Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
The complete record
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“Everybody has said pretty much everything, but I am going to say some of it again, as is my wont in this Chamber. First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who laid out a powerful case against the Government, particularly against the Prime Minister and his excuses in all this. I think that something very intriguing took place today. The person who has just been sacked was brought to the Foreign Affairs Committee to give testimony about what this was all about.”
“In Olly Robbins’ letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee today, he countermands what the right hon. Gentleman has said from the Dispatch Box. He says: “I believe the Cabinet Office (CO) raised whether Developed Vetting (DV) was actually necessary. I understand the FCDO insisted that DV was a requirement before Mandelson took up his post in Washington.” After due diligence, the Cabinet Office was insisting that it was not necessary. Surely the right hon. Gentleman needs to retract his remarks.”
“The Prime Minister knew that he was corrupt, he was corrupting and he was the wrong choice. Surely that is why the Prime Minister overturned Case’s advice to have the review before he made the decision.”
“Can I return to the nub of what this is about? The Prime Minister knew, as we all knew, of the representations about who should be the ambassador—in this case, a man who had been sacked twice out of Cabinet but, more than that, a man whose clear links with Chinese companies and whose meetings with Xi were in the public domain at the time, as were his time at Sistema, where he stayed after the invasion in 2014, and his meetings with Putin. There was also, of course, his relationship with Deripaska, who was negotiating on the tax levels and tariffs on aluminium when he was the EU commissioner responsible. With all that going on at the time of the Prime Minister’s announcement of that man into the ambassadorial position, why did he think he did not know something about him?”
“The BIOT Supreme Court ruled that section 9 of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Constitution) Order 2004, which barred the right of abode to Chagossians, was illegal, so why have the Government mounted an appeal against that, to ensure that it is illegal for them to go to their islands? Does he think the Chagossians have no right to go to the islands, or that they do have a right? Which is it?”
“The test of bad legislation is always whether it contains carte blanche Henry VIII powers—in this case in a thin and flimsy Bill—that grant the Government the right to do anything they like with the legislation, even after it has passed. That made it a dog of a Bill, but now the Government have paused it—or returned it, or U-turned, or whatever they are calling it. The Chagossians’ rights lie at the heart of this matter, so can I take the Minister back to the statement he made about the Chagossians? He talked about them wanting to come to some conclusion about their ability to return to the islands.”
“Parents in my constituency who have been in the SEND system are really fearful that we will have the White Paper and more change will be proposed, when the key element of delivery is local councils. The problem is that the situation is so patchy. Some councils are absolutely appalling—one in my area had an excoriating report—but others manage; nobody is brilliant, but some try to get by and do the EHCPs. How are we going to tackle patchy delivery?”
“Yesterday, sadly, a young boy going to school on Snakes Lane East in my constituency was knocked down. He is receiving excellent treatment, and my thoughts are with his family, but this underlines a problem that we have in my constituency: Broadmead Road bridge, which crosses the central line, has been closed since 2024, and that causes chaos in traffic and heavy vehicles going down roads they would never normally go down. Many of my constituents are very fearful about the worsening road safety. Will the Minister meet me to discuss what we can do to get Broadmead Road bridge redone and reopened using money from both the Government and TfL?”
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is responsible for the rise of antisemitism worldwide and here in the United Kingdom; for inciting extreme Islamist attacks; for attacking dissident Iranians and British citizens; and for fomenting all sorts of hate marches. I have a very simple question. We are now at war with Iran, whether we like it or not, yet the reality is that we have never dealt with this organisation. This is not party political; will the Prime Minister make the decision now to proscribe this brutal bunch of thugs and send them packing, or arrest them and put them in jail right now? Get rid of this organisation.”
“Is the Ministry of Defence demanding that that review is handed to it and published, or has it forgotten about it?”
“The Minister is making a powerful case. A man with his record and history coming to this place is to be congratulated, and I am enthused to see him in his place today, as I think we all are. We have talked about the non-appearance of the defence investment plan, but there is another review that has not appeared that has even more impact: the review on China and the threat that it poses to us. That was promised again by the Government. I raise this issue because under Conservative and Labour Governments, I have gone on constantly about the growing threat, and we have not faced up to it. China is critical to this matter; if we watch the tankers going into the strait of Hormuz and out again without any problems, we begin to realise the incredible links that China has with Iran, Russia and North Korea.”
