Charities (Collections) (Hansard, 13 July 1993)

§ Sir Jim Spicer (Dorset, West)

We were treated to a remarkable degree of brevity in the last debate, and I too will take only a few minutes. My purpose is not to raise any major issue but to fire a warning shot across the Minister's bows.

We have a remarkable tradition of charitable giving, which no other country in the world can equal or surpass. Part of that tradition is that we give freely, but over the years more and more charities have asked for our support, so it is quite right that we should impose certain controls on them, particularly when it comes to door-to-door collections.

In 1939, the House to House Collections Act was passed. It was adequate then, but given the number of charities today it is no longer so. Since 1939 there has been an explosion, not only in the number of charities, but in the energy and time that they devote to fund raising and door-to-door and street collections. It is therefore crucial that good controls should be exercised by authorities close to the areas where the collecting is to be done.

At first sight—certainly to a newcomer to the subject like me—local control by the district council seems the answer. That brings me to the reason why I asked for this debate.

We are raising money for a local hospice. For an area like west, south and north Dorset to raise £3.4 million in just over two years is quite an achievement. We have a target of £5 million, and I hope and expect that, by the end of next year, we shall have raised that money and the hospice will be opened. We were all—particularly my wife—delighted when we were granted a licence for one week for the whole of west Dorset to raise funds for our local hospice.

An immediate operation was set in train, which involved the distribution of some 200 to 300 tins, with all the paraphernalia—badges and other things—that go along with such an operation to ensure that we would raise the maximum amount. Every town, village and hamlet in west Dorset was covered, and people were prepared to go out to raise the money. I am always an optimist, and I thought that we would raise about £20,000 to add to the £3.4 million. In fact, we raised just half that sum.

Why did we not get anywhere near that target, when everyone locally supports the hospice project and wants to see it open? Before we started the week allocated to us, people began to phone in and say that, although they would like to help, sadly, they did not think that they could, because other charities were to be collecting that week. As the week progressed, more and more people phoned in and asked what was going on. It was nonsense, they said. They thought that they had the total licence and nobody would be in competition, but moving down the street at the same time as they were trying to collect were at least four other charities—Barnardos, the Diabetic Association, Action Aid and the Alexandra Rose. All those four charities were actively collecting, on the basis that they had exemption from registering because they were large, national charities.

That is our problem, and we were saddened by what had happened to Joseph Weld house. On Monday 959 morning, I received a letter from Mr. Wilson, who is the divisional superintendent of our local St. John Ambulance. He said: I would like to make a formal, written complaint with regard to the fund-raising collection which took place in Dorchester and District between 25th June and 3rd July, 1993. As I am the Superintendent of the Dorchester Combined Division of St. John Ambulance, I feel partly responsible for the situation as members of the public, understandably, felt aggrieved at what appeared to be constant requests for money. Some of my members received a very poor, even hostile, reception when selling flags. As you know, our organisation is entirely voluntary and we are allocated one week each year for our Flag Day and House to House collections. Normally this is well supported, but this year we fell some £300 below our anticipated total. I believe that this is almost entirely due to the Dr. Barnardo's collection being held during the same week. My main point is: why should we suffer these losses when we rely on the funds raised at this time? We are required to register well in advance and try to avoid competing with other Charities. Other organisations, however, are not required to register and can therefore collect at any time. I should be grateful if you would raise my concerns with the appropriate authorities. That rather indignant letter joins the indignant protests of my wife as the organiser of our fund-raising activity during that week.

However, it is a fact—I am quite certain that the Minister will bear witness to this—that things are going to change. Therefore, as I said at the beginning, all I intend to do is fire a shot across my hon. Friend's bows and say that the present situation cannot be allowed to continue.

My aim tonight is to highlight the present unsatisfactory situation that puts smaller and particularly local charities at a disadvantage and to seek from my hon. Friend an absolute assurance not only that, under the Charities Act 1992, there will be a tightening up, but that all charities will be required to register with local authorities and that small, but local, charities, will have their absolutely fair share of time.

I am president of my local British Legion. It would be inconceivable to me that, during that week, we should not devote all our thoughts and attention to the poppy day appeal. However, it seems that at least 50 per cent. of the year should be devoted to local charities. Otherwise, the 50 or so charities that have exemption at present can run roughshod over our local activity, push us to the wall and make our fund-raising insignificant.

That should not be allowed to happen. All I seek tonight is an assurance from my hon. Friend that we will see a change by early 1994, that more control will be vested locally, and that the national charities will not be given the free rein that they have at the moment.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) on securing this debate. The fact that we are here at this comparatively late hour attests to the importance that he rightly attaches to the issue.

