Clause 28
Charities Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
I applaud the intention behind the amendment, but we have to be careful about always regarding something like an audit as an imposition on a charity that is not in its interests. As I have mentioned before, we are talking about a huge number of organisations; according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, 56 per cent. of the voluntary sector has an annual income of less than £10,000. We are talking about a huge area of the necessary regulation of charities. To exempt another large swathe of small charities might open the door for exactly the kind of difficulties that we have already discussed.