Oral Answers to Questions

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have not seen the housing masterplan that the hon. Gentleman refers to, but of course it is this Government who have put more money into affordable homes and more money into ensuring we are seeing more homes being built, and who have lifted the cap on local councils so that they are also able to build more home and the homes that people want.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Next month, I and my three neighbouring colleagues—my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)—will host our second apprenticeship fair, connecting nearly 40 leading organisations with more than 700 pupils from 22 schools. Does the Prime Minister agree that apprenticeships offer a viable alternative to full-time higher education, while creating a skilled workforce that benefits business and its future employees?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I commend my hon. Friend for the work she is doing in her constituency through the jobs fairs. I absolutely agree with her: it is very important that young people are able to see that there are different routes for them for their futures and different routes into the workplace. Apprenticeships are an important route for some young people. All the apprentices that I meet say that the best thing they have done is take up an apprenticeship, and that was right for them. We want every young person to be able to take the route that is right for them, be it higher education, further education or apprenticeships.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very pertinent point.

This is why so many people are dissatisfied with the Bill, including bona fide, honest-to-goodness, up-front lobbyists who want to be able to conduct their business on good terms. They need to know that the register exists to ensure that they can conduct their business not only on good terms but on equal terms with anyone else who is competing to provide similar services, peddling similar influence and perhaps having an even greater effect on Government decisions on policy, on the framing of legislation, on programmes or on projects.

I hope that we will come to the amendments that try to address other problems relating to the Bill, but I am speaking in support of those Opposition amendments that are properly seeking to change the definitions relating to consultant lobbying. My own amendment 161 would ensure that the Bill covered more people involved in commercial lobbying who provide either full-time or significant part-time lobbying services on behalf of what the Government call non-lobbying or mainly non-lobbying businesses, and that they too would need to register. Such a provision would protect those who meet those lobbyists, be they MPs, members of Select Committees, Ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries, permanent secretaries or senior civil servants. I would like all of them to be scoped into the Bill, rather than it simply focusing on Ministers and permanent secretaries. They would all be better protected if the legislation were better cast.

I am sorry that the Government have scrambled the Bill in this way. If we do not take the time now to get it right, many people will have to pay the price later. Some people will deservedly find themselves caught up in a scandal, but others who do not deserve it will also find themselves in that predicament, because we are deliberately leaving twilight zones in which people will bump into things that they did not realise were there. People might be told that certain things are okay under the legislation—just as people were told that certain things were okay under the expenses rules—only for a different assessment to be made following public scrutiny. We must be vigilant about the standards we are setting for ourselves and others. That means that we need to support the Opposition amendments, and particularly those tabled by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

I fully respect the points made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) about new clause 5, but I have problems with some of the details of the proposal, and not least with its implications for charities and other bodies. It also sticks to the narrow definition of consultant lobbying, even if it completely recasts that definition by what it subsequently goes on to propose. I understand that she tabled the new clause to make a point, and she has made a valid point very well. She has indicated that she will not press the new clause to a Division, and I will not press my amendment to a vote either.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

This has been a fascinating debate, and I shall not repeat the points that have already been made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and other colleagues across the Committee. I want to bring some of my own experience to the Chamber. Fundamentally, what is wrong with this part of the Bill is that it does not reflect any kind of understanding of the lobbying industry, of which I am a proud ex-member.

The lobbying industry has changed dramatically since I first joined it in 1998. I worked for a consultancy that, if it existed today, would be caught by the Bill’s provisions because it was a dedicated Government relations lobbying agency. However, the industry has changed and most public affairs firms are now part of wider communications groups, on which the Bill will have no impact. I worked in the industry between 1998 and 2003, and it gave me a fantastic opportunity to learn many things and to engage in the political process.

We should be clear that the lobbying industry is important to a fair and democratic society. It is also important to us as Members of Parliament, in that it can help to inform and educate us on incredibly technical issues. We should not always view the industry with deep, dark suspicion. The only point in the debate that I have disagreed with so far was the description of lobbyists as mendacious and as performing some kind of dark arts. That is incredibly unfair, because most lobbyists are highly professional and very proud of what they do. They want transparency in their industry, and they want a level playing field. The Bill delivers neither. If anything, it could make the industry more opaque, and it will certainly not produce a more level playing field.