“Is it not time that the Government finally said “Enough is enough”, proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and arrested the hell out of these people who are causing mayhem on our streets?”
“I sense that this little fracas is something of a tautological tap dance. We are at war, and I do not think Iran cares whether we made the strike on it or not, because it still sees us as a target. We accept that, and that is the danger that our troops are in. However, I want to ask the Minister about something else. I want to ask again the question that I asked the Defence Secretary yesterday. Is it not the reality that we are at war, and that Iran is an enemy of ours and has been for a considerable time? It has been carrying out operations here. It has been stirring up Islamic extremism, and we are seeing targeted antisemitism and hate marches. That is all part of Iran’s plan.”
“We can debate what the armed forces think or do not think, but I always think it best to leave them out of these debates. However, there is an issue here at home, and defence of the realm is defence at home first and foremost. We know that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened us on these shores endlessly for a number of years, and many colleagues across the House have called for it to be proscribed. As yet, in the middle of this war, we have not proscribed the IRGC, but it would make the life of our security services so much easier if we did so. Will the Secretary of State please get up and say that it is his determination that the IRGC should be proscribed and kicked out, or arrested for all the awful deeds that it does by chasing, hounding, and killing people on British shores?”
“The agreement the Catholic Church signed allowed the Government to approve the bishops and the structure. One of the criticisms that many have made, myself included, is that in getting that agreement the Catholic Church in a way turned its back on all the other Christians in China. It got something—not something great—but to do that, it did not then represent them. As the senior Christian Church in the world, it does bear some responsibility to see Christianity prosper, not go the other way. Does my right hon. Friend agree?”
“Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I have a huge amount of time for, raised the issue of the role of the Catholic Church. I have to say to him that, since I set up the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, we have tried to extract from the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—I say this, by the way, as a Catholic—the text of what it agreed with the Chinese Government, and we have never been able to. It has never been published. We have never been able to refer to it. All we are asking for is that it be laid out in the open, so that we can see, first of all, whether the Chinese stick to their arrangements and, secondly, whether there was any provision for other Christians in China.”
“The population of the Uyghurs has now collapsed because they are being forcibly sterilised, and the men are going off to forced labour—it is so obvious; millions have gone. By the way, to those who like the free market, I should underline the point that forced labour completely undermines the free market. How can anyone compete with a country that uses forced labour on a grand scale to make products and drive out competitors? There is, in every respect, an absence of tolerance to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism—we too often forget about the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, nearly a quarter of a million of whom are in forced labour camps, rather like the Uyghurs. What is happening to the Uyghurs is a terrible travesty, but I also want to speak about Christianity and Christian churches. My right hon.”
“I was sanctioned because of the campaign on the Uyghurs. It is interesting how easily people have been allowed to forget the issue and not raise it. I would love all the mosques in the United Kingdom to raise the plight of the Uyghurs, because it is the right thing to do. I would love Christian churches to constantly talk of the plight of the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs have, in many respects, become forgotten. The persecution of the Uyghurs is appalling. Many hon. Members have talked about the nature of the re-education camps. When did we last hear about the concept of re-education camps? In Nazi Germany. It is astonishing. The women are persecuted and raped, and are now no longer having babies.”
“In March this year, China approved a new law that codifies ethnic assimilation, in contravention of China’s own constitution and of international law. It mandates that all children must be taught Putonghua before kindergarten and—interestingly—that they will therefore avoid all aspects of other religions as a matter of doctrine. That brings me to two elements that I want to focus on. First, as has been said well by hon. Members in this debate, the Uyghurs are suffering a genocide. There is no question about it. The Chinese authorities find them a deeply troublesome group. They are not Han Chinese, and that is what most Chinese policy is about. At the core of the dislike of the Uyghurs lies their Muslim belief. What astounds me so often is that we know about this. We have campaigned on it.”
