Dame Caroline Dinenage
MP for Gosport · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the fantastic work that he did as shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and he is absolutely right. We really need the full response to the Fuller report in order to implement not only changes to mortuaries, but all the other amendments that it recommended.”
“I will speak about new clause 41, which stands in my name. We put enormous, unquestioning trust in those who care for the bodies of our loved ones when they die. However, in this Chamber six months ago, I told a former Health Minister, the hon.”
“Both new clauses would fix the same issue, and either will do. The key thing is that this is a moment for the Government to seize, not resist. Ministers have already said that, in principle, they agree with what new clause 41 would require of them. Every trade body agrees. Every family who has been failed agrees.”
“It was only persistence and ingenuity on the part of Hampshire constabulary that saw Elkin and Bell brought to justice. The Minister at the time told me that a decision on regulation would come in the Government’s full answer to the Fuller inquiry, and we are still awaiting. Since then, matters have worsened.”
“I also warmly welcome this announcement. The sheer number of young people whose lives have been impacted by this issue is a damning indictment of a collective failure to keep children safe. Let us not forget that major tech companies have the capability to implement device-level controls but have chosen not to do so.”
“I genuinely could not agree more. This is not at attack on the profession. The vast majority of funeral directors do their job with extraordinary skill, great care and huge professional integrity.”
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“I am afraid that it will be a rather morbid debate this evening. We spend remarkably little time in our lives thinking about the practicalities of death, and it is probably part of human nature that we do not dwell too much on the inevitable future fate that awaits us. That means we put far too much implicit trust in those who take responsibility for our bodies, and in those of our loved ones when we die. We all assume that in death we will be treated with respect and care by professionals, but his evening I am afraid I will share some hard truths about the gruesome reality of death. I warn anyone watching that what I have to say will be graphic and distressing—there in no way around that.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; better regulation is exactly what we are pushing for. In fact, everything needs to be better when it comes to the services governed by those organisations. As he says, the vast majority of funeral directors up and down this country work with incredible professionalism, great pride and integrity. They care deeply about what they do, and about the families and the individuals who they look after. One funeral technician told me that she does not see her work as a job—she sees it as a privilege. Such businesses and individuals have been silent pillars of our communities for centuries.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I am about to make exactly that point. I am grateful to him for teeing it up so beautifully for me, because it takes only one business to do the wrong thing to erode trust, but unfortunately the case of Elkin and Bell is not the only case. There have been similar cases at Legacies Independent in Hull and Florrie’s Army in Leeds, which I think is the case he refers to, where deceased babies were staged in lifelike positions in a living room. These are unspeakable and unimaginable horrors. There have been other cases where bodies have been found in the most unimaginable condition, but no further action could be taken by the police or others because, simply and incredulously, those businesses have not actually broken any laws.”
“It is unfair on those who practise with enormous integrity that their professionalism is being called into question. The Minister will know that the Fuller inquiry was set up in the wake of the crimes of the necrophiliac David Fuller, who abused 100 dead women and girls in a hospital mortuary in Kent. Those women were between the ages of nine and 90. In the wake of cases such as those in Hull and Gosport, Sir Jonathan Michael, who led the work into the Fuller report, was asked by the Government to prepare stage 2 of the report, which considers the wider funeral sector and those working in it. The report was published last July and includes some very sensible recommendations, including a statutory regulatory regime for funeral directors that invokes a licensing scheme, mandatory standards and regular inspection.”
“That is not to say that there is not a form of qualification—the British Institute Of Embalmers provides professional training, and reputable companies such as Co-op funeral directors require a level 5 apprenticeship qualification for their embalmers—but it is not mandated to be able to practise. In a nutshell, if the political career of any one of us in this room did not work out, we could walk out of here and set up our own funeral home—in our house, if we wanted to—with no special skills or accreditation and nobody inspecting our work. With that as the starting point, who can ever say for sure that their family member was treated with the appropriate professionalism? I have a question for the Minister; I know he has been hoping that I would get to this for some time. What can the Government do to restore trust in this sector?”