Before I address the particular matter of his concern and what he called his warning shot, I should say that I am pleased that he drew my attention and that of the House to the excellent work of the Dorset respite and hospice trust in his constituency. I share the public's admiration 960 for those who care so compassionately for the terminally ill and give vital emotional support to their friends and relatives. That work requires great sensitivity and devotion; I pay tribute to what they are doing and applaud their extremely impressive efforts, which my hon. Friend described, to raise new funds to extend their work further.

As my hon. Friend explained so clearly, the very business of fund raising has brought him to this debate tonight. He described how the hospice's dedicated fund raisers, not least his wife, had planned their house-to-house collection and notified that to the local authority, and were then unhappy to find that other large national charities were also making house-to-house collections that evening.

I can understand those people feeling that they were all treading on each other's toes, and that their hospice cannot but have raised less than it would have done if the collectors had had a clear run on their own. I can also understand why my hon. Friend feels that there should be effective rules to avoid such an overlap. However, as he said, there are a large number of charities in England and Wales. More than 160,000 charities are registered with the Charity Commission. A good number of them are very small, many are confined to one area and some are very large indeed.

Altogether, the income of all charities in England and Wales has been estimated at perhaps £18 billion a year. While public charitable collections are only one source of that income, the net effect is that there is considerable pressure and, indeed, competition for the public's generosity.

The first main point that I must make in reply to my hon. Friend is that no one charity could, in all reasonableness, expect to have a monopoly on charitable appeals at any one time, even briefly and locally, unless other charities were correspondingly to be prevented from fund raising.

Even if public charitable collections were to be given over—briefly and locally—to a single charity, others would be free to compete in the same area and at the same time through other means of fund raising, such as direct mail, newspaper appeals and telephone fund raising.

Considerable overlap is, I fear, inevitable, and something that we must accept. My hon. Friend suggested that house-to-house collections by the larger charities should be confined to one half of the year only, but that would restrict those that have currently secured eligibility for an exemption order, issued by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State.

The law currently regulates collections under the House to House Collections Act 1939 and, in relation to street collections, the Police, Factories, etc (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1916. Only the 1939 Act provides for large national house-to-house collections to be granted an exemption order, removing them from local control. No equivalent provision exists in the 1916 Act, so permission for street collections—the familiar member of the public with the collecting can in the town centre on a Saturday—must always be applied for from each local authority.

Larger charities granted exemption orders by my Department for house-to-house collections are asked to notify local authorities in whose area they intend to collect. From time to time, they are reminded of the need to do so. Conversely, West Dorset district council and other local authorities, as a matter of good practice, point out to local charities that exemption-order-holding 961 charities may collect in the same area, and that those local charities cannot be guaranteed a monopoly. It may be constructive for those directly concerned to contact one another in order to co-ordinate their collections and minimise overlap.

I do not know what happened in the particular case to which my hon. Friend referred; certainly things did not appear to go as well as they might have done. I agree with him that it is anomalous that street and house-to-house collections for very similar purposes are controlled through separate primary legislation. That was remarked on by the efficiency scrutiny of the supervision of charities, chaired by Sir Philip Woodfield, in 1987. The proposal implemented through the Charities Act 1992 was to bring both types of collection together under more consistent legislation. In the 1992 Act, that type of joint activity is covered by the term "public charitable collection".

We are currently examining, as my hon. Friend accepted, how the new provisions can best be brought into force. We intend to complete that process by the end of next year. We must take into account many practical angles, such as the co-ordination of different collections between competing charities, including between permission to collect that is granted centrally under 1992 Act, from the Charity Commission, and that granted locally by district authorities.

I cannot promise my hon. Friend that any one type of charity or issuing authority will necessarily take precedence over another, but I agree that the issue should 962 be thoroughly examined before a decision is made on what seems best. This debate represents a timely and constructive contribution to that examination and my hon. Friend's proposal, which, in effect, is for some form of rationing, is one of the possible new arrangements that we will consider.

Close consultation with various people and organisations that have first-hand knowledge is indispensable. Our intention to discuss new arrangements for public charitable collections with experienced practitioners follows similar initiatives that we have already taken in relation to the provisions of the 1992 Act dealing with charity accounts and the control of professional fund raising.

We are making good progress in implementing the new legislation, and this week we are issuing a consultation document on the control of professional fund raising. That has undoubtedly been strengthened with the benefit of practitioners' views.

My hon. Friend's suggestions and the particular experience of the Dorset respite and hospice trust will help to ensure that the forthcoming regulations under the appropriate provisions of the 1992 Act will be constructed wisely and effectively. I hope that they will do much to avoid the type of situation that my hon. Friend has rightly drawn to the attention of the House.