I would like to give the House an example from my own experience. Between 2005 and 2010, I was head of public affairs for Aviva. It was known as Norwich Union when I joined it, but it subsequently changed its name. We had a large lobbying team here in the UK and in Europe. As I look around the Chamber, I can see many people whom I, as head of public affairs, probably would have lobbied.

My lobbying team would not have been covered by the provisions in the Bill. We employed a major City law firm to provide specific counsel on legislative issues. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon has pointed out, such lawyers will not be covered by the Bill either. We also employed a consultancy that provided public affairs advice and was part of a wider group; it, too, would not be included in the Bill. We worked closely, too, with trade associations, which again would not be included. If we paid for research by a think-tank and lobbied on the outcome, that, too, would not be included in the Bill.

It is therefore quite clear that this part of the Bill needs to be taken off the table and looked at again, particularly in respect of expanding the definitions. I have a great deal of sympathy with the Opposition Front-Bench team’s amendment, as does the Association of Professional Political Consultants, because it wants a level playing field. Those of us who have worked in the industry consider ourselves professional lobbyists, not just consultant lobbyists.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but does she agree that the transparency shown by publishing ministerial diaries, including the companies that Ministers meet and the purpose of the meetings, fulfils that role, and that trying to extend the law is effectively using a sledgehammer to crack a small nut, which concerns the PR industry in particular?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I do not wish to be rude, but I think that that shows a real lack of understanding of the lobbying industry. A significant proportion of what lobbyists do does not relate to Ministers or permanent secretaries. In the entire 10 years for which I worked in the industry, I do not think that I once either arranged or attended a meeting with a permanent secretary. With great respect to current and former Ministers, that was very much the end process of whatever we were seeking to do. We would quite often meet civil servants to discuss incredibly technical issues that, by the time they reached the Minister’s desk, were probably already signed and agreed through the interactive relationships developed with those particular civil servants.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is not the job of a permanent secretary to do particular pieces of policy work; that person’s job is to run the Department.

[Tracey Crouch]

I quite agree, so it is not surprising that I did not meet a permanent secretary in any capacity during my lobbying days. It was not my job to advise them on how they ran their Department; it was my job to try to influence opinions and the legislative process with civil servants at a lower level, particularly on the very technical issues that typically arose in the insurance industry. It is quite clear that this aspect of the Bill is not fit for purpose and it would benefit from being broadened in definition to include all consultants, including both in-house consultants and those that are part of multi-agency firms.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My concern is as follows. If I am approached by a representative of lobbyists from Save the Children or, indeed, from the life insurance industry, in which my hon. Friend used to work, I will know what company they are from and who they represent; they will be in-house and I will know what they are about. On the other hand, if I am approached by a lobbyist from one of the big lobbying companies, I may not be entirely clear about whom they represent. My concern is to ensure that we have a sense of whom they are representing; when the lobbyists are in-house, we have a greater sense of clarity about whom they represent.

[Tracey Crouch]

I feel as if I am being rude to my Back-Bench colleagues, but yet again I think that that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the lobbying industry. Only very rarely would a lobbying company or consultancy have a direct meeting with a Member of Parliament or Minister. Such companies are the facilitators of meetings for their clients, who quite often happen to be big companies. I remember when I was an in-house lobbyist having a meeting with my hon. Friend when he was an adviser to the shadow Treasury team on matters relating to European tax legislation. We need to be clear that the lobbying industry today provides a very different service and is a very different industry from what it was 10 or 15 years ago.

[Peter Luff]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I agree with every word. On the subject of tax, however, I want to highlight one particular danger. A multinational company wanting to make representations to a Minister or a permanent secretary—that is very unlikely—is likely to be an accountancy firm, not a lobbying firm, but accountancy firms are specifically excluded from the Bill. It is a bizarre exclusion.

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree entirely with the principle to which my hon. Friend refers, but as it happens, we had tax experts in Aviva and we were able to use them. We did not need to employ accountancy firms, but we did on occasion need to employ experts from law firms. The problem with this part of the Bill is that it does not extend to that.

