Abtisam Mohamed

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Chair, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) on securing today’s debate. As the former chief executive of a community regeneration organisation, I speak from direct experience of working with charities on the ground. Although it is nice that today the Conservatives care about charities, that was not the case previously. The cuts started right at the beginning of the Conservatives’ time in office, with their “big society” policy, which in my experience was just an underhand means of implementing cuts. I know that because, like many organisations, the charity that I worked for spent year after year managing cuts after cuts. Vital local community services were forced to close or to reduce in size. I welcome the Government’s commitment to resetting the relationship with the third sector and to rebuilding a new partnership through the civil society covenant. I am also pleased that the Government’s policy statement on local government finances will provide a multi-year financial settlement and adjust the funding formula to local Government to rebalance funding where it is most needed. These measures will be welcomed by charities. However, I am concerned about the impact of the national insurance increase on organisations—