I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and commend her efforts in bringing the Bill to Third Reading.
Clauses 1 and 2 remove the Secretary of State’s power to appoint trustees to certain NHS bodies, which is only right and proper. Many charities predate the national health service, and even the hospitals and hospices that they now support. They are deeply rooted in their communities, and they receive strong and consistent support from the towns and villages they serve. It is therefore only right that local people, not the Secretary of State in Whitehall, should decide who sits as trustees.
The Bill responds to calls from charities about how they should be regulated. They have said that they want to grow and develop freely. We all know how different fundraising is from when we were growing up, in the days of jumble sales and potato pie—bring your own fork—suppers. Charities need to compete with others for people’s time, attention and, crucially, money, so they need to be nimble.
Clause 1 gives charities independence from the Government, which is important if they are to appeal to the widest possible range of donors. I am especially thinking of local health charities, such St Catherine’s Hospice Care and the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, which so ably serve my constituents in South Ribble. Independence from the Government can only enhance their reputations, and thereby their fundraising potential.
Clause 3 has given the Bill the name by which posterity will no doubt remember it—the Peter Pan and Wendy Bill. Many Members will remember the Disney version of the “Peter Pan” story, with comedy pirates and a flying fairy—Great Ormond Street hospital has benefited greatly from that retelling of the tale in its myriad merchandised and marketed forms—but anyone who saw the 2015 version of the film “Pan” will recognise a much darker side, with orphaned boys left to fend for themselves in a poorhouse by joining a gang. J.M. Barrie, who lived in Edinburgh and London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, will have seen such boys around him every day. The story starts so sadly, but the conclusion is a happy one, with Peter and the lost boys adopted by the Darling family.
Barrie did not have children of his own, but was determined that, in real life as well as in fiction, the children of London and, indeed, of the whole of the UK, should have better lives. He had love, respect and, most importantly, hope for children. His great hope was that their lives be better than those of the lost boys. Such a hope lives on in the heart of every parent and in the heart of every child treated at Great Ormond Street hospital. The Bill will embed that hope for the future. With the Bill, we honour Barrie’s legacy today. I am delighted to support it on Third Reading.
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