Clause 3
Charities Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Edward Miliband (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Doncaster North, Labour)
Welcome to the Committee, Mr. Gale. It is a great pleasure to have you with us.
We had an interesting debate this morning on amendment No. 71 and issues relating to public benefit. I thought that it would be helpful to the Committee if I explained in the context of the amendment how public benefit will work under the Bill. Then I will deal with the specific issues raised by the amendment.
An organisation must satisfy two tests to be a charity: it must exist for a purpose under clause 2(2), and its purposes must be for the public benefit. To answer the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), who is not in his place, the purposes listed in subsection (2) are capable of being for the public benefit but are not necessarily so. A trust to relieve the poverty of one family member is for the relief of poverty, but would not be deemed for the public benefit.
The key question with which amendment No. 71 is concerned is how public benefit will be defined. As set out in the Charity Commission document “The Public Character of Charity”, the public benefit requirement means that an organisation must do two things. It must provide a recognisable advantage for people at a level that reflects their need; that is the benefit element. In addition, the benefits must be provided to the public at large, or at least a sufficient section of the community; that is the public element. Those are the general principles that apply across the board, but they are flexible enough to be applied by the Charity Commission and the courts in different ways, depending on the charitable purpose that they are considering. A large mosaic of case law underpins those principles.
That brings me to the substance of amendment No. 71. I shall deal first with the second part of the amendment, which would introduce a presumption of public benefit for charities that benefit the natural environment or species within it. The Government do not believe that that is desirable or necessary, and not only because the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) seems to be introducing a second Cheltenham principle, which is to support presumptions of public benefit in one respect but not at another. The amendment is undesirable because it singles out one charitable purpose. It is unnecessary because a charity established to benefit the natural environment or a living species can be deemed to provide public benefit on a number of grounds, not simply the prevention of extinction, which I think was the hon. Gentleman’s concern. For example, animal welfare charities are recognised as charitable not because the animals are necessarily threatened with extinction but because of a broader acceptance of the public benefit of avoiding cruelty and animal suffering. I understand that the Wildlife Hospital Trust to which the hon. Gentleman referred qualifies on that basis.
Environmental protection is acknowledged to provide public benefit because it improves the living conditions of humankind. The Government think that that part of the amendment is unnecessary.