Clause 11
Charities Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
I am afraid that I have left my copy of the 1993 Act elsewhere, so hon. Members will have to bear with me. Amendment No. 94 is intended to tidy up the messy area of exempt charities—a matter that I and many in the sector had hoped would be addressed by the Bill. There are historical anomalies in the list of exempt and non-exempt charities in the 1993 Act, such as the references to Winchester and Eton, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Queen Mary and Westfield colleges. Those references are now out of time. It is logical to replace the specific references with a reference to the universities and colleges of “England and Wales”, as the amendment proposes. That would lend complete consistency to the matter of whether universities are exempt charities.
Amendment No. 95 would extend, on a fair and equitable basis, the special treatment of the Church Commissioners and institutions administered by them. It would provide the opportunity for the Privy Council to make an exempt charity of any Church, religious congregation or institution or group of institutions through an Order in Council. That may have useful benefits for the non-established Churches—the Church in Wales may fall into that category—in respect of which the Bill appears to impose a registration requirement on far more organisations and congregations at local level than is the case for the Church of England. Again, there is a need for consistency and equity, which the amendment seeks to address.
Amendment No. 96 relates to the rather strange clause 11(9), which omits the National Lottery Charities Board without replacing it with its successor organisation. I am not clear why the Big Lottery Fund, the successor organisation, should not be treated in the same way as the National Lottery Charities Board was. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on that.