“In the hands of an unscrupulous company—who knows which ones they are?—it is all too possible for any human dignity and respect to become a completely unnecessary complication and expense in this process. The only requirement before cremation takes place is that the body needs to be rid of objects such as pacemakers and other medical equipment. That was another part of my journey through understanding this process. This surgical procedure is carried out by embalmers, who also drain the body of blood in order to replace it with embalming fluid and remove the contents of the stomach. I was really shocked to learn that that can be performed without any accreditation or qualification whatsoever, and with no minimum standards of care for the body.”
“We all see the charming adverts on the television in which an elderly gentleman explains with a smile that he has arranged for himself a direct cremation. He says, “I just didn’t want any fuss. It is much easier for my children.” We know that some very reputable and caring businesses do this process, but if the children knew what direct cremation might be, they would know that it might be little better than a conveyor belt. Mum and dad may be bundled into a van, maybe still in their soiled nightclothes, with a catheter attached and without any form of temperature controls. They could be taken to an unknown location and left for days before a slot becomes available at a crematorium. Who knows?”
“That is important for everybody; otherwise, all those who carry out their work with such enormous care and diligence will have to operate under the shadow of suspicion. We owe it to them as much as anyone else to get this right. The Minister knows that malpractice is not uncommon. Quite simply, taboos and sensitivities around death have effectively created a smokescreen for bad care. I am especially concerned about one area: the rise in direct cremations. For those who do not know what that is, it is where the loved ones do not see their deceased at any point in the journey. In their cases, there are absolutely no safeguards, checks or balances. The key thing here is that direct cremations have expanded hugely in the last few years, partly as a result of covid, from just 3% of funerals in 2019 to 20% in 2023.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for listening to me on this issue when he was the Justice Minister, when I first brought his attention to the situation. The points he makes are absolutely right. Over the past couple of years I have met the two voluntary trade bodies for the funeral sector, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors and the National Association of Funeral Directors, as well as countless reputable funeral businesses and, crucially, many of the families impacted by these cases. I am so grateful to all of them for the time that they gave me, but as my hon. Friend said, every single one of them has stressed the need for the sector to be better regulated. I echo his calls for the Minister to give us some good news on that in a minute.”
“The Fuller report says: “It is important that real change is implemented to ensure the security and dignity of the deceased, and that a specific government department is given responsibility for overseeing this.” Everybody who is involved in this sector recognises that there is a need for it to be properly regulated, inspected and overseen, so can the Minister set out clearly what his initial thoughts are on the recommendations of the Fuller report and when the Government will respond to them in full? When they do so, will they set out clearly what firm action will be taken, and when? We have waited so long, so when the Government respond, it must be with clarity, with purpose and—above all—with urgency.”
“I do not think that the size of a business is necessarily any reflection of its professionalism. We know that a large number of small, independent funeral services up and down the country work with incredible professionalism. The hon. Gentleman is also right that nothing should be introduced that is unnecessarily bureaucratic or costly for those businesses.”
“Grieving is such an important part of human ritual, regardless of someone’s religion or beliefs. We are elected to Parliament to make things better and to improve people’s lives, but today I am asking the Minister to commit to improving people’s deaths, to restoring dignity in death, and to ensuring that our loved ones are treated with the care and professionalism that they deserve.”
“At every step of the journey, identification numbers and proof of licence should be shown when a body is passed from one responsible authority to another. Without that, families simply do not have the certainty that their family members have been well treated, or even that they have been reunited with the correct ashes. Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know that I am coming to a conclusion. Why is this issue important? We all know people who say, “I don’t care what happens to me after I’m dead; I won’t know anything about it.” It is a truism that funerals are for the living. I have been heartbroken by the stories I have heard from families who regret the arrangements made for loved ones—stories of feeling racked with guilt and unable to say goodbye in the way that they wanted.”
“We must ensure that the death pathway is much clearer and runs more smoothly, to provide a minimum of opportunity for things to go wrong. For example, I have heard that in some cases, bodies are already decomposing by the time they make it to a funeral director because of a lack of medical examiners to sign off the death. What reassurance can the Minister give me that his Department is going to improve standards in this area as well? I believe that for there to be full accountability and trust in the system, a clear method of tracking the bodies is necessary. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the Elkin and Bell trial was the story of baby Albie, who died after just 11 minutes of life. His parents still have no clear picture of what happened to his body after it was taken into the care of Elkin and Bell.”