“Look, for example, at the programme of Sinicisation of religion by law, and by deliberately abusive behaviour. Crosses must be removed from churches and domes, and the minarets of mosques must be demolished to make them look more like Chinese buildings. Pastors and imams are told to focus on religious teachings that reflect socialist values in line with those of China. Newly annotated versions of core religious texts, including the Bible, the Quran and others, have been issued back to places of worship, and what is left of the churches are regularly ordered to replace images of Jesus with pictures of Xi Jinping. Blatantly, boldly and in full view, China does not want to have any kind of worship beyond the worship of the communist, and in particular of Xi Jinping.”
“I owe you an apology, Ms Jardine, for arriving late to the debate. I am grateful for your chairmanship, and grateful to be allowed in, having been delayed. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing the debate, and for being stalwart in all these issues about freedoms and rights of worship. I bow before her greater authority in this matter. Much of what I wish to say has already been said. Therefore, in the short time available, I will try to cover the issues that are at stake. We have talked consistently about the problems in China. There are of course many other countries in the world where Christians and Muslims are persecuted, but it is in China that the collective persecution becomes an absolute, state-inspired problem. The nature of what has been discussed already is quite remarkable.”
“Before anybody says that I am only on the attack against the Labour Government, I want to say that I am not: when my party was in government, I was as much a thorn in their side as I am now in the side of the Labour Government. It is just the reality, and we have to face up to the facts. The recent visit by the Prime Minister to China was a problem. I simply say this to the Government. When the Minister responds to the debate, he must understand what has already been said by one of his colleagues: does economics trump freedom, freedom of religion and freedom of speech? If it does, we have gone down a bad road. If it does not, then why are we doing this right now?”
“The only reason it did a deal with the Catholic Church at all was to try to put off the idea that it would be influential, and it has succeeded in that respect. I am very sorry that the previous Pope and the current Pope did not take it upon themselves to pursue this issue and sort it out. I take no pleasure in criticising the Church that I am a member of, but we have to be honest about this. The situation in China for Christians is appalling. We could have done more, and the Catholic Church could have done more, but we forget the Buddhists, we forget the Muslims, and we forget the others whose right to practise free faith has gone as well.”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend completely. Openness sometimes is a far better disinfectant for a problem than keeping it behind closed doors. As we know, the reality, even under the agreement, is pretty appalling. The Chinese get to appoint the bishops they want. People cannot have church house meetings. All the Protestants and other free churches now suffer massive persecution; they can be closed down because the umbrella of the Catholic Church has moved away from them. What do we know about China? China is petrified about what happened to it, to Poland and eventually to the Soviet Union: the Catholic Church eventually broke down the whole adherence to communism in Poland; that infected pretty much the rest of the Soviet Union, which then collapsed. China is petrified that it will face the same.”
“I recognise that this is not the Secretary of State’s decision; it comes from the Treasury—he will have endless disputes with the Treasury. The threshold does not apply to those under the age of 21, but lowering that threshold puts a block in the system, because the risks to those who want to hire younger people are at the same time blocking older people from coming into work for the same reason. May I suggest that he says, “Let’s do a proper set-up so that we understand this issue”? We have to get older people and younger people into work, not just the younger people.”
“I have known the Secretary of State for a long time, and I have a lot of respect for him and for the position that he is in. The key thing here, as I observe it, is that one of the big problems is the competition between younger people with no experience and older people. He is focusing on younger people. One of the things that we learned the hard way on this matter is that we also have to do something that moves older people through the system faster. We put up the Work programme at the time, which did not cost the Government any money, because it was based on payment by results. May I suggest that when the Secretary of State goes back to the Department and has a look at that, he is focused on the longer-term older people and moving them through jobs? The second point is on the criticism of national insurance.”
“In the last few weeks, the Prime Minister has been very clear about what he considers our role to be, under international law, if we believe that allies are being attacked. Does he see Ukraine as having exactly the same status as an ally? Does he believe that we are, of necessity, directly involved, given that it is under attack?”