We need to be clear that lobbying must be transparent and there needs to be a level playing field. At present, I am afraid that clause 1 and the first part of the Bill do not allow that to happen. I hope that my Front-Bench team are listening and hope that they recognise the genuine concern about whether the definition goes far enough. I hope they will consider expanding the definition either today or in later stages of the Bill’s passage to ensure both transparency and a level playing field.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the Association of Professional Political Consultants itself accepts the amendments that would replace “consultant lobbyist” with “professional lobbyist”.

[Miss Smith]

I am delighted to have taken my hon. Friend’s intervention because I will come on in detail to why those amendments are deficient. I have no doubt that they are supported by others who have made their voices known in this debate, but that does not make them a solution to a specifically identified problem. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife kindly confirmed that our Bill does what it sets out to do.

The context is that this Government have for the first time made it clear to the public exactly who Ministers and permanent secretaries meet. The Opposition appear to be trying to solve a different problem, but they have failed clearly to articulate what it is. What exactly is the rationale for a register that requires the local vicar to sign up as a professional lobbyist? The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) seems to think that that is okay. However, if this how Labour Members think they might get back in touch, they will not achieve it by doing this, and it is rather weak for them to think so. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife rejects the idea that the local vicar might need to sign up as a professional, but he ought to read his papers more closely.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

I regret to have to differ in this matter from my Front-Bench colleague, for whom I have the utmost respect, but in my years in the House I have never supported the establishment of a second House to second-guess this Chamber. I have voted for and would prefer the outright abolition of the second Chamber, if that is what it comes down to, but I have not voted and will not vote for an elected House. I have made that clear to my electorate on the rare occasions when they have shown any interest in the matter whenever I have stood for election—that whatever was said in my party’s manifesto, I would not be voting either for a change to the electoral system or for an elected upper House—and I have made that clear, I should add for the avoidance of doubt, in government as well as out, to a succession of Chief Whips.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

rose—

[Margaret Beckett]

I am very short of time.

I completely agree that further reform is both necessary and desirable. It is time, for example, to terminate the arrangement for the remaining hereditary peers which was the price in 1999 for ending their complete control of the upper House, and I share the approval of Lord Steel’s recent Bill, which makes many sensible suggestions. I entirely understand why, looking at an upper House whose Members had their place on the basis of being the eldest in their families—not even the best qualified or most interested—people should conclude that reform was necessary and that election was the only way.

However, that original hereditary House has been changing and evolving over many years, ever since the Conservative Government of the past introduced life peers. Nearly all those in today’s House are Members because of the contribution that they themselves have made in a variety of ways to the nation’s life, not because of the contribution, dubious or otherwise, of their ancestors. So gradually and with some reluctance, I have over the years come to recognise that there is some merit in an advisory and a revising Chamber with a membership of variety and experience, but my view that we do not want and we do not need a competitive Chamber remains unchanged.

I recognise the argument that is put that we can somehow prevent that Chamber from being a competitor, but I do not believe a word of it. Not only is that my own long-standing view, but it was powerfully reinforced. My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) expressed dismay that the Government did not give the Joint Committee the services of the Attorney-General. A former Attorney-General, as I think he was, the late Gareth Williams, a brilliant and distinguished lawyer, told us that if the second House were elected, it would be entitled to compete for power with this Chamber. He said, “You cannot confine, for example, decision making on finance or discussion of the Budget to the House of Commons if you have an elected upper House.”

Two other matters lead me strongly to oppose the Bill. The first is the specific proposal for the elections. The Deputy Prime Minister has waxed lyrical about the fact that Members of the existing upper Chamber are there by reason of patronage, but that is also what a party list system is—everyone in this House knows that that is the reality—so he proposes replacing one patronage system with another. He also claims that the elections he proposes would convey accountability. As has already been said in the debate, people who are elected for a 15-year, non-renewable term do not need to be, and will not be, accountable to anyone.

