Have your say on the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

The scheme is not a tax relief so legislation to introduce it was made separately to the annual Finance Bill. The Small Charitable Donations Bill 2012-13 was published on 21 June 2012. The Bill completed its scrutiny in the Commons on 26 November 2012, when the Government made some changes to the eligibility rules, to make it easier for small charities to use the scheme. The Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 received Royal Assent on 19 December 2012, and the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) was introduced in April 2013.

In the 2015 Budget the Government announced that the annual limit for donations made under the scheme would be increased to £8,000 from April 2016.

When the scheme was introduced the Government stated that GASDS would be reviewed after three years of its operation, to consider whether any fundamental changes were needed, such as the inclusion of different payment types. A call for evidence was published in December 2015, and in April 2016 the Government published proposals for possible reforms. Responses were ‘generally positive’, and on 14 September the Government published the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill 2016/17, to make a number of changes to GASDS, “to simplify and increase access to the scheme, particularly for smaller and newer charities.

Follow the progress of the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

The Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill was presented to the House of Commons on 7 September 2016 and had its second reading debate on 11 October 2016.

• Catch up on Parliament News: MPs debate the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill
• Bills before Parliament: Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill
• Read Explanatory Notes: Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill

This Bill has now been committed to a Public Bill Committee which will hold its only meetings on Tuesday 18 October. There will be no oral evidence sessions.

The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The Committee is expected to hold its only meetings on Tuesday 18 October and it would be extremely helpful to the Committee if written evidence was submitted by Monday 17 October in order to inform the debate. The Committee will stop receiving written evidence at the end of the Committee stage on Tuesday 18 October.

Your submission should address matters contained within the Bill and concentrate on issues where you have a special interest or expertise, and factual information of which you would like the Committee to be aware.

Your submission could most usefully:

• suggest amendments to the Bill, with supporting explanation; and
• (when amendments are published) support or oppose amendments tabled to the Bill by Members of Parliament, with supporting explanation

It is helpful if the submission includes a brief introduction about you or your organisation. The submission should not have been previously published or circulated elsewhere.

If you have any concerns about your submission, please contact the Scrutiny Unit (details below).

How should written evidence be submitted?

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk. Please note that submissions sent to the Government department in charge of the Bill will not be treated as evidence to the Public Bill Committee.

Submissions should be in the form of a Word document. A summary should be provided. Paragraphs should be numbered, but there should be no page numbering. Essential statistics or further details can be added as annexes, which should also be numbered.

As a guideline, submissions should not exceed 3,000 words.

Please include in the covering email the name, address, telephone number and email address of the person responsible for the submission. The submission should be dated.

What will happen to my evidence?

The written evidence will be circulated to all Committee Members to inform their consideration of the Bill.

Most submissions will also be published on the internet as soon as possible after the Committee has started sitting.

Those making a submission to a Committee inquiry should note the following:

• Committees publish most of the written evidence they receive on the internet (where it will be accessible to search engines).
• If you do not wish your submission to be published, you must clearly say so and explain your reasons for not wishing its disclosure. The committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish. If you wish to include private or confidential information in your submission to the committee, please contact the clerk of the committee to discuss this. The Scrutiny Unit (details below) will be able to provide you with contact details for the clerk.
• A committee is not obliged to accept your submission as evidence, nor to publish any or all of the submission even if it has been accepted as evidence. This may occur where a submission is very long or contains material to which it is inappropriate to give parliamentary privilege (see Guide for Witnesses) for further information on parliamentary privilege).
• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a submission, in which case it should be clearly referenced, preferably with a hyperlink.
• You should be careful not to comment on matters currently before a court of law, or matters in respect of which court proceedings are imminent. If you anticipate such issues arising, you should discuss with the clerk of the committee how this might affect your submission.
• Once submitted, no public use should be made of any submission prepared specifically for the committee unless you have first obtained permission from the clerk of the committee. If you are given permission by the committee to publish your evidence separately, you should be aware that you will be legally responsible for its content.
• Evidence which is accepted by the Committee may be published online at any stage; when it is so published it becomes subject to parliamentary copyright and is protected by parliamentary privilege.
• Once you have received acknowledgement that the evidence has been published you may publicise or publish your evidence yourself. In doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee, and you should be aware that your publication or re-publication of your evidence may not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
• Public Bill Committees do not investigate individual cases of complaint or allegations of maladministration.
  

Data protection

• The personal information you supply will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purposes of attributing the evidence you submit and contacting you as necessary in connection with its processing.
• The Clerk of the House of Commons is the data controller for the purposes of the Act.
• If you have any queries or concerns about the collection and use of this information please advise the committee team providing your full contact details.
  

Scrutiny Unit contact details

Email: scrutiny@parliament.uk
Telephone: 020 7219 8387
Address: Ian Hook
Senior Executive Officer
Scrutiny Unit
House of Commons
London SW1A OAA