Charities Bill [HL]
6:30 pm
Lord Phillips of Sudbury (Spokesperson in the Lords (Id Cards & Charities Bill), Home Affairs; Liberal Democrat)
Taking account of the main strand of the Minister's argument, which is that the Charity Commission does not really have the staff and so forth to engage in facilitation of development and innovation, I wonder whether he would think over the possibility of shifting this to the next clause, "The Commission's general duties". In Clause 7, paragraph 1 of new Section 1D(2) reads,
"So far as is reasonably practicable"—
which is important—
"the Commission must, in performing its functions, act in a way",
which is compatible with the encouragement of its objectives. My new paragraph (c) would refer to "innovation in the charitable sector". Innovation is nowhere in this important clause; there is a lot of stuff about effectiveness but nothing about innovation. The noble Lord, Lord Joffe, made that point very strongly.