That brings me to my other major concern. The Liberal Democrats have been particularly vocal about the need for constitutional change, on behalf—they always say—of the people of this country, but they have shown a marked reluctance actually to consult the people of this country. In the coalition negotiations that preceded the formation of the Government, they tried to blackmail each of the major parties into giving them a change in the electoral system without a referendum, and now they are trying to get us to change this whole Parliament without giving the people a chance to express their view. I know that in opinion polling people will say, “Surely it is better to elect the upper House.” As we all know, it all depends on the question that is asked. If people were asked, “Do you want to set up a second Chamber of politicians with all the facilities that would be required, certainly at a cost of tens of millions of pounds, if not substantially more?” I suspect we might get a different answer.

The Bill seeks to reshape this entire Parliament and, into the bargain, introduce a different electoral system for the upper House, and all without consulting the people. I shall not vote for it, and trying to force it through without a referendum is the most undemocratic thing about it.

Bogus Charity Bag Collections

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

It is an honour and a pleasure, Mr Gray, to be speaking on this important issue under your chairmanship. This is not the first time that bogus charity collections have been raised in this Chamber. In February 2007, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) held an Adjournment debate on the matter; the then Minister, charitable organisations and consumers wholeheartedly welcomed the debate, and it certainly raised awareness of a growing problem. However, despite the positive response from the then Minister, we meet three years on and the problem is more widespread, not less, and nothing much has changed. I hope that this time this Minister will be able to offer not only warm words, but real action.

House-to-house collections of donated goods are a crucial source of income for many charities—those with and without shops. For example, last year they contributed more than £22 million to the British Heart Foundation for the fight against heart disease, and 43% of sales income came from goods donated through doorstep collections. Age UK raises approximately £25 million per year from charity bags, which accounts for around 60% of the stock sold in their shops.

Even for the vast majority of charities that do not have shops, house-to-house collections form a massive part of fundraising. Legitimate private collection companies—some of which are better than others—are used to collect on behalf of many charities. Their professional fundraising ability means that companies such as Clothes Aid collect around £2 million per year on behalf of their tied charities.

Charity bag collections are a convenient way for people to recycle unwanted textiles. Our increasingly busy lifestyles mean that it is hard to find the time to drop clothes into a shop, and, given that shops themselves are often located in pedestrianised areas, it becomes incredibly difficult to make large donations following a spring clean, or a post-diet or a pre-winter wardrobe update. Like millions of people, I put my clothes in a charity bag and pop them outside my door before heading off to work. I do so in good faith, with the belief that they will be put to excellent use and raise vital funds for whichever charity is collecting. Sadly, it appears that that trust can sometimes be misplaced.

On 13 July, a flyer was posted through the door of my constituent, Mr Philip Wilson. It simply stated that clothes, shoes, blankets, towels and other such items were urgently needed by Breakthrough Breast Cancer; that Clothman Ltd, which it stated was a commercial participator that helps raise money for Breakthrough, would pick up the bags on Wednesday; and that £100 from each tonne collected would go to the charity. It carried the Breakthrough branding, had a woman pictured on the front, a registered charity company number and website details. It also had a mobile telephone number that you could call for further information.

The leaflet looked genuine and a normal charity supporter would not doubt it. However, on this occasion the leaflet went through the wrong door—or the right door, depending on how one looks at it. Mr Wilson is mid-Kent’s fundraising co-ordinator for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, and therefore knew that his charity did not do door-to-door charity collections. He contacted the local council, the trading standards office and the police, but, despite a collection van being stopped mid-act, the operator was allowed to continue for allegedly having the correct registered charity number on the flyer. Of course, the flyer was fake, but the number was legitimate. That incident illustrates the difficulties that genuine charities face.

I first became acutely aware of bogus charity collections during the summer recess, when BBC South East televised an in-depth undercover investigation, which highlighted a spate of incidents across Kent. That investigation was already under way when Mr Wilson contacted the BBC and, shortly after, he came to my surgery. It has become clear that what happened in Chatham in mid-July has happened and continues to happen daily in streets up and down the country.

