Clause 7
Charities Bill [Lords]
1:15 pm
Edward Miliband (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Doncaster North, Labour)
I share the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments; he used the phrase “heavy hand”, and I was about to use the same phrase. There should be no excuse or alibi for heavy-handed behaviour towards those who do not follow the commission’s advice; I agree with him on that. Those are presumably some of the steps that the Joint Committee encouraged the Charity Commission to take, and which it seems happy to take.
We recognise the sentiment behind amendmentNo. 76, but I found the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham, in defending his amendment, slightly odd. If I may say so, he is confusing the Charity Commission’s role as regulator with some other role that it might play. He cited the example of organisations that are dominated by those in twin sets and pearls. I am sure that we can think of some political parties that, certainly until recently, had that reputation—indeed, in some of our minds, they still do. None of us would propose that the Electoral Commission should have responsibility for intervening in the activities of such an organisation and ensuring that the twin set and pearls brigade opened itself up to much greater diversity; that is a matter for the organisation. I make a similar point in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, in which he identified precisely that sort of characteristic in certain charities.
Having said that, the substance of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is actually slightly different to what he said in his speech. He talked about new and developing charities in a diverse range of communities. We are sympathetic to that, but we do not think that that needs to be in the Bill. Let me say something briefly about what the commission is doing in that respect. It has developed contacts with a broad range of communities, especially those brought together by a shared ethnic background or faith. It has a network of 65 organisations from across the sector, created with targeted recruitment in Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Jewish and Muslim communities, which reflects the sector’s diversity, income and location. The commission provides advice in other languages and provides a translation service for customers. Also, it is listening, through a particular project, to faith-based charities and has hosted seminars in Hindu and Muslim communities.
It is also worth saying that the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 obliges public authorities such as the commission to promote racial equality in the way that they act towards their staff, develop policies and improve their services. The commission must produce a race equality scheme, setting out its action plans with meaningful and measurable targets. It must produce a similar scheme for disability and, as set out in the Equality Act 2006, gender equality. Whatever the Charity Bill says, as a public authority, the commission will have responsibilities imposed on it through other pieces of equality legislation.