Prime Minister Johnson delivered a rousing first major speech as Prime Minister at Manchester Science and Industry Museum on Saturday, 27th July, in which he spoke of endemic health problems, generational unemployment and down-at-heel high streets before setting out his vision for “…making our whole nation not just an alright kind of place to live, or a better-than-average place to live but the greatest place on earth. The greatest place to live, to raise a family, to send your kids to school…”

On 17th July the Charity Tax Commission urged an overhaul of tax reliefs offered to UK charities to bring the tax treatment of charitable giving into the 21st Century and so facilitate a huge increase in the amount of money available for good causes – all at minimal additional cost to the Exchequer ("Reforming charity taxation: towards a stronger civil society").

The Chair of the Commission, Sir Nicholas Montagu, commented:

“It has been 20 years since charity tax reliefs were last reviewed, and many of the rules were written for an analogue era.  With people giving by text message and contactless payment and with many donors themselves increasingly mobile, we need a system fit for the digital age if we are not to see the UK’s national generosity held back”.

Sir Nicholas has highlighted that with the continuing strain on the public finances forcing the retreat of the State from its universal funding role in many areas, charities often pick up the slack. 

People are generous and want to help those who help the most vulnerable in our society.  We see people sleeping in the streets; our children robbed of their childhood, involved in knife crime and drug dealing; our old people living in isolation.

Charities have a key part to play, along with central and local Government and the private sector, in achieving the Prime Minister’s laudable vision.

Sir Nicholas explained that the Charity Tax Commission set out to ask whether the tax system could be better employed not just to help protect existing giving but also to encourage a new wave of philanthropy.

“The answer is a clear ‘yes’.

“Although we all give in different ways, few of us like fiddly forms and none of us want to see too much being spent on unnecessary admin. Sensible reforms are overdue.

If you want it to be easier for all of us to give to the good causes we support then sign this online petition asking Prime Minister Johnson to commit his new Government to looking closely at the recommendations of the Charity Tax Commission in the first hundred days of his Premiership and for Chancellor Javid to set out in this year’s Autumn Budget the steps the Government will take as soon as practically possible to make it easier to channel the generosity of the great British public to charity.