“Surely the problem we have is that the Government, having decided not to be involved in this, and then literally a day later deciding that they would be involved by granting America the use of our bases, have brought us into a war. Like it or not, that is where we are. I do not understand what “the wider war” means, when we are in the war; that is what is happening with the strait of Hormuz right now. The Government are playing with words in a sort of tautological tap dance because they have no idea what they should be doing, as they did not want to be here in the first place, but they are. The Minister should be honest: we are in the war. The question for him really is: what are we going to do about the strait of Hormuz, and what assets will we put there?”
“Small-volume business manufacturers in the automotive sector are having a terrible time at the moment. They rely on exports, and exports to the US are critical. Although I welcome the agreement the Government struck, costs are still four times what they were before President Trump introduced his tariffs, and those businesses are also being squeezed by business rates and national insurance at home. Will the Secretary of State make urgent representations to the Chancellor? The market is very delicate, and something must be done to reduce costs.”
“Nobody supports the armed forces more than I do. The Secretary of State has my full support and respect, as he knows, but I want to ask a simple question. There seems to be some confusion among Government Back Benchers, who think the Government have somehow kept them out of this war. The Government have not kept Britain out of the war: our bases and allies are in the firing line. The Chancellor spoke about the strait of Hormuz and the necessity of taking action where applicable. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the UK will—and, under international law, can—take action against Iranian threats to oil tankers and other facilities in the strait of Hormuz?”
“That, obviously, is to do with levels of income. I am not making a party political point; this is just a statement about the situation for these small community groups. The downward trend is evident across all age groups, but it is especially pronounced among young people. A little more than a third of 16 to 24-year-olds say they donated or sponsored in the past 12 months, compared with 52% in 2019. The small charity sector has been doing fantastic work, but it has been healthier. I hope that it can become a focus for us and the Government. It is a delicate flower and we need to nurture it in everything that we do.”
“I want to start with a few facts and figures that may astound colleagues from all parties. First, the “UK Charity Insights Report” found that 30%—fewer than a third—of charity leaders think that the sector is in a healthy position. Some 44% of charity leaders cite cost rises as one of their main challenges, up from 14% four years ago. We know that that is the case for many charities. Demand for charities’ services is growing, with 83% of charities recording an increase in demand over the last 12 months. Only one in 10 charity leaders said that they have been able to smoothly meet the rise in demand. The “UK Giving Report 2025” said that although donations from the public to charity increased to £15.4 billion in 2024, which is quite remarkable, really, only half of people say that they donated to charity in the previous 12 months.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the small charity sector. It is a great privilege to serve under your stewardship, Sir Roger. I am astonished and happy to see that so many Members take the small charity sector seriously, because it is a serious issue. As you will specifically know, Sir Roger, the sector is critical to everything that we do. The Government can do only a certain amount; the two other groups that aid the people and support the natural fabric of society are families and small community groups and charities. Small charities do much more than even the large charities that we hear all the headlines about. The charities that do the most are the ones about which we probably know the least. The purpose of this debate is to find out about them and discuss what we can do to help them.”
“I hope that, as this debate continues, the Government will listen and recognise that, through discussions with groups such as the Centre for Social Justice and others, we can harness and recognise the issues. There are a significant number of colleagues here for a debate such as this on a normal day, and they all work with local community groups and charities. Let us find a way to show what is really good about what those do and get the Government to act, once and for all, on things that we know work, rather than doing experiments in public policy. I rest on the basis that those charities are the lifeblood of what keeps society going, and we do not recognise them fully enough. I know that colleagues do, but the Government never do.”
“They are the ones that take the risks, are dynamic and produce the most employment in the United Kingdom. Small charities and community groups are exactly the same: they are innovators that see a problem, want to solve it and innovate to do that. When it works they really grow, but it is difficult because there is a glass ceiling that they must get through to reach the Government. That is what the Centre for Social Justice is trying to enable, but the issue needs to be recognised on a wider scale. That innovation must be harnessed to produce solutions. I remain proud of what the CSJ has done to bring these voices to the national debate. The CSJ Foundation has now given more than £25 million to grassroots charities and hopefully will raise more.”
