The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Charities and Volunteering has been disbanded until after the next general election.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which provides the secretariat for the group, said it wanted to make sure it would be compliant with new rules around APPGs, which are informal cross-party groups of parliamentarians from both houses who share an interest in a particular policy area, region or country.
There are more than 400 such groups, which have no official role in parliament, covering subjects as disparate as suicide and self-harm prevention, Shakespeare and snooker.
The new rules, which are designed to address concerns about APPGs’ transparency and susceptibility to undue influence, include increasing the minimum number of members and limiting the number of groups that MPs can act as officers for.
An NCVO spokesperson said its team would need to spend time ensuring it was adhering to the new changes and had therefore dissolved the group, which used to meet several times a year to discuss specific issues relating to charities and volunteering.
The spokesperson said the group would be restarted after the next general election, which is expected to take place later this year.