House of Commons
Parliament

SNP MP Kirsty Blackman rises to move her party's New Clause 4 to the Small Charitable Donations bill.

Under the amendment, charities would have to give gift aid exemption claims on donations received in order to make a claim under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme. 

The total gift aid donations must be at least 10% of the amount of the small donations on which top-up payments are claimed. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey is moving New Clause 1 to the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments bill.

The amendment would require HMRC to publish a tax report each year outlining the number of penalties imposed on charities, and provide an assessment of the evidence of the gift aid matching rule in preventing fraud and abuse.

She says she wants the Gift Aid scheme to work as effectively for "as many small charities as possible". 

Will some MPs or peers try to overturn the UK's EU referendum result?

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs have now moved on to debate the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill at Report Stage.

The bill is intended to reform Gift Aid to make it easier to claim, and to allow smaller charities to benefit.

Gift Aid allows charities to claim 25p tax on each £1 they receive from individual donations – this represents repayment of the basic rate tax donors have already paid on their income. 

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs have voted in favour of the government's motion to oppose the Lords amendments by 295 votes to 245.

The bill will now return to the Lords for their consideration.   

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour MP Chuka Umunna asks if the government has done enough to provide reassurance and protect those who at a heightened risk of attack, in the wake of the EU referendum.

Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate says Nigel Farage and Arron Banks have "deliberately" made up false statistics to "wind people up", and as a result people feel "less secure of their position".

Chair of the Commons Procedure Committee Charles Walker has told the BBC the current ballot-based system for allocating private members' bills was "a game of chance".

Another drawback is that "you get poorly thought through legislation before the house," he said, on account of the short amount of time many MPs who win the ballot have to prepare before their bill is debated. 

Mr Walker's committee hopes to change the process of bringing private members' bills before the House of Commons. 

It recommends the creation of a scrutiny committee which would prioritise bills that had been more carefully drafted. 

You can read the Procedure Committee's observations on government reaction to its report on private members' bills here, external. 

And there's a recent BBC feature on private members bills here: Talking out: How MPs block Private Members' Bills

House of Lords
Parliament

Justice Minister Lord Keen of Elie remains on his feet to repeat an answer to today's urgent question in the Commons on protests by prison officers. 

Labour shadow minister Lord Beecham says that it is not the ratio of prison officers to prisons that is the issue, but of "properly trained and supported staff to the number of prisoners".

Lord Keen says the government will sit down with the prions officers as soon as they withdraw this "unlawful action".

He says that prison officer numbers are an issue but are part of a wider problem that includes issues of training, retention, improving the prison estate, psychoactive drugs, safety, and overall reform.

"We have to accept that this is a complex algorithm that cannot be clapped down into a simple binary issue of prison numbers", he adds. 

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani asks if a rise in hate crime against eastern European groups has grown because there was previous under-reporting of such groups.

Mr Lowles said that there has always been resentment brewing, but because these groups are "underrepresented in UK public life" it has only recently come to the fore.

Mr Lowles said he "hasn't spoken to a single eastern European in the UK who hasn't experienced some sort of hate crime in the aftermath of the EU referendum".

House of Commons
Parliament

SNP justice and home affairs spokesperson Joanna Cherry says the SNP is happy to support the Lords amendments.

She says the changes would provide "legal redress" to those who suffered from phone hacking and adds that those who do not hack phones "have nothing to fear". 

Select Committee
Parliament

Chair Yvette Cooper asks Director of Hope not Hate, Nick Lowles, what gave rise to the level of hate crime following the EU referendum.

Nick Lowles said some people saw UKIP's 'Breaking Point' poster and felt that this gave them the "green light" to carry out acts classified as hate crime.

Mr Lowles said that although immigration wasn't the primary reason people chose to vote to Leave the EU, the fact that it was brought the forefront left people feeling "emboldened". 

Image source, PA

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, PA

Conservative peer Lord Lexden asks the government what steps are being taken to ensure that Lord Chancellor Liz Truss fulfills her duty to uphold the independence of the judiciary.

It follows a call from the Bar Council to respond to press criticism of senior judges over their recent ruling that Parliament must give its consent before the government can trigger the legal process of leaving the EU. 

Lord Keen of Elie responds to the question by saying that "the Lord Chancellor has fulfilled her duty and will continue to do so".

Lord Lexden replies that the "irresponsible" attacks on judges were "not answered immediately and emphatically" by the Lord Chancellor.

Lord Keen responds that it is not the job of the Lord Chancellor or the government to police the press headlines. 

The Daily Politics

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Sir Edward Garnier asks why a publisher, who successfully defends a case, should have to pay the costs of the unsuccessful claimant. 

"That seems to me unjust", he adds. 

He admits to having been a "victim of stupid conduct" by the press but says that whilst the experience was "annoying" he would rather have a system that is based on "good law". 

House of Lords
Parliament

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Taverne asks the government whether it intends to publish a green paper on the cases for and against the UK remaining in the European single market.

Lord Taverne says the Conservative party manifesto said "we welcome the single market", adding that the government should "at least" let parliament debate the matter. 

Exiting the EU Minister Lord Bridges of Headley replies that the government is "absolutely determined" to have as much debate as possible on this issue, and says ministers aim to achieve "maximum access and freedom of trade with the single market".

Conservative peer and Leave campaigner Lord Forsyth of Drumlean tells the chamber that the Liberal Democrat peers and other Remain campaigners remind him of Japanese soldiers found in the 1950s who were still fighting the Second World War.

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour peer Viscount Hanworth asks the government to press the Financial Conduct Authority to fully publish its report into the treatment of small businesses, external by the Royal Bank of Scotland. 

Treasury Minister Lord Young of Cookham responds that the FCA is an independent body that will publish a full account when practicable. 

Viscount Hanworth says that the report has prompted a "partial admission" of RBS's wrongdoing, which he says includes the bank acquiring assets from small businesses with whom it had offered loans at "fire sale prices" and sold on at a profit.

The Labour peer says that the compensation mooted by RBS "falls far short of the damage that has been inflicted".

He asks how a government that claims to be on the side of small businesses could tolerate such practices from a state-owned bank.

Lord Young says it is a "worrying report for RBS".