Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector

1. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector has access to adequate funding.

The last Government created a perfect storm for our charitable organisations, cutting their funding and attacking their right to speak, all while demand soared. This Government have reset that relationship through the civil society covenant, and we are currently working on ways to leverage more investment into local organisations.

In recent months, I have met and heard from local charities that are doing incredible work in our communities, including S2R, Huddersfield Mission and Headway Huddersfield. Many of those charities have told me of the challenges they currently face as demand increases and the cost of their services rise and funding opportunities decrease, so what steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure charities in Huddersfield are given the funding they need to deliver vital services?

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and for being such a sterling champion of the amazing grassroots organisations in her constituency, some of which I had the privilege of meeting when I visited. We recognise the need to protect the smallest charities in particular; that is why we more than doubled the employment allowance, meaning that more than half of charities with national insurance contributions liabilities will either gain or see no change in 2025-26. We are looking at how we can use the national youth strategy to pilot a new way of working, to make sure the action we take to support young people is genuinely driven by those amazing organisations at a local level in communities, which will help them to become much more sustainable and to do more.

To obtain funding, most small organisations require a bank account. Is the Secretary of State aware that many organisations are struggling to get a bank account? Some banks do not offer those services to small and voluntary organisations, or a huge amount of bureaucracy needs to be entered into in order to get an account. Will the Secretary of State speak with her colleagues in the Treasury to get to the bottom of why it is so difficult for small and voluntary organisations to get a bank account?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for his question, and I will certainly make sure that I and the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), take that matter up with colleagues in the Treasury to resolve it.