Schedule 5
Charities Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the Minister. I shall return to the matter of level playing fields. I am not sure that the Bill sets out a level playing field for all charities. It certainly sets out different playing fields, and the logic of exempt status is that some bodies should have a different playing field.
It seems to me that if a good rationale can be advanced for treating a body differently, it should be treated differently. The academic freedom of our universities is important and needs to be defended. The Minister has conceded that the potentially draconian powers of section 18 of the 1993 Act did not apply previously to universities but that they will do so under the Bill unless the amendments are accepted.
As the Association for Charities has pointed out, the Charity Commission’s reputation among charities suggests that sometimes the powers can be used, if not abused, to an extent that can be upsetting or distressing and even unfair to many of the participants in charities; indeed, it may cause real grievances to arise. For the Government to step into that territory with our great universities seems a brave thing to do.
The universities are of course subject to charity law at the moment. Processes are available through the courts to anybody to force their compliance with charity law, but not to remove dons from academic posts. The regulator for the Oxford and Cambridge colleges will be the Charity Commission, not the Higher Education Funding Council for England. We are talking about the Charity Commission not—according to the Minister’s description—having the expertise to step in and look into the administration of charities, but having the expertise to rule on whether an Oxford or Cambridge college is complying with charity law.