Senior MPs from Labour and the Conservatives yesterday made their first pre-election pitches to the charity and social enterprise sector.

ACEVO’s Gathering of Social Leaders, the leading political event for the charity and social enterprise sector, brought together policymakers and sector leaders: and took place exactly one year before the General Election on 7 May 2015.

Nick Hurd MP, minister for Civil Society, emphasised that the Government has championed charities and social enterprises, and set out the Cabinet Office’s plans for the year before the election: arguing that the future requires a better balance of power between more humble state, more responsible private sector and more robust, responsible civil society.

He highlighted the Government’s achievements with social finance and the National Citizen service in particular. On social investment, he said, the Government is: “Building a third pillar of funding for the sector”.

Lisa Nandy MP, shadow minister for Civil Society, outlined a future Labour government’s plans for the voluntary sector in British society, including Labour’s review of the Lobbying Act.

She said Labour would: level the playing field for public contracts, reducing the sector’s reliance on consultants and its need to enter payment-by-results contracts; focus available funds on capacity-building, and extending social impact bonds to new areas and reestablish regional ministers to combat regional disparities.

Jon Cruddas, head of Labour’s Policy Review and a leading adviser to Ed Miliband, argued that charities hold the key to more power and ownership for communities and that they are key to Labour’s ‘One Nation’ narrative.

Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of ACEVO, told the Gathering that charities remain the most trusted institutions in British public life, and that it is essential to a democratic and free society that charities are free to represent their communities and speak truth to power in an election year.

He emphasised the harm that legislation like the Lobbying Act has done and will insist that charities hold the key to stronger communities and empowerment.

Speaking about the Government and Labour’s work with the third sector in the last four years, Bubb said:“The Government has been effective in its support for social finance and for third sector organisations providing public services. But there is much they can improve upon, not least supporting sector infrastructure which has been decimated by years of cuts.

"In recent years Labour hasn’t always had the easiest relationship with the third sector. But that can quickly change and our work is indispensable to the success of Labour’s plans for government.

"If Andy Burnham is to succeed in joining together health and social care, for example, he will have to work closely with the hundreds of voluntary and community organisations on which the future of our NHS depends.

"I look forward to a year of constructive dialogue with all of the major parties."

Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, opened the day with a pollster’s view of the year to come, saying that no party was clearly in the lead for the election. He highlighted charities’ continued high level of public trust.

He also pointed out that the economy was declining as a voter concern, leaving other issues to come to the fore.

Stephen Bubb drew attention to the public’s high trust in charities: never below 60% according to Ipsos MORI's Page.

Page also picked out social media as a newly decisive influence in public debate before the election - and one which the third sector could use to its advantage.

ACEVO chair Lesley-Anne Alexander closed the day with comments on the importance of the third sector making its voice heard in the national debate.

With the result of the 2015 Election impossible to predict, she said, the sector needed to work with all political parties and produce detailed manifestos for their consideration.

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