Clause 59

Part of Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:15 am on 24 May 2007.

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Photo of Julia Goldsworthy Julia Goldsworthy Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury 9:15, 24 May 2007

I do not intend to repeat the arguments that the hon. Gentleman has just made. I shall simply add my welcome to the extension of the benefits to community amateur sports clubs. I can think of many examples of clubs in my constituency that will benefit hugely from that. I have only one question. Is anything being done to make sure that such sports clubs are aware of their new entitlement? The people whom I have in mind will not necessarily be paying particularly close attention to the proceedings of this Bill.

I should also like to reiterate briefly the comments that have been made about the asymmetry of treatment between larger and smaller donors. Is that an intentional change? Some comments on that would be welcome. There are also concerns more widely about gift aid and how vulnerable it is to changes in the income tax system and other changes more generally. Representatives from a museum came to me last year because they were concerned about some gift aid forms that they had produced to try to maximise their benefit. Because they had not required visitors to give their postcode, however, the forms were invalid and they could not claim gift aid. That represented a huge loss of expected income.

Gift aid is a complicated system. I am therefore concerned that, as was reflected in the exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) and the Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband), £70 million of income will be lost overall when the income tax changes kick in next year. That highlights how vulnerable charities are to changes on the periphery that can have a major impact on their income. Perhaps it is time for the Treasury to look again at the gift aid system to see whether it can be insulated against such changes, and whether a system can be created that is clear, well defined and not subject to the changes and uncertainty in the years ahead.