Patrick Hurley

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. In the interests of time, and given your advice, I have cut a huge chunk from my speech, in the hope that we can get more colleagues in. I wish to commend two charities in my constituency, and then make two requests of the Minister. First, I commend Greta and the team at the Light for Life charity. I want to place on record my thanks to them—they are in Parliament today, and when the debate is over, I will go to see them. Light for Life provides support to people experiencing homelessness, at the most vulnerable point in their lives. It provides food and essential supplies and, perhaps more importantly, respect and connection to those in real difficulty. I also want to recognise Richard and the team at Compassion Acts, with its food bank provision and financial and monetary advice to families; in the past, it has provided school uniform support to children who need it the most. These are the sorts of small charities that are, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) mentioned, the backbone of our communities. We would be much worse off without them. There are some practical ideas that would, I hope, make a positive difference to the charities sector. One is to unlock unclaimed gift aid and match-funding mechanisms, which could incentivise and increase philanthropic giving, especially if targeted and supported directly for the smaller charities sector. Another proposal is to establish an evidence fund, maybe also financed from unclaimed gift aid, which would help small charities to demonstrate impact and compete more fairly for grants and contracts against the big boys—the larger charities that we all know and that overwhelm our inboxes. I would be grateful if the Minister could address two questions. Does the Department view match funding as a practical tool to increase giving to small and medium-sized charities? Secondly, what steps can be taken to ensure that small charities can engage meaningfully in tendering grant applications and consultations?