Clause 8
Charities Bill [Lords]
3:20 pm
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
Amendment No. 17 is one of the most important amendments to the Bill. The National Council of Voluntary Organisations felt that the issue of right of access to justice was one of the two most important issues requiring amendment when the Bill was debated in another place in June 2005. Unless there is a cost provision to enable smaller charities in particular to have access, the tribunal will be seriously underused. Indeed, many charities will not have access to it. Lord Phillips of Sudbury used two telling expressions. He said:
“Our law is cluttered with tribunals that afford theoretical remedy to agreed citizens—”
it says “agreed” in the Lords Hansard, but it is meant to be “aggrieved”—
“but are inaccessible because they are so expensive to access.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2005;Vol. 674, c. 350.]
In sharp contradistinction to what the Minister said a moment ago, although not out of any intent, Lord Phillips also said that if one keeps the lawyers out, one keeps common sense in. I know that the Minister does not intend to turn the tribunal into an alternative High Court of Justice, but sadly, employment tribunals, and for all I know, many others quickly get stacked up with lawyers who use up far too much time, far too much energy, and in particular, far too much money.
The Minister may feel that providing a little money to help the charity that wishes to appeal against a decision of the commission will encourage the lawyers. However, my view is that it will encourage decisions to be made on a level playing field on important legal issues.
The commission does not have unlimited resources—we do not know what resources it will have—but it will want to put the best defence that it can in any case at tribunal and it may have to make a judgment mid-year to spend more on representation and less on public benefit tests. The problem is that it has the capacity to spend a good deal of money on representation, while the appellants do not. The creation of a suitors fund was recommended by the Prime Minister’s strategy unit in 2002. I feel strongly that we have to provide some means by which the small appellant can get to the tribunal.
Lord Bassam said in another place that he accepts that
“even small expenses may be beyond some small charities.”
I accept that. He also said:
“The Attorney-General will present cases at his own expense, so the consideration should not trouble us too much, but I accept the point that there may be difficulties for smaller charities.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 June 2005; Vol. 673, c. 215.]
The Attorney-General is likely to get involved in very few cases before the charity tribunal. Indeed, the Minister in the other place accepts that, because I think that he suggested that an alternative source of funding could be the legal aid fund in exceptional cases. Again, we are talking about exceptional cases.
The legal aid fund is no more generously provided for than many other good causes. That is not a criticism of the Government. My noble Friend Lord Swinfen said on 12 October 2005 that the Minister in the other place opposed the amendment in question
“on the grounds that the Legal Services Commission will be able to grant exceptional funding in certain cases, usually public interest or test cases.”
He continued that
“the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who is an extremely eminent charity lawyer, replied that he was unaware of the legal authority of the Legal Services Commission and that the general position has been that legal aid is unavailable to charities.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2005; Vol. 674, c. 351.]
Even if such funding is available, there is not much of it. We need a suitors fund so people have the opportunity to appeal. I am not suggesting that that should involve a huge amount of money and I am not even suggesting an amount of money, unlike the hon. Member for Cheltenham, although I hope that the sum involved would be near to the one in amendment No 80, and I hope that there would be a fund to allow access to justice for the small charities that deserve it.