“Surely, a lesson from the Fuller case is that funeral technicians and embalmers, as well as anyone else involved in the death pathway, should undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check. As we have heard, the death pathway is open to so much abuse, and I warn the Minister that the cases I have mentioned will only be the tip of the iceberg while there is no regulation to tackle them. Doing so will require a whole system of changes, not just licensing and inspection. In some cases, this could be achieved by expanding existing legislation, such as the Human Tissue Act 2004, and it must be done in a way that is not punitive for small, independent businesses. I would also like the Government to explore the possibility of a new crime, that of the mistreatment of a body after death, because we cannot keep relying on Victorian common law.”
“For sums of money reaching into the thousands of pounds, professional qualifications are delivered by the British Institute of Funeral Directors. At face value, that seems quite promising; after all, those courses are accredited by the University of Greenwich. So far, though, I have seen absolutely nothing that gives me confidence in the legitimacy of the BIFD’s work, particularly in light of the fact that Hayley Bell of Elkin and Bell fame, who has now been sentenced to four years in prison, was one of its examiners. If its own examiners cannot uphold even the most basic standards of care for the dead, what is the value of the qualifications it is selling people? Just as important as qualifications is a person’s suitability for a job.”
“The Fuller report recommends that the HTA “should require the organisations it licenses to ensure that any individual who provides care to deceased people is suitably qualified, experienced and supervised.” If inspections are going to be carried out by local authorities, they need to be significantly better trained and resourced to do so, and we would have to take into consideration the fact that some of them run funeral services of their own. They cannot mark their own homework. Inspections must have public trust. The regulator can make sure of this by aligning its minimum codes of practice with those provided by the two voluntary trade bodies we have already heard about, the SAIF and the NAFD. I am also concerned about the existing marketplace in training.”
“A regulator with the power to withdraw licences and sanction wrongdoers might seem like a tempting first step, and Scotland is ahead of England, having passed legislation 10 years ago to introduce a licensing and inspection regime. However, 10 years on, not a single Scottish funeral director I have spoken to has actually been inspected. I am concerned that this could be the worst of both worlds, with the illusion of regulation masking the possibility that nothing has changed in practice. A sensible approach would be to extend the scope of the Human Tissue Authority beyond public mortuaries to the whole death pathway.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is crucial to know which Department will take the lead on this work and ensure that it happens, because while I think the Minister will be responding to the Fuller report, we are also awaiting the outcome of a Law Commission report that was kicked off in 2022 by the last but one Justice Minister, the former Member for Finchley and Golders Green. That report is looking at different laws on what happens to our bodies after death; it does not include the regulation of funeral directors. My fear is that, as the hon. Lady just said, efforts to regulate the sector will fall between the silos of Government Departments, and nobody will grip this issue. As we have discussed, what is required is a minimum standard of qualification, accreditation or licensing, and robust inspection.”
“The Chancellor’s words on defence simply do not reflect the reality, at a time when the world has never felt more unstable. Every corner of our armed forces is being asked to find cuts. People in Gosport need only look out of their window to see that all our Type 45 destroyers are laid up in Portsmouth harbour, and this is the first year since the 1980s that we have not had a ship in the Gulf, at a time when the middle east is a tinderbox. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is on its knees, and defence companies are being tied up with bureaucracy, dither and delay. The Chancellor has mentioned a couple of contracts, but so many of them are bogged down with dither and delay from this Government. She is gaslighting the British people. This is a disaster for our defence, and for our armed forces. When will she face reality?”
“We all know that actions speak louder than words. So far we have seen a reduction in the urban cricket domes that were committed to by the last Government, the scrapping of our National Citizen Service without anything to replace it and now, supposedly, an argument over who will be funding school sport. Social mobility depends on participation. Research by Sky found that girls who play after-school sport in the UK are 50% more likely to get professional roles as adults. What are the Government doing to address this, and can the Minister give us grassroots examples in our urban communities of where things are improving rather than getting worse?”
