Charities Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Edward Miliband (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Cabinet Office; Doncaster North, Labour)
The passion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth was clear for us all to see. If our proceedings were being covered by “Today in Parliament” or “Yesterday in Parliament”, he would deserve to get on with the speech that he delivered, which was entertaining and informative.
There are good reasons to be sympathetic to my right hon. Friend’s view. The Government come up with lots of incomprehensible acronyms and other phrases that mean nothing to members of the public. However, “incorporated charity” does not work, because there are other non-CIO forms of incorporated charity, namely the industrial and provident societies, and friendly societies, which are incorporated charities—to use the term of art—but will not necessarily apply for the status that we currently call CIO.
I am tempted to say that anyone with good ideas should send them on a postcard to my right hon. Friend over the summer. We have been aware of the problem, but we have not found a better alternative. However, Members of Parliament get a long summer break, and although I do not promise to devote the whole of mine to thinking of an alternative formulation, we will apply our minds to see whether something can be done about the dreaded acronyms.