“It suggested unlocking matched funding schemes to drive philanthropy and creating an evidence fund, so that smaller organisations can prove their impact and compete on a higher-level playing field. I want this debate to focus on how the Government can better learn from charities. There is a clear policy pipeline through which Ministers and Departments can systematically learn from grassroots charities working on the ground. The problem is that larger charities have public affairs teams and a lot of money, so they can fill up the inboxes of the Government on a daily basis, which they do—I have experience of that. I am not attacking them; I am simply saying that the real innovation is in smaller charities. It is the same in the economy—job creation in the business sector is all about small businesses.”
“The Government fail to listen when charities are delivering what works, and I urge the Minister to raise that point with her colleagues. They ought to be looking with MPs at what is going on in their constituencies and seeing what we can bring forward. The Government should rise up to serious, lifesaving policy work that does not need degrees or involve people writing new policies on the backs of envelopes and everybody getting excited about them. The programmes of these charities have been tried and tested, and they work—in life, it is always a good start to look at what works and copy it. That is what most of us would want to do. We need to foster a stronger culture of philanthropy in the UK that is closer to the American model. In its “Supercharging Philanthropy” report, the CSJ proposed practical steps to get us there.”
“They will probably be sitting in front of an efficient woman who is trying to help them, and they are embarrassed about admitting that they simply cannot read what she is putting in front of them. They will leave the jobcentre and fall into a life of crime because, without reading and writing, there is nothing out there that people can do for regular work. Many people who cannot read and write struggle; that is an often overlooked barrier to employment and to a straightforward, well-lived life. The central issue that I hope this debate will address is this: the Government take grassroots charity too much for granted—they did before and still do now, to a greater or lesser degree; this is not party political, as I said.”
“Wanstead and Woodford Migrant Support, a Christian charity based in Woodford Green, offers free immigration advice, housing support, advocacy and social spaces for refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants. By providing community-based advice early, it helps prevent homelessness. Immigration and housing policy should recognise and learn from its preventive work and the savings created by local and interactive support. There are others. Read Easy Waltham Forest offers free, confidential one-to-one coaching for adults who want to learn to read. One of the main reasons why people—mostly young men—end up in prison is that they simply cannot read and write. We discovered that they are too embarrassed to go into jobcentres, where they will be confronted by things that they need to read and write.”
“It created its own restaurant for those coming out of addiction and is a very good example of what I am talking about. In my constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green there are some remarkable small charities, from which the Government could learn important lessons. They include the Dream Factory, founded in 2008 by Avril Mills BEM. It supports children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions or with severe disabilities by making their dreams—the things that they hoped or wished to do but have not been able to—a reality. It is a simple device: no matter what their situation is, Avril wants to hold them and say that they are worthy of achieving some of their dreams, although they may not be around long enough to see all of them.”
“We have long argued that, for obvious reasons, addiction is a reinforcer of poverty. BAC’s founder, Noreen Oliver, who sadly is no longer with us, was a much-loved member of this family. I was lucky enough to visit the centre again last year with the hon. Members for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier). Some still new to political leadership in various other parties think that simply legalising drugs is a single-stroke way of ending the drugs problem and saving lives. BAC O’Connor believes in changing and transforming lives; its rehabilitation programmes remind us that recovery, not normalisation, remains the desired outcome. BAC O’Connor does groundbreaking work, as I am sure the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) will want to explain further.”
“Many individuals will not have committed suicide as a direct result of that particular initiative, but there are many other examples. With the right Government engagement, tools like Ripple’s could be made available in schools, hospitals and jobcentres across the country, for example, yet Alice and her team still have to approach institutions one by one. I say again to the Minister: these are the kind of huge, life-changing things we can take from this debate—I am sure colleagues will give similar examples—and we do not have to invent them from scratch, because they already exist. Another shining beacon in our charity network is the BAC—the BAC O’Connor centre in Staffordshire; I first encountered it some years ago during my visits to grassroots charities. For 30 years, BAC O’Connor has been helping people to recover from addiction.”