There are two major problems in combating this criminal activity: one, the legislation and, two, the often relaxed attitude of the police. Taking the police response first, I understand that the theft of a single bag of clothes may not seem like a high priority, but when it is estimated that the theft of clothes is in excess of 36,000 tonnes per year, at a cost of more than £14 million to charity, it should be taken more seriously. There are some examples of a good police response. Derbyshire police have recently conducted a successful undercover operation into this specific crime, and other forces have made individual arrests, but usually the attitude of the police is that they face tight budgets and bogus collections are not a key target or high priority.

The second challenge is the reluctance and/or capability to perform cross-border policing on level 2 or 3 crime. For example, Clothes Aid recently passed over intelligence on a small gang stealing in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and the Met area, but each force has refused to take the lead because it is “cross-border”. That reaction ignores the fact that this is, quite simply, an organised crime, which is cross-county and growing.

If I may, I shall move on to the legislative aspects. For a charitable collection to take place, a licence must be applied for under the House to House Collections Act 1939 and the House to House Collections Regulations 1947. The Local Government Act 1972 transferred all licensing to the local authority, except in London. Larger charities can apply for a national exemption, but without a licence or an exemption doorstep collection is illegal. Although it is feared that as much as 50% of house-to-house charity collection is bogus, Charity Bags notes that only one in 10,000 illegal clothing collections in the UK is subject to enforcement action or prosecution by the local council.

In the Charities Act 2006, the previous Government introduced a new licensing and regulatory regime for house-to-house collections, but secondary legislation is required for it to be implemented. I was concerned to read that the Minister and the Charity Commission have publicly stated that they do not believe that to be a priority. Given the effect on public trust and the financial cost for charities, I respectfully disagree, and I suggest that anything that helps combat this organised criminal activity should be a priority. I urge the Minister to introduce secondary legislation at the earliest opportunity. A better licensing system is only one aspect of the changes required to combat the problem. Since most stolen clothing is exported, I would like to see more robust monitoring from border police and better international intelligence communication.

There needs to be tougher enforcement action against bogus collectors, from the van driver up to the mastermind operator organising the entire ring. The current level of deterrence is laughable, and bogus collectors continue to act with impunity. Consideration needs to be given to whether the bogus operators breach other important legislative and tax requirements, from employment duties through to tax evasion. Finally, the charity industry needs to work together to improve collection codes. I hope all relevant organisations will participate in the consultation on the new code of conduct recently published by the Institute of Fundraising.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, because it is important. One concern raised with me by a constituent was about the transparency of the revenue that goes to charities. I encourage my hon. Friend to include that as part of the consultation; there is a variety of information. There is also the unscrupulous practice of certain collectors picking any charity bag—not their own—and re-bagging it. I support my hon. Friend’s actions.

[Tracey Crouch]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Furthermore, we could consider a register of reputable door-to-door collectors to provide the donor with easy access to trustworthy information. Transparency is extremely important to combating the problem, and we need to work with the charity industry and the legitimate private companies that operate under contract with those charities, to ensure that it exists.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and congratulate her on securing the debate. Sadly, we still have to discuss this issue because it remains a problem, although I and other Members have been raising it for some years.

The hon. Lady mentioned working in partnership with the charity industry, and that touches on the nub of the issue. As she said in relation to cross-border agencies, many agencies—whether trading standards or the police—do not take responsibility. Would it be possible, perhaps using the Minister’s good offices, to get the relevant agencies together to hammer out a solution, rather than having everybody saying that it is not their responsibility?

[Tracey Crouch]

The hon. Lady should be congratulated on, and recognised for, all the hard work that she has done on this issue over the past three or four years; her debate in 2007 certainly started the process of increasing awareness. The fact remains that there is no communication across all the agencies and regulators involved. She raises a good point, which I hope the Minister will take on board.

The charity industry should consider a register of reputable door-to-door collectors to provide donors with easy access to trustworthy information. I now have a greater awareness of some of the bogus activity that takes place, and I recently received through my door leaflets that looked dubious. To be honest, however, it is difficult to find out whether collection organisations are legitimate, and giving consumers easy access to such information will greatly improve the public’s trust in collections and the amount that is donated to charity.

