Clause 7
Charities Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
May I say how pleasant it is to see you once again in the Chair, Mr. Gale? The sun is coming out. I do not think that it will be as hot as it was on Tuesday, and I am advised that we expect thunder later—outside, that is.
When we rose for lunch, not that I had any, I was in the middle of a quotation. Lord Bassam of Brighton said that the commission
“would not change its behaviour as a result of the addition of these words”.
It is only proper that I should conclude the quotation, which is
“and so the amendment would have no practical effect.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2005; Vol. 674,c. 335.]
I was speaking to amendment No. 9, which would place an obligation on the commission to act in a fair and reasonable manner. The amendment has some history. Paragraph 161 of the Joint Committee report on the Bill said:
“Under current charities legislation, there is no specific objective set out for the Charity Commission to act proportionately and reasonably, but such a requirement is placed on all public bodies by common law.”
Ministers rested their case in the House of Lords on that responsibility. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations and other organisations gave evidence that they were not satisfied with that, and the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) said effectively on Second Reading that he was not satisfied with it. He said that
“‘proportionate’ appears in the measure. However, ‘fairly’ and ‘reasonably’ do not.”
He thought that one out of three was not bad; I think that he was being generous. However, I suppose that getting one out of three votes in a general election that one wins is not bad. He went on to say that
“given the genuine concerns that were expressed in another place and the continuing need to reassure especially the smaller charities that they will not face some sort of Big Brother Charity Commission with extensive new powers at its disposal, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends might be able to go a little further.” —[Official Report, 26 June 2006; Vol. 448, c. 49.]
With that in mind, I tabled amendment No. 9. I thought that it would be right to give the Minister the opportunity to satisfy his right hon. Friend by accepting the amendment.