What are UK political parties offering charities in 2024?

In 2024, the UK electorate will vote in the next general election, which must take place five years after the last time the country went to the polls in December 2019.

Ahead of the election, politicians’ relationships with charities has emerged as a key political battleground, with both parties laying out their vision of how they intend to work with the charity sector should they win.

So what the two main political parties offering charities? Taking stock of their views on the sector will be vital as charities communicate with politicians and campaign within electoral rules.

Labour Party

A Labour government will launch “a renewed social contract” through a “reset” in the relationship between government and civil society,  at an event in 2024 organised by think tank Pro Bono Economics.

He is looking to promote a “society of service” that will have “a new focus on those who build the bonds that connect us, the communities that nurture us, and the local institutions that support us”.

In a hint that civil society will be more closely involved in decision making he added “for too long, your voice has been ignored between the shouts of the market and the state”.

Pro Bono Economics Chief Executive Matt Whittaker has described Starmer’s speech as “encouraging” in highlighting charities’ role in working with policy makers.

He added that Starmer’s speech is “the first time a political leader in the UK has set out a strategic vision for how the sector can serve as a partner to government since David Cameron’s Big Society concept in 2010”.

Starmer’s speech also references “culture war” criticisms of civil society, such as those made against the National Trust when it highlighted some of its properties’ historic links to slavery.

During his speech he suggested he will be charities’ ally against such conflict, saying “you should feel that you can speak up on behalf of the people you serve without fear, call out injustice where you see it, and continue to push us all to be and do better.”

Conservative Party

Over the last 14 years of Conservative governments there has been a raft of legislation and comment from its politicians to indicate how the party will interact with civil society should it win five more years in power.

Contrary to Labour’s stance of suggesting it will give charities a greater voice in policy making, policy from the Conservative Party arguably has hindered their say. There is no evidence that this trend will end should it win the next election.

For example, the 2014 Lobbying Act continues to concern campaigners such as the Shelia McKechnie Foundation for its “chilling effect” on charity campaigning, by placing restrictions on campaign funding.

Another is 2022’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which curbs peaceful protests. Meanwhile, since 2016, Conservative governments have introduced “anti-advocacy” clauses to charities applying for government grants to further curtail criticism.

A report in February 2023 by the Sheila McKechnie-hosted Charity Reform Group found that such “hostile political rhetoric” against charities is already hampering their ability to campaign.

Charities’ decision-making around how they are funded could also be curtailed under the Conservatives, comments raised by Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer suggest. She said UK society should be “applauding” fossil fuel companies that donate to charities, instead of “seeking to find fault” with them.

But it remains to be seen if a further limiting of protest and encouraging fossil fuel donations to charities, will appear in the party’s forthcoming general election manifesto this year.

Another more recent development has been what the Sheila McKechnie Foundation calls “ill-founded complaints” by Conservative Party politicians about efforts by the National Trust and others to promote equality and address past links to slavery and racism.

For example, in 2021, the Conservative Party’s Deputy Prime Minister and former Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden accused The Churchill Fellowship of answering “to a noisy woke brigade” when it changed its name from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, amid concerns around the former wartime leader’s attitudes to people from India and other ethnic groups.

A 2020 report by Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for Devizes and chair of the New Conservatives group, also explores the potential future of charities.

It includes proposals to give charities the power to design and deliver public services through a Community Power Act. It also called for a volunteer passport system to better match supply and demand of volunteers.