“We face a growing nightmare out there, with many people committing suicide as a result of what they see online. It is a real problem. From her bedroom in Portsmouth, Alice created a browser extension that intercepts crisis searches, offering a calming breathing exercise before signposting people to accessible local services. I have seen it myself, and it is quite brilliant—the members of the Government who saw it were also taken aback by how remarkable it is. What began as a response to personal tragedy has become a lifesaving tool that has now been downloaded—believe it or not—more than 2 million times. This is a small idea, from a small set-up in a bedroom, that is now being used more and more widely. That is why we need to learn from what these groups are doing, pick it up and see what we can do centrally.”
“To see what they have achieved is one of the most moving things. They will not be known to many people, but what they do is remarkable and the lessons from their work ring out to policymakers. Instead of inventing new ways of doing things, we should look at what these groups do, see whether we can bring it to Westminster and, if necessary, make legislation that shapes lives along the same lines. I want to refer to some community groups and charities that I know about—I hope other Members will do the same, to give a cross-party sense of what is going on in our communities. The first I want to talk about is Ripple, a suicide prevention charity based in Portsmouth. After the tragic suicide of her brother Josh, Alice Hendy dedicated herself to preventing harmful online internet searches from leading others to the same fate.”
“This is all about real people doing things away from Westminster and achieving things that are never exalted enough; nor is experience of them ever transferred to central Government. The CSJ harnessed the experiences of those charities to identify five distinct pathways to poverty, which it could then change; that idea still holds as true today as it did when I set the organisation up. Those pathways are worklessness and welfare dependency; addiction; educational failure; debt; and of course family dysfunction and breakdown. What I learned about the impact of worklessness and the other pathways helped to shape some of my thinking later on. Every year since 2004, we have had an awards programme that recognises outstanding small community groups and charities that work quietly but effectively across the country.”
“That visit stayed with me throughout the latter part of my time as party leader. I saw deprivation and problems, but I also saw innovation at a local level to solve key problems. Innovation is critical, and that is what the small charity sector is about. For that reason, I founded the Centre for Social Justice in 2004 to create a bridge between local poverty fighters and policymakers here in Westminster; we described it as connecting the back streets of Britain to the corridors of power. The work that the organisation does now is informed by an alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots charities. Today it is led by former charity leader and CSJ award-winner Andy Cook.”
“I do indeed. I am going to be careful about taking an intervention unless the Member nods their head to suggest that they are prepared to stay for the rest of the debate. I am like a spider at the centre of the web, but I promise I will not trap anyone if I do not have to; I have great confidence in Sir Roger’s stewardship. Some 20 years ago, I visited the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow, which was one of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom. At that time, the people there no longer looked to Government as their safety net from poverty; instead, it was local charities that stepped forward. People at the grassroots were present every day, patiently helping people into work and out of debt and addiction. The lifespan of individuals there was incredibly low, much lower than the UK average.”
“Alone among all other reasons, it is not the structure or organisation, but the beating heart of small community groups and charities that helps us survive out there. It is time that we motored on in recognising them and making sure that they get a proper fair crack at what is out there to help them deliver their great services. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the small charity sector.”
“I recommend that anybody who wants to inform themselves more about the policy work speaks to the Centre for Social Justice. All parties are welcome to look at this. I hope to have a chance at some point to meet the Minister to discuss with her any possibilities that we can raise. I have one abiding thought. Recently, we held another of our annual awards where we give out money to winning charities in six categories—money matters to small community groups and charities. I have to say that it was one of the most moving experiences that I have had. I listened to people who have grown their support groups out of tragedy in their own families and communities, and have risen to that and overcome it.”
“Rewarding companies for supporting charities and community groups in their local areas would be a very good way of increasing corporate giving. Only 25% of British businesses donate to charities in the form of time, cash or goods. An estimated £4.26 billion was donated by British businesses in 2024, and that was flatlining. I say to the Minister that we need to do more to encourage a greater level of local support and giving, because philanthropic giving is vital. I mentioned in my opening remarks that we need to look at what the USA does in its tax structure for charitable giving. Particularly, we want to look at small community groups and charities benefiting from that, and raising more money given directly by those individuals, who are rewarded for that because it is a common good. This debate has been an excellent opportunity.”