Clause 8
Charities Bill [Lords]
2:00 pm
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
I am extremely grateful to you,Mr. Gale, not least for the instructive and tolerant way in which you are guiding us through this minefield. You are obviously acting in an advisory, rather than a regulatory, capacity in that.
My proposed amendment No. 85 is designed to raise a matter that I raised on Second Reading. That is about the ability of decisions effectively not made by the commission to be referred to a body, such as the tribunal, as well as those decisions that are made. As a general principle, it addresses the question of whether or not commission inaction, as well as commission action, may have consequences.
The case that I raised on Second Reading was that of an Alzheimer’s organisation or an organisation that purported to support Alzheimer’s research, which was called the Alzheimer’s Foundation. Appropriate and speedy action was taken by the advertising standards authority and by journalists in investigating and bringing to public attention the undesirable activities of that organisation.
Unfortunately, the one body that did not see fit to act until political pressure was brought on it, was the Charity Commission. That would have been an occasion when, instead of troubling Ministers with the matter or having to raise it through the media, it would have been worthwhile, appropriate and convenient for the Alzheimer’s Society—which was the legitimate and worthwhile charity that was threatened by the activities of that organisation—to have immediately referred the commission’s decision not to act to the tribunal.
From my reading of the schedule that sets out the various circumstances in which decisions and, in some cases, decisions not to act can be referred to the tribunal, it would not have been possible to do that under the Bill. I hope that we will see our way to include that in the Bill.
Amendment No.86 is different. It addresses many of the matters raised in the Association for Charities’ document “Power without Accountability”. The amendment refers not only to decisions made but to
“any decision or activity consequent to any decisions, orders or directions of the Commission”