“These arguments are very well rehearsed, and this announcement is long overdue. Last year we did a survey in my Gosport constituency, and 80% of parents agreed that social media is making bullying worse for their children. Last week the Culture, Media and Sport Committee took evidence from child psychologists about children’s TV and video content. Among the many things they told us, they explained the learning from Australia: it is critical to plan for whatever gap is created. If we reduce screen time for young people, there must be safe places for them to go and activities on which they can spend their time. What is the Secretary of State doing on a cross-Government basis to make sure that these issues are tackled as well?”
“There is growing evidence that smartphones in schools are harming behaviour, concentration and outcomes, but leaving it up to headteachers is driving inconsistencies, and only 11% of senior schools have an effective mobile phone ban. Will the Secretary of State publish an assessment of the impact of a statutory ban of smartphones in schools?”
“When will we see the AI Bill promised in the last King’s Speech, and when is that legislation likely to be brought forward?”
“When it comes to AI, as with so many other things, this Government are all smoke and mirrors. In response to the Grok AI outrage this week, the Secretary of State for Science and Tech announced with a flourish that she would be banning intimate image abuse with immediate effect. In reality, this meant triggering legislation that had to be forced through by Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge against the Government’s will and that received Royal Assent last summer. Imagine how many women could have had their trauma prevented if the Government had just got a grip. Every day, our creative industries are having their work scraped. Intellectual property is being stolen every day, and still the Government sit on their hands, promising the world and delivering nothing.”
“Among the catalogue of failure here is the news that the decision was partly made on the basis of a hallucinated AI report about an entirely fictitious football match. What assessment has the Home Secretary made on the extent to which AI is being used by police forces across the country? Does she know of any other consequential decisions that may have been made using unverified AI? Finally, last month, after two months my Select Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, finally received a response to our letter on this issue from the assistant chief constable Mike O’Hara, who said that he was “satisfied that the policing operation conducted with communities and partners was effective, proportionate and maintained the city’s reputation as a safe and welcoming place for everyone.” What is the Home Secretary’s message to him?”
“I was fascinated by the Minister’s earlier answer about the closure of pharmacies, because there has been fantastic news in Lee-on-the-Solent in my constituency: a new pharmacy wants to open there. Local people are desperate for a second pharmacy in Lee-on-the-Solent and the local GP practice supports it. The problem is that the Hampshire ICB has rejected it. Does the Minister share my disappointment that local people are not going to be served in the correct way by pharmacy provision, and will he meet me to discuss this?”
“Hopefully, she will tell me that she will discuss them with colleagues and act to ensure that no charitable organisation currently operating within the gambling harm prevention sector will have to fold due to delays with levy funding. The Chancellor is looking around for money and believes that she can raise it from gambling companies, but, as with many of her other measures, such as national insurance rises, she will be a victim of the law of unintended consequences if she is not careful. On this occasion, the consequence will be that more people are dragged into the black market, where they will quite simply find better offers than those offered by gambling companies.”
“The Committee recommended the year before that the Government ensure that service providers, which were operating via the voluntary funding system, were adequately supported to make the transition to the statutory levy. However, we have now received very concerning reports that voluntary organisations in particular are facing a funding cliff edge, with delays and a lack of information about the transition to levy payments from the NHS. I am not entirely sure the Minister is listening to what I am saying, but I am hoping she will be able to address that point. She has not looked at me once while I have been speaking, but hopefully she is furiously writing notes about what I am talking about and will be able to address those concerns.”
“On sports and horseracing, I was glad to see a carve-out from general betting duty for UK horseracing. I was among many Members calling for that in recognition of the unique place horseracing occupies in British cultural life, as well as the 85,000 jobs and £4 billion contribution to the economy that horseracing offers. The Government have slightly dressed up their raid on gambling companies as being driven by concerns around gambling harms. In November 2024, I spoke to the Bacta convention about the then recently announced statutory levy and my concerns about how it would be distributed to organisations that conduct harms research.”
“It has been suggested that such high taxes could double the size of the online black market. Does the Minister recognise research from the Netherlands, highlighted by the shadow Minister, which found that after steep tax rises were introduced on remote slots, visits to black market domains increased fivefold over a three-year period? That is what we have to worry about if we are concerned about the oversight of those making bets and playing slots. That is why I am supportive of new clause 25, tabled by the Opposition. It requires the Chancellor to assess and report back on the effects of the increase in gambling duties on the number of high street betting shops, the black market, the employment rate, the public finances, and sports and horseracing.”
