Labour politicians last night unveiled a series of priorities for the voluntary sector, including a drive to increase grant funding, on the opening day of the party’s national conference.
Speaking at the launch of the Red Book of the Voluntary Sector, which contains essays on charities from Labour politicians, Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan and the shadow charities minister, said one of Labour’s priorities was to “work with funders to make sure money is available for grants”.
At the launch of the book, published by the Charities Aid Foundation and chief executives body Acevo, Nandy said grant funding “gives the sector the ability to take risks and to fail and to learn” in a way that other funding did not.
Nandy did not specify which funders Labour planned to work with in order to increase grant funding.
She said other priorities included ending gagging clauses in contracts to allow charities to criticise government, repealing the Lobbying Act to free charities to campaign, and reforming local enterprise partnerships to give charities more say in how they were run.
But Nandy also called on the sector itself to make sure it operated to high ethical standards.
“When charities stand for something, they must live it in their investments, in their actions, and in how they treat their staff, their young people and their volunteers,” she said.
At the same event, Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West and the previous shadow minister, called for the development of social innovation zones, where councils could win increased funding for their voluntary sector, possibly through the Big Lottery Fund, if they committed to good practice in their own funding of the sector.
He said he hoped this would be a way to increase sector funding in less affluent areas where there are fewer registered charities.
Two previous Labour policies for the sector – a community reinvestment act to increase lending in deprived communities and a right for charity trustees to take time off to fulfil their duties – were not mentioned.
The introduction to the red book was written by Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition and a former minster for the third sector, who said that in his former role “I saw firsthand the contribution that charities and voluntary groups make to British life, and the values of community and collectivism in action”, and promised that Labour in government would “create a positive climate for charities and voluntary sector groups to work”.
CAF and Acevo will publish similar books at the Conservative and Liberal Democrat conferences.
