with every word he says.
What concerns me further are the worrying echoes of the Rotherham child abuse scandal. In that case, vulnerable young girls’ allegations of serious abuse were dismissed because they came from poor or difficult backgrounds, and it is the same with SPAC Nation. I cannot help wondering, as one desperate mum told me: if this was happening to white middle-class children, would it have been ignored for so many years? Would it have been allowed to go on in this way? We need to address that question, because it is a real feeling and concern in the community. In my opinion, SPAC Nation is a criminal enterprise masquerading as a church, because that gives it access to vulnerable young people and cover for exploiting them.
I would like to say this to every young person who is afraid or at risk from SPAC Nation’s activities tonight. This organisation might seem powerful, but we are stronger and we are on your side. Collectively, we will not stop until every young person is safe. We will not stop until the wrongdoers inside SPAC Nation have been brought to justice, and we will not stop until this dangerous, manipulative organisation can do no more harm.
Helen Whately
The important point is that this is a police matter, which is why the Mayor of London, as the police and crime commissioner for London, is the appropriate person with whom to raise concerns. However, there is a bigger-picture point, which is why I am talking about what the Home Office is doing to prevent and respond to crime against young people, particularly sexual abuse.
Let me come to something that is very relevant to this specific topic. In 2015, the Home Office launched the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and in May last year that inquiry announced its final investigation strand—into child protection in religious organisations and settings. That strand of the inquiry is now examining the nature and adequacy of child protection policies, practices and procedures, and it will consider whether safeguarding in those kinds of settings needs to be strengthened further.
On safeguarding across government, in July 2018, the Department for Education updated the statutory guidance on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and it is funding a £2 million tackling child exploitation support programme to help to deliver more effective responses to child sexual and criminal exploitation and involvement in gangs and drugs.
Helen Whately
I am doing my best to make clear how seriously I take these allegations, and I know that the other Ministers on the Front Bench take the allegations very seriously, but the allegations are being investigated, so the hon. Member puts me in a difficult position by asking me to say things that it would be inappropriate for me to say at the Dispatch Box. I recognise that I may not be able to answer all his questions right here and now, so I will do my best to follow up and write to him with the best possible answers that I can give. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, has suggested that she might be able to meet the hon. Member and the other Croydon MPs to discuss the wider issues raised by the concerns he has expressed.
Mr Reed
I did not mean to put the Minister in a difficult position or to be disingenuous in any way; I am just concerned. Given the severity and volume of the allegations, and the type of allegations that we are hearing, can nothing further be done, perhaps by the Government working with the police and crime commissioners, wherever that may be necessary, or with the police forces, wherever that may be necessary, to prevent this organisation, even if only temporarily, from being able to stand outside school gates and youth centres and target young people? I would be happy to work collaboratively with the Minister and her colleagues to seek an answer to that—I understand that I have not given warning of that question this evening—but if there were some way for us to look at working together to prevent any more young lives being destroyed, even while investigations are going on, I would be immensely grateful.
Helen Whately
I am sorry but I cannot give a different answer from this Dispatch Box. None of us would want to say anything this evening that might perhaps prevent an effective investigation taking place, or that might prejudice the outcome in any way that might be unhelpful. Given how serious these allegations are, let us make sure that they can be effectively investigated and pursued.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Reed Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to press the Minister further on the garden bridge issue. It has been a total fiasco. We have seen £40 million of public money wasted; public tendering and procurement processes bypassed; contracts awarded before the business case was even drawn up; and a cosy relationship—to say the least—between the chair of the trustees and senior figures at the Charity Commission itself, as well as the former Mayor of London. How can the public have trust in charity regulation if the Charity Commission will not properly investigate a scandal of this magnitude? What is the Minister going to do herself to make sure that a full investigation—not just a report—into this scandal is conducted?
Mims Davies
As I said, there has been an investigation and lessons will be learned. I am due to meet the Charity Commission fairly shortly. The Government increased the commission’s budget by £5 million in January 2018 so that it could increase its core regulatory functions. I admit that I have had issues in my own constituency relating to concerns about the Charity Commission, so I am happy to take the matter further. I am the charities and lotteries Minister and, as we heard earlier, if we do not have confidence in our charities’ ability to make sure that they look after other people’s money properly, we need to carry on and do more.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Reed Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State is not going to get away with devolving the blame for his cuts. More than 2 million over-75-year-olds live alone, and the Campaign to End Loneliness reports that four in 10 of them say that television is their main source of company. The last Conservative manifesto promised to keep TV licences, and the Government have committed to ending loneliness with a loneliness strategy. Will the Secretary of State pledge now that no one over 75 living alone will lose their free TV licence?