As a nation, we are generous donors to charity, which means that hundreds of charities benefit from millions of pounds, and that pays for many different services that the state cannot provide. Furthermore, our clothing donations help fulfil environmental and waste targets. However, of the three primary ways of donating clothes—shops, banks and bags—two are under threat from thieves. All charities that collect door to door now worry about theft. Half of all donors who no longer give clothes cite scam collectors as their reason for not doing so.

Bogus collection has grown from a small-time deception to a nationwide organised crime, costing charities millions of pounds in lost revenue. Unless the issue is taken seriously right from the top, the scam will continue. I urge the Minister to deliver more than a few warm words and instead to lead the attack so that the public can give with confidence and charities can receive the donations that they deserve.

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) not only on securing the debate, but on presenting her arguments extremely forcefully. It is also important to register the presence of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who performed a similar useful exercise back in 2007, so she represents some continuity in terms of pressing the case for continued action on this extremely emotive and difficult issue.

As my hon. Friend said so well, we clearly have a problem. We all know, even just from walking the streets of our constituencies and knocking on the doors, that the public are more and more exposed to leaflets, bags and requests for information, and that is irritating them. There has been a change in the economic incentives underlying the behaviour that my hon. Friend is concerned about. Prices for second-hand textiles and clothing are at about £700 to £900 a tonne, so there is some serious money to be made.

The Fundraising Standards Board tells me that there has been a 100% increase in complaints to it over the past year. The media and various Members of Parliament are taking an interest in the issue, which is clearly serious. However, this is not so much about the sums involved or the cash cost to charities, which outside bodies estimate at between £5 million and £15 million a year. What concerns me is the issue of public confidence in charities at exactly the time when we want to encourage more people to give. This is clearly an important issue of public confidence.

Three types of collection activity potentially damage the sector’s reputation. The first is outright fraud, which involves fake charities adopting the names of real charities for their collections, pretending to be charitable and stealing clothes that are left on doorsteps; my hon. Friends the Members for Chatham and Aylesford and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) identified such activities. The second area of activity involves misleading literature that gives the impression that there is a charitable beneficiary, when that is not in fact the case. The third area of concern is the actual theft of bags of clothing left out for legitimate charities to collect.

All that behaviour is absolutely reprehensible, but the question is what we can do about it, and I take on board the point that the issue has been raised over some time. A lot of activity is going on, but the question is how effective it is, and it is important to review that. There are three levers that the Government can pull: more and clearer regulation, enforcement and education. The Government’s position is that the challenge and the priority relate more to enforcement and education than to further regulation.

The regulatory base that is in place is sufficient, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford will know, collections are regulated under the House to House Collections Act 1939 and the House to House Collections Regulations 1947. Where collections are undertaken by a commercial collector on a charity’s behalf, the necessary commercial participation agreement under part 2 of the Charities Act 1992 must be in place. As a Government who see themselves as being in the business of deregulation rather than of adding to regulation, our instinct is therefore not to reach immediately for the regulatory lever, not least because we would be concerned about imposing additional costs and burdens on those who perform their activities in a wholly legitimate way.

My hon. Friend rightly pressed me about the implementation of the Charities Act 2006. She will be aware that it is due for review next year—there is a requirement on the Government to review its workings and implementation—and I have already made an explicit commitment in public that a review of the issues before us will be an explicit part of that process.

The honest answer to my hon. Friend is that if I thought that full implementation of that measure would transform the landscape and make a huge difference, I would have carried that out some time ago. In fact, the advice that I have received is that the net impact of implementation could be marginally deregulatory, in the sense that it would effectively replace the requirement to get a local authority licence to operate in a specific area with a requirement to get certification from the Charity Commission to operate anywhere. I am not entirely persuaded that that would solve the problem, but research is being conducted and, as I have said, there will be an explicit review of the issue in the context of the review of the Charities Act 2006. My hon. Friend has that undertaking from me.

Enforcement was a central concern of my hon. Friend. We look to various players in the field to make a difference and an impression: local trading standards officers, the police and, of course, those responsible for regulating advertising standards in the context of leaflets that are arguably misleading. The debate has prompted me to review what is going on, and on the face of it I am reasonably encouraged by the level of activity and what that tells me about the underlying concern of the agencies responsible.

