I have become shadow charities minister at a time of breathtaking pressure on the sector. A toxic mix of funding cuts and overwhelming demand has left many charities struggling to survive at a time when their survival matters more than ever.
Supporting these badly needed charities to survive and thrive matters to me personally. Before I was elected to parliament, I spent nearly a decade working for charities whose help for homeless teenagers and disadvantaged children was made possible by the expertise, innovation and compassion of their staff and volunteers.
Events last week illustrated the current desperate need for charities when the Guardian reported the scarcely believable fact that the British Red Cross, known for its work in countries hit by war and famine, had launched its first ever programme to feed British families. Increasingly we are seeing charities stepping in where the government has failed to provide.
While charities have an ethical duty to provide help when people need them, it is essential that they also challenge this transfer of responsibility from government to charities. It is unsustainable and immoral to leave people without the means of survival. Many charities were formed in an era when the state did not provide healthcare and decent housing. That was also a time when children died for want of food and adults for want of medical care. The charities that stepped in to provide also spoke out, helping speed up the creation of the welfare state and the NHS.
Campaigning for change has always been an essential feature of the sector. That's why challenging before parliament measures that would restrict charities' ability to speak out is so important. Charities have always given a voice to those they serve, and that vital role must be protected, no matter how uncomfortable it may prove for the government.
There are many things ministers could do to help charities that are under pressure now. Many charities, overwhelmed with demand, need volunteers. The Scouts are currently running a waiting list of 35,000 young people desperate to access their activities. Yet the infrastructure in local councils that supported more volunteering has dwindled thanks to heavy, frontloaded funding cuts and the missed opportunities to boost volunteering provided by the Olympics. Labour will explore what more we could do to encourage and support volunteering, including working with employers to consider what a Labour government could do in partnership with business to support more people to volunteer.
We will also look seriously at the situation of smaller charities – not always in a position to win big government contracts but often precisely the people who have the grounding in their own communities to deliver real change. After the debacle of the Work Programme, ministers should have learned important lessons in how not to design contracts, favouring big organisations at the expense of charities, both large and small. As more services across government are put out to tender we will be challenging ministers to do better than this.
Labour has also proposed measures, inspired by the US, that would ensure bank lending aids deprived areas as much as the more affluent. The Community Reinvestment Act demonstrates how effective this can be, in particular for local organisations such as credit unions, which are such an important alternative to payday lenders. We know too that charities need unsecured lending.
Over the coming weeks I'll be spending time on the frontline with charity workers to better understand the pressures they face. An enhanced sector, with independence, a strong voice and the freedom to innovate, is our gold standard. I believe the employees and recipients of those charities are the people who know best how we protect those values in the face of attack.
Lisa Nandy is shadow charities minister and Labour MP for Wigan
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