“The sector is so well regulated that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee warned the previous Government that the finance risk checks should be as minimally intrusive as possible. The Committee concluded that the Government must strike a careful balance: preventing harm for all, while allowing those who gamble safely the freedom to continue to do so. I have concerns that this vast increase in taxation on online betting and gaming does not strike that balance. The combination of an existing regime of strong regulation and a sudden jump in the levels of remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% is the kind of environment that I believe risks pushing people into the black market. As a floor, 40% is very high for remote gaming tax by international standards.”
“I would like to speak in support of new clause 25, which would require the Government to assess the effects of an increase in gambling duty, because just as I believe individuals have a right to spend their hard-earned money as they like, I believe it is important that they do so in a sensible, regulated and safe environment. Whatever we may think about gambling companies, gambling is already a very heavily regulated sector. Since the gambling White Paper was published in 2023 by the previous Government, the industry has already absorbed over 62 policy changes. Those changes include a limit on slot stakes, financial risk checks on transactions, tightened market rules and the statutory levy.”
“So many of my Gosport constituents are locked into lousy leaseholds, and are so tired of seeing service charges rise while the quality of service falls. Bills are often eye-watering, and are quite often completely opaque. As the Minister said, the Conservatives passed the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, which gave leaseholders more powers to better scrutinise and challenge those costs. However, on the Minister’s watch, implementation is painfully slow. Why the delay? When will leaseholders begin to see the benefits of legislation that was designed to put an end to a practice that he himself has described as “unfair and unreasonable”?”
“The Secretary of State promised long-term partnerships with our domestic defence industry, but when the Government dither and delay in giving primes confidence with their big contracts, that directly impacts the ecosystem of brilliant British subprimes across our country. Those include StandardAero at Fleetlands in Gosport, which has the opportunity to provide the assemble and inspect test on the GE motor in Leonardo’s AW149. Fleetlands has been a key player in our country’s defence rotary wing history for 100 years. Does the Minister see how delay in that decision is not only holding back our world-class industry, but delivering uncertainty to key companies across our country and all the people they employ?”
“I agree that there are gaps in the legislation—of course there are—but there is a lot of legislation out there and, since the Online Safety Act came into force in March, Ofcom has taken so very little legal action against illegal content, which is so prolific. How confident is the Secretary of State that Ofcom has not only the resources, but the willpower—the stomach—to take on these big tech companies?”
“The Secretary of State has given very clear message on this, and I thank her for that. She is right to say that this is not only about X and Grok; many generative AI platforms are facilitating this illegal and dehumanising behaviour. I gently say to her that although she is absolutely right that AI has enormous potential to reshape our lives, over a year since the Government attempted to sacrifice our world-beating creative industries and individuals’ intellectual property on the altar of AI, we are still waiting for news of the AI Bill. However, I am pleased that she has drawn the line here that she will not sacrifice the safety of women and children.”
“My right hon. Friend is making excellent points about alternative solutions to scrapping the right to a jury trial. Any MP who has spent any time in their local courts will have seen that the issue is not the juries, but poor administration, which is resulting in about a quarter of trials having to be rescheduled. Does he agree that rather than setting a precedent of scrapping the right to trial by jury, the Government should start by looking at ways to remove the pressure on an overwhelmed CPS? Does he think that giving the police greater charging powers would be a way to move forward on this?”
“There are fundamental questions for the Green Paper to address: what is the Government’s future vision for the BBC? What role should a public service broadcaster play in the current age? How can we continue to ensure that our national broadcaster remains independent, trusted and valued in this increasingly unstable and divided world?”
“The BBC is the most trusted broadcaster both at home and abroad, but there is no doubt that, as our national broadcaster, we hold it to a higher standard. There has been a significant loss of confidence in the BBC over recent years. The Reuters Institute suggests that between 2018 and 2025, the proportion of people in the UK who trusted “most news most of the time” fell by 7%, but that over the same period trust in BBC news fell by 15%. We should therefore welcome the Green Paper’s commitment to discuss the provision of trusted news. Finally, the Government said they want to consider how to uphold the BBC’s independence, which includes its being transparent when it gets things wrong, how it changes its services, how it is governed and what its board looks like.”