For example, I welcome the work that the Fundraising Standards Board is doing with the Trading Standards Institute to develop a toolkit to guide all trading standards officers through the relevant legislation and through what evidence is needed to tackle bogus charity collections and effect successful prosecutions. As my hon. Friend will know, the process in relation to detection and evidence is extremely difficult. However, there is clearly partnership work going on to develop a toolkit that will help trading standards officers in that difficult work.

[Tracey Crouch]

I thank the Minister for what he has outlined, but I dispute whether it is difficult to detect the people in question. Quite often they clearly state where they will be, and at what time. It is misleading or misguided to think that it is difficult to catch them and find evidence. It is often very easy to catch the perpetrators in the act. I feel that sometimes it is not a question of catching them; it is a question of the process afterwards—prosecuting them. That is where the slow-down is.

[Mr Hurd]

I understand and accept my hon. Friend’s point. As to difficulty of detection I was thinking not so much of the person in the van as of the mastermind in the control room—the real villain of the piece. I also think that the public will play an increasingly important role in detection and evidence. For example, in my constituency we have rolled out the concept of neighbourhood and street champions, people who have value as the eyes and ears of public agencies, on a range of issues. In the present context they could play an important role in detection and evidence-gathering.

I was trying to summarise some of the welcome activity that I detect is going on among various agencies who are trying to work together to develop better practice. The Institute of Fundraising has a current consultation on its code of fundraising practice on house-to-house collections. That code will apply to all collections of money and goods made house to house, whether they are carried out by volunteers, fundraising organisations or third party agencies.

I note that the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers is doing some work on developing guidance for local authority licensing officers on house-to-house collection of goods. I have looked again at what the Advertising Standards Authority is doing as the UK’s independent regulator of advertising. Again, I am satisfied that it takes the issue seriously and that its connections with the Office for Fair Trading are reasonably robust, so as to create the opportunity to act against those who mislead the public through advertising material.

The police’s sense of their local priorities clearly presents an issue, but the Office of the Third Sector, as was—it is now the Office for Civil Society—has been in regular contact with the Association of Chief Police Officers. I give my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford a personal undertaking to write again to ACPO to press the issue, and to raise the matter of cross-border co-operation that she specified.

The level of fines and the effectiveness of deterrence also needs to be considered. I understand that one of the maximum fines, for collecting without a licence, is about £1,000. There seems to be a mismatch between that and the price of a tonne of textiles, so again I shall write to the Ministry of Justice to explore its appetite for a review of the level of fines and deterrence.

To deal briefly with education, I have reviewed what has been done. My hon. Friend will know that the Office of the Third Sector was instrumental in co-ordinating the “Give with Care” campaign. It distributed about 500,000 leaflets around the country. That was relaunched in 2010. The Charity Commission has been extremely proactive, and keen to raise awareness of fraud and theft. The media, Members of Parliament and various other stakeholders have played an important part in raising the profile of the issue, notifying the public and encouraging them to report suspicious behaviour and perhaps to be more rigorous in checking the claims made on the material shoved through their letter boxes.

I acknowledge that there is a problem, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising it again. The more I look at the matter, the less easy it is to see an easy, quick-fit solution. The nature of the activity is in the shade and at the margin of the law. As I have tried to stress, our instinct is that the question is much more one of enforcement and education than regulation. There is a lot of activity and there are many programmes. The question has been raised—and I join in asking it—whether the activity is sufficiently robustly co-ordinated. Despite the levels of activity, there is always scope to do more and think harder about the issue. My hon. Friends the Members for Chatham and Aylesford and for Truro and Falmouth have both put some concrete, specific ideas on the table.

I want to close with an invitation to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford: given the scale and complexity of the problem, it is time to convene a round table of those people who are actively engaged in trying to reach a solution. I will do that, and my hon. Friend is invited to participate in that event, given the leadership role that she has played, through tabling her early-day motion and obtaining the debate.

The challenge will be for the people around that table to think afresh, review what we are doing and consider whether we could take cleverer, more co-ordinated and more robust actions to get on top of the problem. There is clearly a significant risk that the problem will undermine the confidence of the British public in giving to charity, at exactly the time when we want them to give more.