Jeremy Wright
The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on loneliness. He will know that the Government have produced not only a strategy but funding to follow through on the recommendations of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. That money is being spent to good effect. We want to make sure people continue to have access to all methods of support to deal with loneliness. I make the point again: it is all very well the Labour party’s criticising this move, but unless that is more than hot air it will have to explain whether it intends to reverse this policy. If it does not, people will suspect that it is just making further promises it has no intention of keeping.
Loneliness Strategy
Steve Reed Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I start by echoing your words prefacing the statement, Mr Speaker, and by welcoming Jo’s family to the Chamber.
I welcome the Minister’s statement, and am grateful to her for advance sight of it. Loneliness is one of the great social ills of our age, and the Government are right to put forward a strategy to tackle it. It is encouraging to see Ministers representing so many Departments and committing to ensure that the strategy makes a difference.
Loneliness affects people of all ages: disabled people who are unable to get out of the house; older people who lose friends, become housebound, and feel they lack purpose in their lives; young people moving away for work or education; teenagers coping with the challenges of growing up; and people who lose their jobs. It can affect any of us and all of us, and it can have a devastating effect on people’s mental and physical health.
The Minister was right to observe that this is an emotional moment, because we are all of course thinking about our former colleague, Jo Cox, who set up the Commission on Loneliness before she was so tragically taken from us. She said:
“I will not live in a country where thousands of people are living lonely lives, forgotten by the rest of us”.
She recognised that loneliness does not discriminate between young and old, and that it can affect anyone at any time. Jo’s commission set out to find a way forward, and we all echo the Minister’s generous and heartfelt tribute to her. I would also like to recognise the outstanding work of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy), who have taken Jo’s work forward as co-chairs of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. Their work, together with that of many charities and community organisations, has inspired and helped to shape today’s announcement.
The Minister is right to say that the Government cannot tackle loneliness on their own. It is a social ill, and it requires social action to end it, but the Government certainly have a role in facilitating, engaging and supporting groups who can help. Too often, however, we see the Government ignoring the impact of their decisions on people experiencing loneliness or on the organisations best placed to tackle it—I presume that that is why we are now seeing a group of Ministers assembled to look into the issue—and they will certainly have to change their approach if we are going to see the real difference that we all want to see in tackling loneliness.
The Minister referred to local government, which is certainly a key partner in this agenda, but cuts to local government since 2010 mean that councils are facing a £7.8 billion shortfall by 2025. Councils have lost 60% of their funding since 2010, with a further £1.3 billion in cuts due over the next year. Those cuts have already led to the closure of 428 day centres, 1,000 children’s centres, 600 youth centres and 478 public libraries, and we have also seen cuts in funding for countless lunch clubs, befriending services, local voluntary groups and community centres. Those are all places and services that have a role to play in tackling loneliness.
I applaud the Minister for saying on television this morning that she was not there to defend cuts made in the past, and I know that she shares my concern about the impact of difficult decisions on services that we all care about. What assessment has she made, in order to get things right in the future, of the impact of ongoing Government cuts to local government and community services to tackle loneliness? She is also right to talk positively about the role of civil society in tackling loneliness, yet Government cuts since 2010 have had a significant impact on voluntary and community organisations. Funding cuts already planned for the coming year will lead to further cuts to the voluntary sector. On top of that, we now have the uncertainty associated with Brexit, as we heard from the Prime Minister this afternoon. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the loss of EU funding for services in the voluntary sector that support tackling loneliness, and will she tell us whether the Government are in a position to commit to fully replacing that funding when it is lost?
It is welcome that the Minister has announced an extra £1.8 million funding for community projects to help to tackle loneliness, but that is a pretty small drop in the ocean compared with the projected £3.5 billion shortfall in funding for social care. That £1.8 million would reopen just four of the 1,000 children’s centres, or nine of the 428 day centres, that have closed under this Government. Unless the Chancellor reverses cuts in public health funding in the Budget, the flourishing of social prescribing and community projects that the Minister wants to see will never happen. Will she explain what steps she and her colleagues are taking, particularly with the Budget approaching, to ensure that adequate funding will be available for these services? Will the Government adopt Age UK’s proposal to apply a binding loneliness test to all future decisions to ensure that they do not increase loneliness or decrease our capacity to tackle it?