“I would be interested to hear why the Government are not even considering some options, some of which are employed across Europe to fund public service media. There are obvious challenges around some of the options that are under consideration. We have already heard about the issue of advertising. The BBC chair told my Committee that “we are absolutely clear that advertising and subscription is not the right approach. It goes back to universality and back to that old phrase, ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’ If subscribers are paying, they will call the tune on what we make. If it is advertising, it is advertisers.” Will the Minister say more about why the Government have chosen to explore some funding models and take others off the table at this vital stage?”
“It does all that and more in an incredibly and more and more challenging commercial environment in which the licence fee looks increasingly like an anachronism. The extent to which the public no longer see live TV as the cornerstone of their viewing habits is reflected in the number of households not renewing their TV licence. We have heard that evasion is rising and is now at 12.5%. In real terms, the BBC lost over £1 billion of revenue in the decade from 2013. I was disappointed to read that certain options regarding the BBC’s size, scale and funding are not even on the table in the charter review. On the licence fee, the Green Paper says the Government “are not considering replacing it with alternative forms of public funding, such as a new tax on households”.”
“Thank you, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) on securing the debate. I cannot think of anyone more qualified to kick off this conversation. The Select Committee will almost certainly look closely at the charter review, but today I will pull out a couple of topics for discussion. The Government have set out a number of lofty ambitions for the BBC in the Green Paper, but it is clear that it all hinges on a charter review that finds a long-term, sustainable funding future for the BBC. As we have seen, there are a number of challenges. The BBC provides so many different TV channels and radio stations, as we heard from my right hon. Friend.”
“The Government have cancelled elections and are scrapping jury trials, and now we hear that they are limiting the right to appeal to a Crown court, despite the fact that such appeals have a 40% success rate. The Solicitor General talks about justice denied; surely, that is a case in point? Given that her job is to uphold the rule of law, would she push back against some of her colleagues’ more authoritarian tendencies?”
“Today, Gosport borough council has been given the lowest possible rating by a Government regulator for the management of its social housing. The Minister will understand that this is a deeply worrying time for the 3,000 Gosport tenants and for local council tax payers. What is not helping is the constant ambiguity, uncertainty and speculation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the borough’s future, compounding the chaos and confusion from the council’s already quite hapless leadership. The Minister has already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) that Hampshire county council does not favour a delay, but does she agree that today’s announcement just adds to the uncertainty that thousands of residents face across Hampshire?”
“If I were to ask everyone in this room and in this building whether they have ever been a member of one of these charities, I would be surprised if anyone could say truthfully that they had not. The National Trust, for example, has nearly 6 million members. English Heritage and the RSPB have 1.2 million each. Those are numbers that political parties can only dream of.”
“The most iconic landscapes, sold around the world as the backdrop of British soft power—reminding visitors of the iconic settings for Jane Austen, Dickens and Harry Potter, as well as the paintings of Constable and Turner—are kept open to the public by membership charities such as the Youth Hostels Association and the Canal and River Trust. Speaking of Turner and Constable, membership charities are the stewards of our country’s heritage. They look after the artefacts, artworks and architecture that make us proud to be British. Between them, charities such as the National Gallery, Tate, the National Trust and English Heritage have millions of members.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for membership-based charity organisations. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Membership organisations play a central role in protecting and enhancing the things that we consider important to our national character. The great British countryside is maintained and safeguarded for future generations by conservation charities such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wildlife Trusts and the Woodland Trust.”
“And in light of the billions of pounds of tax rises that charities have already seen, there is an incentive for the Government to provide legal clarity. I hope that that is what the Minister will be able to provide in her remarks today.”
“If not, maybe she could commit to giving membership charities the freedom to calculate themselves what a proportional refund might look like. The National Trust believes, for example, that based on current guidance alone, every 1% of its membership that takes advantage of the loophole will lose it £3 million. Even if a tiny number of its members takes advantage of the new loophole in the law, that is a huge and significant impact on its finances, and that means less money spent on its core mission, which is to conserve our heritage. We expect our charities to do so much. They provide so much for our nation and they do it really well. But membership charities need a vote of support from the Government now. They need this albatross removed from around their necks.”