Clause 4
Charities Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
Well, my contribution will be. Some months ago, members of the Bill team at the Home Office gave me the benefit of their advice on the process in respect of the guidance on the operation of the public benefit requirement. I should like to read out my understanding of what that is and ask the Minister whether I have it right.
An organisation can become a charity if it comes under one of the charitable purposes listed under clause 2(2) and meets the public benefit test. Despite the desires of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), there is no presumption that any purpose is for the public benefit. Public benefit will not have a statutory definition and will continue to be interpreted according to case law.
The Charity Commission must issue guidance on the meaning of public benefit, and that will be updated when necessary. That guidance is not legally binding; I understand “guidance” to mean that charities must have regard to it and take account of it when deciding what they will do, but that they are not obliged blindly to follow it.
The commission’s objective is to promote awareness and understanding of the operation of the requirement that a charity must be for the public benefit. Before the commission issues guidance, it must undertake a consultation process. Charity trustees must have regard to any guidance published by the commission when they make decisions to ensure that their activities remain for the public benefit.
On 9 February 2005, Baroness Scotland told the Grand Committee in another place that the commission
“will have to explain in its guidance what the public benefit requirement is—in other words, the nature and meaning of the requirement...it will have to explain in its guidance how it proposes to operate or apply the requirement in practice to charities of various types and characteristics...it will have to carry out the public and other consultation mentioned in Clause 4”—
she omitted to say that it would presumably have to take account of the response to the consultation—
“Fourthly, it will have to disseminate the guidance”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2005; Vol. 669, c. 103.]
I have put my point in those terms because I find it difficult to describe the process off the cuff. Does the Minister think that I have it right, and does that include a change to the public benefit test, as set out in clause 3(3)?