Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this rich and frequently passionate debate, and I thank the Minister for his answer. I think that I will cross-reference something that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, said, which is that charities are helping vulnerable people in dreadful circumstances. We have been talking about charities as organisations and institutions, but, ultimately, at the end of the line are those vulnerable people. The noble Lord, Lord Altrincham, made the point that those vulnerable people will still be there with their needs; if the charity closes down or cuts back its services, the Government will have to pick up the slack at that point. The Minister said that, if any of the measures proposed in this group of amendments were introduced, the Government would have to lower spending. But that would mean that they would have to raise spending on things they are not spending on now because the charities would not be providing it. We are in a circular situation, with all the disruption that happens as people lose jobs, organisations close down and things have to be recreated. That is the situation that we are in. There were many contributions, so I will not go through them in length, but there are a couple of points that I want to raise. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, spoke about his brave, regular running commitments. To build on what he said, we know that what encourages people to give to charities is the sense that their money will be directly used to help the relevant people. Of course, when we are talking about something like WaterAid—speaking as someone who is passionate about antimicrobial resistance and maternal health—it is absolutely crucial. People want to see it providing the services and, if they do not see that, and they hear all the talk about this, maybe they will not donate, because they will feel like they are just giving money to the Government. That is a further damaging factor for charities and their fundraising. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, also spoke about sacking fundraisers. If one of the things that we are talking about—what my amendment aims to get to—is to delay so that charities have a chance to prepare. If there is not that delay, however, and there is an emergency that has to be dealt with now, you of course do not want to cut the direct service providers who care for those vulnerable people. Fundraisers, therefore, are the obvious people to sack, but the long-term consequences are obvious.