The Opposition welcome the Government’s decision to adopt a loneliness strategy. There is much in it that is good, and it is certainly a step in the right direction, but the fine words that it contains will not reduce loneliness to the extent that we all hope for unless the Government stop cutting the services and organisations that are helping to tackle loneliness in our communities.
Tracey Crouch
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) for welcoming the strategy. It has involved nine months of extremely hard work from nine different Departments to support the 9 million people who identify themselves as lonely. We know that this issue is enormously important to people. One in five people identify as lonely, and young people between the ages of 16 and 24 now identify themselves as being more lonely than older people. There are many groups in society that, through various life changes, suddenly find themselves suffering from loneliness. Jo herself said that loneliness does not discriminate, and trigger points can happen at any particular time—no one is immune to that sense of overwhelming loneliness.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to read the whole strategy and to examine its 58 recommendations, including the policy test, which will answer many of his questions. We recognise that difficult decisions were taken during difficult times to try to regain an economic balance, but those decisions may have had an inadvertent impact on loneliness. Going forward, we want to ensure that we recognise loneliness, make policies responsibly—just as we do for other issues in society—and consider all that as part of the policy test.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Reed Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Tracey Crouch
I am aware of the two cases that the hon. Gentleman refers to, and I will be happy, as always, to meet him.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
May I start by wishing good luck to SuRie, who I am sure Members are aware is the UK’s entry in the Eurovision song contest on Saturday night?
The National Fund is a charitable trust with almost half a billion pounds of assets. It has been seeking Government permission to close and release its funds for charitable purposes since 2011. That money would be a lifeline to cash-starved charities up and down the country. Why have the Government dithered for seven years, rather than making that money available to charities?
Tracey Crouch
We work very closely with the Charity Commission and look at these issues on a daily basis. I will happily meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that issue further. I am sure there are good reasons behind the delay in the process, but my door is always open, as he knows.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve Reed Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Tracey Crouch
I am discussing with the whole charity sector how we can look more closely at the EU funding that the hon. Gentleman refers to and what we will focus on in future. Those discussions have been taking place for some time, and we are already working with organisations, including in the voluntary sector, on how we will set up the framework.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government have promised to repay the remaining £425 million borrowed from the national lottery to build the Olympic stadium, but at the current rate of repayment they will not pay it back for 30 years. Charities are struggling to house the homeless and feed the hungry this Christmas, and they need that money now. Will the Minister spread a little more Christmas cheer, back the Big Lottery Refund campaign and commit to repaying the money they owe during this Parliament?
Tracey Crouch
We are committed to repaying the funds that the hon. Gentleman refers to, but we are working hard to ensure that our charities across all sectors are well funded. He will be aware that we will be launching a civil society strategy in the new year, which will work across all Departments in Whitehall to ensure that the sector is well recognised and that we continue to fund it so that we get to the heart of the social issues that we face. Furthermore, we will shortly look at what to do with the next tranche of dormant assets, which will go to support many good causes such as those he refers to.
Draft Charitable Incorporated Organisations (Consequential Amendments) Order 2017
Steve Reed Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. The draft order is clearly a very sensible reform that the sector has awaited for some time. We support its principles. I put on the record my thanks to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to meet her and her advisers informally to talk through the changes and their implications.
Is the Minister reassured that the Charity Commission has the resources to deal with the workload once conversion becomes possible? As she will be aware, it has recently faced considerable reductions in funding. It estimates from its own consultations with the sector that approximately 10,000 charities—roughly 25%—will wish to convert to CIO status. That additional conversion work will come on top of the existing pressures on its workload from the increase in CIO registrations, of which a higher number than anticipated have not fully met the filing requirements. The question is not whether the draft order is a good reform, but whether she is confident that the commission has sufficient resources to carry out its work as she would wish, without creating a backlog in applications for conversion.
May I also raise a wider issue? The House of Lords Select Committee on Charities published a report in March with a number of recommendations for the future governance of charities. Could the Minister give us an idea of when the Government intend to respond to that report?