Stuart Andrew is worried (Image: Parliament)
Labour's National Insurance tax hike will damage vital services for terminally-ill children and their parents, according to a senior MP who previously oversaw fund-raising for a hospice.
Stuart Andrew, the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, was a manager at Martin House Children’s Hospice in Yorkshire before becoming an MP in 2010.
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Now he is leading calls for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to consider the harm her decision to increase employer National Insurance contributions, which adds to the cost of employing staff, will do to the voluntary sector.
He said: “This is going to have a fundamental effect on charities that provide some of the most important services to people most in need.”
Conservatives are opposed to the tax rise in principle but Mr Andrew said the Government should consider making charities and voluntary organisations exempt if it was determined to press ahead with the policy.
And he warned that children’s hospices would be hit hard because they require high staffing levels to meet the needs of youngsters and their parents.
“It’s about sharing that journey with that family over the lifetime of the child. In some instances the child’s illness may be sadly very short and their end of life comes within a few months.
“In many cases it is a genetic disease that they have and they have engagement with the hospice over a number of years.”
As well as medical care, children were provided with experiences such as music therapy or art therapy, he said.
“Those people obviously come at a cost and again this is where I worry about the range of offers that hospices may be forced to reconsider.”
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Children’s hospices provide much-needed opportunities for parents to rest and allow professionals to care for their child, said Mr Andrew.
“Anyone who has had children knows it is a full time job and requires a lot of attention and investing a lot of time and energy. That is multiplied by an extraordinary level when you have a child with a life limiting illness.
“They may need tubes for feeding, they need respiratory help. I remember one parent saying to me that if they got up eight times in the night for their child, they considered they’d had a good night’s sleep.
“I remember families arriving on a Friday for a weekend stay. They looked utterly exhausted and the boot of their cars were just full of medicines, equipment and so on.
“But then just being able to have a room where they can have a proper rest, they can sleep knowing their child is being properly looked after by hospice staff enabled them to recharge their batteries.”
Hospices receive some state funding but it typically provides less than ten percent of an institution’s total budget with the rest coming from donations, corporate support, legacies, charity shops or fundraising events.
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Campaigners Together for Short Lives have estimated that children’s hospices will face higher staffing costs of almost ￡5 million, or ￡140,000 for each institution, as a result of the National Insurance rise.
Mr Andrew said: “I can tell you as a former fundraiser, suddenly having to find an extra ￡140,000 is not something you can do overnight.
“To be up against all these other charities that are also trying to find this extra income is going to be quite a challenge for them.
“I am seriously worried about who is going to fill the gap if these charities have to scale back the services they provide.
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“Their choices are to somehow find that extra money or to scale back staff, which will mean scaling back services. If that happens, who is going to fill the gap?”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We know that hospices are under real pressure. Charities provide invaluable support to children and their families, and we are determined to support them.
“The choices the Chancellor made in the Budget allowed us to invest another ￡26 billion in health and social care, and we will be setting out the funding settlements for hospices shortly.”